His faced matched his shirt, which I guess matched his pants; his jeans, which were too big. He kept pulling up the waist every ten feet he walked. His shirt was also too big, too long for his stubby torso, with too many buttons. His face wasn’t noticeably big, I couldn’t remember the size of his face, just the sentiment. The sentiment of his face matched his shirt. Perhaps it would’ve been the appropriate amount of buttons if the shirt was on a longer torso, but for this stubby torso; it was simply too many. The shirt had thin white pinstripes, with slightly thicker blue stripes; the main stripes, I suppose. The stripes were too long, which I guess went without saying, but it would’ve been funnier looking if the stripes just stopped at the appropriate length for the stubby body, while the rest of the shirt and the buttons continued down too far down past his stubby quads. His face didn’t match it color or stripage; his face was red, it was vacation red. Just the sentiment matched, which was, “the wife said to wear somethin’ nice.” “Goin’ out for a nice dinnuh, and the wife said put somethin’ nice on.” He had his nice shoes on, too. His nice black shoes. They slipped right on, like glorified loafers.
I wanted to go to a different place for lunch; the place next door with the buzzers. They had groups and groups of people waiting outside, across the street and at the bar next door, with buzzers telling them when a table would be ready. I wasn’t going to get a buzzer for myself, a buzzer for one was too sad. I passed by a few times to see if a single stool at the bar had opened up, didn’t seem like that was going to happen. I walked around aimlessly for a while and happened back at my hostel, maybe some other desperate soul would be searching for a semi-stranger to eat lunch with. I sat in the common room for 20 minutes and drank a beer, nobody except the free spirited hottie who worked the front desk was there. She said, “oh my Godddd, Mac Miller died.” And I asked, “the ‘Thrift Shop’ guy?” She responded, “is that him?” I said, “I don’t know, the white guy, right?” She said, “yea… but I think that’s Macklemore.” I nodded, “riigghtttt. Ok, so I don’t really know anything about Mac Miller… I just assumed he sucked.” She replied with widened eyes, “you know what? I assumed the same thing, then I saw him live at this festival last year, and he was Uh-Mazing.” I responded suspiciously, “really?” She insisted, “seriously, he had like a whole orchestra and everything, he was Uh-Mazing.” I scrunched my lips and nodded as if to say, ‘ya don’t say,’ but I still didn’t believe her. She put on his latest album, and the first song was really sad and good. I thought, ‘huh, ya don’t say,” and started to believe her. A guest entered to check-in, and the free spirited hottie showed them to their room, leaving me and Mac Miller to drink alone in the common room. She came back after a few tracks and I said, “I kinda can’t believe how much I’m liking this right now.” She replied, “right? Can’t believe he’s dead.” I responded somberly, “yea… that makes these depressing songs that much more depressing.” She nodded and frowned, “yea…” And we didn’t speak anymore after that.
After the album was done, I went back to the place next to the buzzer restaurant to have some lunch, and it wasn’t very good. The bartender was nice, and beautiful, and had cool colored short hair, and was very animated in the way she shook the drinks in the shaker thing. We talked a little the day before, and I fell in love. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t my intention to come back here two days in a row. It was just convenience, the buzzer place was packed; I wanted to tell her. She gave me a big wave when I first sat down, and I fell deeper in love. She asked what I did last night, and I told her I went to some place around the corner and watched this shitty cover band cover too many Goo Goo Dolls song. She said, “yep… I know that place.” Later she asked what I had on for that night, and I said I didn’t know. She said, “dude,” and I fell deeper in love, she said, “dude, it’s your last night, you gotta do something.” I said, “I want to, but I don’t know anything around here.” She gave me the name of her favorite bar, and I nodded unconvincingly. She said, “dude… you’ve barely been off this block… it’s your last night.” I couldn’t go on knowing the love of my life thought I was uncool, so I said, “pffff, yea, I’m like, y’know, totally.” She continued, “it’s a great little spot, there’s a jazz bar next door, if you’re looking for live tunes.” And I said, “pffff, yea, jazz, that’s like, pfff, my jam.” Before I left, she gave me a shot on her, and I wondered if she was in love with me too, but decided she was just doing the cool bartender thing.
