A man sat in the corner of the smoke-filled restaurant. Actually, a number of men sat in corners of the restaurant, but only one notable man. I could tell from the stage that he was blue. He was wearing a fine tucked in shirt and pinstriped slacks. He was visibly lonely, sipping a water with lemon. On the table-for-two in front of him sat a navy fedora which matched his shoes which matched his tie which matched his cufflinks.

He had been sitting there in solitude since 6:32. It was now 7:04. I noticed him enter, dressed nicely for a date, clean shaven for a date, with an optimistic, date-ready look on his face, but contrarily dateless. He requested with his two fingers a table for two, and the hostess smiled to him and spoke a few kind words as she seated him. I liked him the moment I saw him. He seemed a handsome, well mannered man in his twenties. He was well dressed and smiling all the time. He seemed a perfect gentleman, and I couldn’t wait to see his date who I expected to be just as well-to-do as he was.

When the man entered we had been playing a variation to the Peanuts theme. The bass took no lead in the song, and I knew it well, so I allowed my fingers to get into the groove and focused directly on the man.

He paid no attention to the music at first, which I suppose was a good thing, because if he had, he would have seen the old bass player staring intently at him. This may have caused some minor commotion. In fact, he paid little attention to anything at all except his wristwatch. He watched that well, checking it every few minutes or so. After ten, fifteen minutes, his foot started tapping rabidly, but it was not tapping to the music. It tapped almost contrary to the music. It tapped a counter-rhythm that was bearing on my fingers, almost convincing them to play to its tempo. This frustrated me very much, and I suddenly found myself liking this man less and less each time he glanced at his watch. At 6:45 his eyes began to dart around the restaurant. A pretty blond waitress approached him and asked for his drink order, instead of talking politely to her, he spoke to the air around her. She mumbled something as she walked away, her eyes on the floor. She returned some time later with a tall glass of water. He nodded at the cup as it dropped to the wood in front of him.

Our rendition of Linus and Lucy ended, and we segwayed into a Joni Mitchell tune, with which the man was visibly annoyed. He sighed at the intro, and drummed his fingers in a contrarhythm on the table. In response, I pulled the strings even harder and closed my eyes, hoping to blow him off of his chair with the sheer force of my willful fingers. After a few moments, I lifted my eyes to the man, and he was sitting sideways in his chair with his elbows on his knees and his hands on holding his chin, staring dully at the door.

Then the blond waitress returned, her head still downturned. She had a pad in her hand. He dismissed her again, making no order. This man did everything very matter-of-factly, very deliberately, without leeway. When he listened to the music his ears perked up and the corners of his mouth turned down. When a waitress came, he talked to her with mechanical proficiency, his eyes straight ahead. When he gazed, or more accurately, stared scrutinizingly at the paintings on the wall, he whispered to himself and shook his head. But when his eyes turned to the door or to his watch, his face turned sullen and wholly un-matter-of-fact, completely indeliberate. It was a pleading face, a face that asked nicely, a face that would give anything. He was lonely, I realized, and he was in need of a partner, but I found myself nonetheless continually hoping she would never show. Or that, if she did, that she would be entirely unsatisfying, a walking anticlimax. I hated this man, I realized presently. I hated him for being an annoyed, stood-up man.

But I hated him all the same. I hated his tapping fingertips. I hated his dismissing gestures at the return of every waitress. I hated his eyes which wandered the room all the time, but which watched the door closely. I hated his aloneness, but I also hated the thought of his having company. I must of hated him since he stepped foot in the restaurant. I believe I even hated him before I laid eyes on him. And I definitely hated him at 7:30 when he rose from his chair suddenly, and walked out of the restaurant looking defeated, and sneering, it seemed, at the our tip jar as he stepped out into the cold. But I smiled, glancing at the setlist. Next song: Bye Bye Blackbird.

Copyright 2007 Sam
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