Cry softly little one. Pick up your coat, brush your hair back, smooth the faintly crumpled blue dress you’re wearing. Run your hands over the dressing table (careful now, don’t touch that vodka). Find some lipstick…not too bright, remember to look classy…the pale pink should do. Now the eyebrows, liner, gray-blue contacts, time to wipe those tears. Those are nice shoes, capping elegant black-stockinged legs. One small silver handbag, and the proverbial icing on the proverbial cake – a tiny gold watch. Why, you look beautiful again angel.
The evening light streaming over Alcatraz came to rest finally on the slick muscled black body of a particularly large sea-lion. The bay, as dictated by the conventions of language and wordplay, was liquid gold under the setting sun. They stood on the wooden pier, two Indian boys, unsure and excited at the same time, looking around and looking lost. One gazed longingly at the crepes being tossed a few metres away (early days yet, soon they will think in feet). And then at the right hand column on the menu board propped up against the wall – 5 dollars. Too many, far too many. In a new world, numbers and money are confusing things and the crepes were too expensive, yet laptops so cheap. Two years later the three hundred dollar New Year’s party in Vegas will become well worth it. For now though the food was dismissed without a second glance, and the two walked on.
They’ll do, look pretty clueless. Hopefully not dead cheap though. Worth a shot at any rate. Fuck this, its not like I can wait forever anyway. Tired, really exhausted. Can’t even smile properly, it hurts my lips. Maybe its a sign.
The lady in blue walked up to the taller one, who was dressed in standard attire blue jeans, t-shirt and a black leather jacket. White running shoes and a walmart backpack completed the picture. ‘Excuse me’. She smiled politely but her eyes looked worried, the slim fingers of one hand clenched into a nervous fist. ‘I was wondering if you might be able to help me?’. ‘I’ve run out of gas on my way back from work and desperately need to fill some more. Thing is, I seem to have left my wallet in my office desk and…’. Her voice tailed off. ‘Umm do you think you guys could help out? Please…’ Those blue eyes opened wider, pleading. She looked beautiful, rich, in trouble. Very Hollywood.
A few minutes later, the boys were ten dollars poorer (a pair of exquisite nutella crepes, to put things in perspective). The blonde in blue was smiling gratefully and walking away, slipping quickly into the crowd. The dying sun gleamed off the silver bag, a goldfish slipping into the laughing crowd. The two students looked at each other faintly embarrassed, but filled with the warm fuzzy feeling that accompanies doing a certified ‘good deed’. Soul food for months really, to be savoured in those night-time moments before exams and research presentations when you wonder whether God loves you.
Walking to the tram station they saw her again, talking to a Chinese girl, who looked genuinely sympathetic. ‘My car…’ they heard, in that oddly lilting accent. Money changed hands. And again the blonde-blue-silver princess walking away quickly, throwing herself into a run down Ford, turning into a somewhat seedy alley. There’s really not much to say at these moments. The two exchanged a couple of quick exchanged glances, some ‘do you think’ awkward laughter. Then, because to skip this step is virtually impossible for most Indians, there was a bit of philosophizing about things that actually matter. And it is true – in the larger scheme of things, actually in pretty much any scheme of things – ten dollars is no big deal. There will be pick-pockets and muggings and completely useless used cars to come. There will be dapper Turkish salesmen selling eighty dollar felt hats and ascribing to them a glorious Anatolian heritage. Even so, some incidents remain oddly hard to forget, romanticized and polished with time, still faintly mortifying and yet not wholly unpleasant.
