2009-02-12

Level with me

Holding a 6 pack, seeing that I just missed the number 7, I went to sit on a bench in the Quebec st. mall next to a boy and his mother or grandmother. The boy likes candy a lot, and we have a conversation about candy versus chocolate. I say candy is too sticky, and he says that I probably eat chocolate forever. The boy points to various parts of his body and his coat and says "Sticky here, sticky here, sticky here." He's trying to tell me that because he eats candy "all day long" he gets sticky all over his clothes. I'm sympathetic towards his mother, who does his laundry, and she gives me a smile. The boy and me both missed the bus. He asked me why, and I said because I was too slow, and the boy says because "the bus was too fast." The boy is on his way to the emcia, and when I look puzzled he repeats it for me, "The emcia, the emcia, Barbarack." His mother stops reading to explain that he's going to the YMCA. He has a friend there, Barbarack, and Barbarack and him have ideas, and something about helicopters and fighting. He asks me what I'm going to do. I tell him I'm going to go home and make a sandwich and read. He asks me why I'm going to do that, but I don't have a good answer. He keeps looking at the beers I'm holding, and I wonder if he knows the truth. What I'm really going to do is go home, make coffee, and watch Twin Peaks spoofs on youtube. He's got a bandage on his finger and I ask him about his ouchie. He gives me a sheepish smile. His mother tells me he wears the bandage because he sucks his finger. He puts both his fingers out to compare and I do the same and we look at them. Then he puts his fingers between the slats in the bench and says something about hammering. As though I am stupid, I ask, "They hammer this together?" But apparently not, I've missed the point, and he goes on to tell me, in words I don't understand, something about the construction of the bench. He looks at my beer and he looks at me. I point outside and ask him where all the snow went and he laughs at me and tells me I am funny. He says, very seriously, it went away on his head.

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