Life in the Brick
Posted by Steve Bagley
Life in the Brick is a twenty-one year mighty bit of a waitress (but secretly and actually a poetess dragon) with real-deal hips and pink toenails hidden in sneakers who sits in hot, cavernous subway stations wiping her shiny forehead after long evenings serving fresh lobster and oyster to upright capitalists of the noble prosperous cline in shined shoes and neat suits while perspiration honey forms on her neck and chest hurrying with trays and wines and appetizers that they ordered, or that they ordered but no longer want, or didn’t want but changed their minds, or was a little too hot, or too cold, Miss, essentially not to perfection as we like it, Miss… and she just giggles and curtsies with a shy downward looking face and upward looking glint of eye the way a small daughter looks up at her daddy for approval and forgiveness after a miniature fit of rage wrapped in cuteness—only showing politeness and apology and never showing her tattoos. Oh, those tattoos. Such a fine waitress she is, I do say, and this sweet little braided blonde, with a broad face meant for looking away shyly entertains the inclination, once a day, the daydream, once a day, with considerable pleasure, to ram a fork into the upright prosperous skull of one of these dining businessfolk—
In her fantasy, she, with her gold hair swept back and tied to reveal dark eyebrows and pinchable cheeks, rams that fork home, then skips in delighted circles as the ungrateful noblemen leap away in horror as one of their own lies face down in his lobster bisque with a fork standing erect from the back of his skull. The price he would pay for his evils.
Such a fine thought to entertain. The night is but long. Tonight she will sip on a hard drink after work to remind the poet inside she is still squirming, and walk past the thousands of malevolent faces bending out of the night in ragged shirts with red eyes and beard stubble—the aversion of eyes, the childish shyness—and skip down steps to the underground station to wait for the train.
And the ride back to her side of town is also long but at least the subway train always supplies sufficient entertainment as it slows down abruptly at each stop so as to catch a wino off guard, sending him hurdling off balance, and this, she loves, she kicks and writhes to hold back laughter at the simple harmless misfortune of a wino who didn’t hold on, who now is falling slowly down the aisle in a crazy attempt to maintain his balance as he swings lanky arms and clambers clumsy feet with a whoa! whoa! whoa! before finally landing face down ass up in the aisle. She squirms with oozing pleasure at the idea of it!
This is a finer thing to she than the fine things as perceived by the odd cubic cancerous successful droves, foolish fools actually, who do not see the actual dragon but a girl, but really a dragon wrapped in her thin veil of politeness and the shameful need for good tips so she can pay rent—they cannot see her curved naked body splayed out on a futon in the hallway and her unclothed shyness and smell what her belly smells like and can never imagine in their own impotent skulls those tattoos, and the things she’ll let a lucky boy do, woohoo. She hurries down side streets past the symphony and she is surrounded by moons and stars hanging like pendants from unknowable places in the night sky, dangling down between the buildings and alleyways just for her, as she laps up almost-melting strawberry ice cream in her mind as it dribbles down her knuckles as she scurries home under Bostonian lamplight and tree to her niche in the brick.
Her hope is like the tall grass and weeds, right before it rains, where the wind upturns leaves, and it darkens over the fields—the weeds and grass get shoved, and rolled, and shoved again by the wind coming in, and then a harder shove flattens them out, and then the wind recedes and the weeds and grass rise back reluctantly in a peaceful moment that soon dies as the wind was only resting, then rolls back in hard and drunk and the weeds and grass are helpless to get shoved and rolled again and pushed again, knowing the rhythm of the rolling heads above will soon shove hard and lay them all flat, this time maybe forever.
Life in the Brick is a twenty-one year mighty bit of a waitress (but secretly and actually a poetess dragon) with real-deal hips and pink toenails hidden in sneakers who sits in hot, cavernous subway stations wiping her shiny forehead after long evenings serving fresh lobster and oyster to upright capitalists of the noble prosperous cline in shined shoes and neat suits while perspiration honey forms on her neck and chest hurrying with trays and wines and appetizers that they ordered, or that they ordered but no longer want, or didn’t want but changed their minds, or was a little too hot, or too cold, Miss, essentially not to perfection as we like it, Miss… and she just giggles and curtsies with a shy downward looking face and upward looking glint of eye the way a small daughter looks up at her daddy for approval and forgiveness after a miniature fit of rage wrapped in cuteness—only showing politeness and apology and never showing her tattoos. Oh, those tattoos. Such a fine waitress she is, I do say, and this sweet little braided blonde, with a broad face meant for looking away shyly entertains the inclination, once a day, the daydream, once a day, with considerable pleasure, to ram a fork into the upright prosperous skull of one of these dining businessfolk—
In her fantasy, she, with her gold hair swept back and tied to reveal dark eyebrows and pinchable cheeks, rams that fork home, then skips in delighted circles as the ungrateful noblemen leap away in horror as one of their own lies face down in his lobster bisque with a fork standing erect from the back of his skull. The price he would pay for his evils.
Such a fine thought to entertain. The night is but long. Tonight she will sip on a hard drink after work to remind the poet inside she is still squirming, and walk past the thousands of malevolent faces bending out of the night in ragged shirts with red eyes and beard stubble—the aversion of eyes, the childish shyness—and skip down steps to the underground station to wait for the train.
And the ride back to her side of town is also long but at least the subway train always supplies sufficient entertainment as it slows down abruptly at each stop so as to catch a wino off guard, sending him hurdling off balance, and this, she loves, she kicks and writhes to hold back laughter at the simple harmless misfortune of a wino who didn’t hold on, who now is falling slowly down the aisle in a crazy attempt to maintain his balance as he swings lanky arms and clambers clumsy feet with a whoa! whoa! whoa! before finally landing face down ass up in the aisle. She squirms with oozing pleasure at the idea of it!
This is a finer thing to she than the fine things as perceived by the odd cubic cancerous successful droves, foolish fools actually, who do not see the actual dragon but a girl, but really a dragon wrapped in her thin veil of politeness and the shameful need for good tips so she can pay rent—they cannot see her curved naked body splayed out on a futon in the hallway and her unclothed shyness and smell what her belly smells like and can never imagine in their own impotent skulls those tattoos, and the things she’ll let a lucky boy do, woohoo. She hurries down side streets past the symphony and she is surrounded by moons and stars hanging like pendants from unknowable places in the night sky, dangling down between the buildings and alleyways just for her, as she laps up almost-melting strawberry ice cream in her mind as it dribbles down her knuckles as she scurries home under Bostonian lamplight and tree to her niche in the brick.
Her hope is like the tall grass and weeds, right before it rains, where the wind upturns leaves, and it darkens over the fields—the weeds and grass get shoved, and rolled, and shoved again by the wind coming in, and then a harder shove flattens them out, and then the wind recedes and the weeds and grass rise back reluctantly in a peaceful moment that soon dies as the wind was only resting, then rolls back in hard and drunk and the weeds and grass are helpless to get shoved and rolled again and pushed again, knowing the rhythm of the rolling heads above will soon shove hard and lay them all flat, this time maybe forever.
This entry was posted by Ben Myers, on
Saturday, August 05, 2006.
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