Gemini Cricket
08-02-2007, 04:38 PM
Elena
by: Me
What am I doing here? I asked myself as I stood next to three twentysomethings with lightning bolts drawn on their foreheads in a mall parking lot. Each wore a t-shirt that said “Wave My Wand”. It was 11:45 in the evening and I felt like shooting myself in the face. Still in my work clothes, I was adorned with a wrist band that assigned me a number and a place in line to obtain the book of the year at my local Barnes and Noble.
A lady on one side of me, who was trying to keep her distance from the “Wand” boys, attempted small talk.
“Did you read six?”
“Yes.” I said.
There was a long silence. I didn’t know where to take the conversation. Dare I talk about six and get into an hour long back and forth about Horcruxes and wand sizes? Instead I gave her a polite smile and a nod and that was about it.
An associate from the book store who lined us up, was dressed like Percy Weasley. Aim higher, young man. I said to myself.
“Fifteen minutes to midnight everyone!” He hooted. Expecting a happy response, he waved his hands in the air. The only thing he got in return was a look from an annoyed woman who rubbed her ears in disgust. She clutched her ten year old girl who was half asleep and looked like she didn’t really want to be there.
I’m a fu cking nerd. I told myself. But there was no way I was going to go the weekend or the next day even not knowing how the Potter tale would end. I was not going to go to work on Monday without myself armed with the knowledge of Harry’s fate and the truth about Snape. Yes, I’m a fu cking nerd. I can live with that.
To me, there’s a lot of fun in people watching. As long as your gaze never turns deeply into judgment of the subject, it can be very rewarding. So, I decided to look around as I do in airports and subway stations. Breathing in the inhabitants of the world that I never felt I truly belonged in.
That’s when I saw her.
She was no more than twelve. For some reason, I called her ‘Elena’ in my head.
Elena looked as if she had not been able to sleep for the past couple of days. Circles around her eyes, she clutched her brick red and gold scarf. Elena looked like she had not been outside in quite sometime. Her hair was rifled into two scrunchies placing two loose pigtails on either side of a round face. One tail was about to come undone.
It had struck me at that time that Elena and I were there alone. No partner, friend or parent. I looked around me and saw happy couples, hordes of gaggling Potterheads and even what looked like a coven complete with elf ears.
Whenever the crowd around us became excited or agitated as the case may be, Elena would wince as if someone had just fired a starting pistol in her ear. She gazed around herself as this group around her was made up of tall redwood trees looking down at her in disgust. The stained terrycloth shirt and shorts she was wearing indicated to me that she had dressed herself and was unprepared for it being as cool as it was tonight. Her attire looked like it has escaped from the reject pile at a nearby Goodwill. Her appearance made me despise her parents who were nowhere to be found.
The thickest glasses I have ever seen hid tears from people looking at her straight on. But, from the side, I could see them and at that moment in time felt them. I wanted to put my arm around her and tell her that the world was shi tty and that she would come into her own making her mark on this cruddy world. But of course I didn’t.
A young girl standing nearby clutched a pink fur-lined cell phone to her Hillary Duffed chest. Her gaze landed on Elena’s bottom, where the terrycloth revealed an outline of a pad sticking out in an odd angle right below her butt. The girl laughed instead of having an intimate little female football huddle with the younger girl. Had I been a mother, a Mrs. Weasley-type, I might have had that huddle with her, but being a man, I didn’t.
In no time at all, the line began to creep towards the entrance of the bookstore. We marched like columns of devout nuns to the St. Barnes of the Noble Church. From time to time, I assessed the line, looking forward griping here and there at inattentive wizards and lollygagging witches who hindered the line from moving. Elena looked at the ground as she walked. Dry spit had gathered at the corners of her mouth.
Before reaching the counter, the line snaked around a table mounted with Potter Books: big yellow tomes with that famous kid on it lifting his palm high in the air as if he expected someone to plop a wad of cash into it. And we did.