This other guy… it was obvious, as clear as day. We were sitting at the bar, not together, just next to each other. He was with a generically attractive blonde girl. I was drinking and eating by myself, and reading a book as to seem interesting and unpathetic. They were drinking and waiting for their buzzer to go off, to go to their superior restaurant next door. Golf was on the T.V. and they were following along. It wasn’t even a major but they were following along. Someone would hit a nice shot, and he would go, “niiicceee SHOT.” And she would agree, “that was a nice shot,” then look back down at her phone. And all I could think was, “this poor generically attractive blonde girl.” Not because of her attractiveness, because of the golf, let me be clear. Because I imagined this guy in his collared, shiny kinda shirt- his izod shirt- with three buttons up top, and it was as clear as day what he was up to when he wasn’t waiting for the buzzer to go off, when his generically attractive blonde girlfriend “let him” bro out on weekend trips. Him and the fellas- Jake and Johnny and Sully and Chet- drinking Miller Lites out of the aluminum bottles, along the fairway, yelling, “IN THE HOOLLEEE.” Then later taking some shots of Jack Daniels, before going out to a strip club and being mean to the strippers. Then Chet yelling about how he was a lawyer, as they were being tossed out by the “big scary black bouncer.” But for now he was waiting on the buzzer, and he would order the burger at a seafood restaurant. For now his generically attractive blonde girlfriend thought of other things, as she nodded in response to his unwarranted golf analysis.
The older ones had faces on like, “What. A. Day.” as they set down their many bags. The younger ones… the younger ones had faces on like, “Don’ttt… talk to maaayyyy,” or at least that was how it translated. They wanted certain people to talk to them, just not me. Which was fine, because I had no interest in talking to them, but I had the feeling they wouldn’t have believed that for a second. They had very thin lips, and very straight hair, and were all wearing the same sweatshirt, in different colors. The sweatshirt with the name of the city they were vacationing in. They went to a lot of weddings, you just knew they had been to 37 weddings in the last year. They might’ve been in this city- the city that was printed in white across the sweatshirts- for a wedding. Or it could’ve easily just been a girl’s weekend… but that didn’t explain the older ones. The older ones gave the group of them that distinct scent of a wedding. But the wedding wasn’t today, today was for sightseeing and sweatshirt buying. It was for stopping in for a drink, a brightly colored drink. It was for saying, “What. A. Day.” It was for saying, “you girls hungry… wanna get something to snack on?” It was for saying to the bartender, to the love of my life, “I think we might get something small, just to snack on.”
I went back to the hostel, and it was more of the same; little conversations here and there that would die after a few minutes. I was drinking the entire time, and by the time it was late enough to go to the cool part of town, I was a little drunk, and a little frustrated with the lack of hostel atmosphere. I walked to the cool bar, and it was far too cool. It was bigger than how the love of my life sold it, and far more modern, with shitty electronic music. I walked in, looked around for two seconds, and walked out. I dragged my feet, defeated, to the jazz bar. Again, far too big. The clientele far too old, and the jazz was actually more like a Gov’t Mule wannabee jam band. And I thought, maybe the love of my life and I weren’t compatible after all.
I frustratingly stomped back to the hostel. Then I saw there was activity happening in the common room, and I momentarily perked up. The same kinda thing happened the night prior, when I was in a far better mood, and I ended up having a lovely conversation with a half Hawaiian half British girl. We obviously fell in love, but she left the earlier in the day, and I’d never see her again. So I grabbed a beer from the fridge then triumphantly and hopefully walked into the happenin’ common room. A quick look around showed that the room went from essentially empty when I’d been there an hour earlier, to there being no seats open. The free spirited hottie was off duty and occupying one of the seats. I couldn’t just stand over the semi-strangers’ shoulders, so I opened my beer then opened the door. I aimlessly walked around the block by myself, drank my beer then went to sleep. It was my last night in town, and I had a long drive in the morning.
Tom Lettieri 