Sunday, January 11, 2004

Tales From The Trip

Before it gets too late, and since we finally unpacked the journal, a couple of short pieces from our trip to Florida last week. Warning: the following, while true, is rated PG-13. This means you, Mom.

1. The Barnes and Noble Blowjob
Warning: the following, while true, is rated PG-13. This means you, Mom.

It's the day before we fly back home. I'm browsing the combined LitCrit/Essay section -- actually a single narrow shelf of fauxwood wedged between a 270 degree corner on the left, and a forest green trimmed window on the right -- at the Cityplace Barnes and Noble, checking the font size of Sarah Vowell's new collection, trying to decide which This American Life author will make for the best reading for the most amount of flight time, and as my eye wanders to the end of the shelf a flash of flesh and a spidery tattoo, something swarming and Celtic, flashes outside the window.

I begin to lean, surreptitiously. The girl, upon further furtive examination, displays a thin adolescent's knobby spine, interrupted by a half-shirt of seaweed, or at least something shimmery and dark in the almost complete darkness, the glow of the incandescent yellow old-Florida streetlights. Her cornrows are like her shirt continued: thin, wiry, and scatter-reflective. I lean out a little more, and realize the reason I can see all this is she's leaning way over forward, so I lean way over around the fauxwood shelf, and I see this guy's hands massaging her hair like some porn star, her underage head in his lap, facedown

oh dear god

She's giving him a blowjob. A Blowjob, on the full balcony of the Cityplace Barnes and Noble. They must figure no one can see them, the way his back is turned carefully to block the view to the other tables. It's clearly a space crefully chosen; here in the corner, the balcony walls come up so high like turrets, you'd never be noticed unless there was some guy staring at you from the window into the store. Heck, maybe they like the thrill of possible discovery.

Or maybe they're just too young to care.

The boy could see me, I think, pulling back self-consciously. My forehead begins to burn, and then my cheeks. I feel old, like a peeping tom. I pay for the Raskoff book and go back to my sleeping wife and daughter.

More later.

posted by boyhowdy | 10:09 PM |

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