Elena had her cash in a sandwich bag. Rolled up ones, coins here and there and what looked like six receipts folded and battered stacked against her cash. She handed the sandwich bag to the tired man passing out the books and he informed her that the cashiers were ahead of her.
As I chose my book, making sure I didn’t get someone else’s reject, I lost sight of Elena.
I paid for my book and raced outside. I wanted to see her face now. Would it be any different? Would happiness replace the worry that seemed too familiar to her visage? I found her outside on a staircase leading to the parking lot below us. She sat on the steps hugging the book as if it were a newborn child. She wept.
Tears of joy? I wasn’t sure.
I lingered about pretending to read the first couple of pages, wondering what was to become of Elena that evening. People walked around Elena as if she were a smashed cat on a busy freeway. Every so often someone would bump into her. They made me hate them.
After five minutes or so, a pudgy woman with Elena’s face climbed the stairs to her. Her hair was recently released from a salon and Escada had allowed the dress to exist. She planted her fist into one hip and a frown cracked her face like an earthquake across a beige desert plain. She unleashed a claw to nab Elena by her upper arm, forcing her to her feet. Elena continued to look at the stairs at her feet.
Elena’s mother grabbed the book from her daughter with the swiftness of a hawk on a rat dinner. Elena looked up with clarity in her eyes. Her frown matched her mother’s and she snatched the book back. She shrugged her arm away from her mom’s grip and walked down the stairs before her mother. Elena’s mom stood with her mouth wide open while a bridge of spit connected her fat lips.
I watched as Elena walked down the steps with a smile on her face. She gazed at her retrieved treasure fondly, Mom in tow.
by: Me
What am I doing here? I asked myself as I stood next to three twentysomethings with lightning bolts drawn on their foreheads in a mall parking lot. Each wore a t-shirt that said “Wave My Wand”. It was 11:45 in the evening and I felt like shooting myself in the face. Still in my work clothes, I was adorned with a wrist band that assigned me a number and a place in line to obtain the book of the year at my local Barnes and Noble.
A lady on one side of me, who was trying to keep her distance from the “Wand” boys, attempted small talk.
“Did you read six?”
“Yes.” I said.
There was a long silence. I didn’t know where to take the conversation. Dare I talk about six and get into an hour long back and forth about Horcruxes and wand sizes? Instead I gave her a polite smile and a nod and that was about it.
An associate from the book store who lined us up, was dressed like Percy Weasley. Aim higher, young man. I said to myself.
“Fifteen minutes to midnight everyone!” He hooted. Expecting a happy response, he waved his hands in the air. The only thing he got in return was a look from an annoyed woman who rubbed her ears in disgust. She clutched her ten year old girl who was half asleep and looked like she didn’t really want to be there.
I’m a fu cking nerd. I told myself. But there was no way I was going to go the weekend or the next day even not knowing how the Potter tale would end. I was not going to go to work on Monday without myself armed with the knowledge of Harry’s fate and the truth about Snape. Yes, I’m a fu cking nerd. I can live with that.
To me, there’s a lot of fun in people watching. As long as your gaze never turns deeply into judgment of the subject, it can be very rewarding. So, I decided to look around as I do in airports and subway stations. Breathing in the inhabitants of the world that I never felt I truly belonged in.
That’s when I saw her.
She was no more than twelve. For some reason, I called her ‘Elena’ in my head.
Elena looked as if she had not been able to sleep for the past couple of days. Circles around her eyes, she clutched her brick red and gold scarf. Elena looked like she had not been outside in quite sometime. Her hair was rifled into two scrunchies placing two loose pigtails on either side of a round face. One tail was about to come undone.
It had struck me at that time that Elena and I were there alone. No partner, friend or parent. I looked around me and saw happy couples, hordes of gaggling Potterheads and even what looked like a coven complete with elf ears.
Whenever the crowd around us became excited or agitated as the case may be, Elena would wince as if someone had just fired a starting pistol in her ear. She gazed around herself as this group around her was made up of tall redwood trees looking down at her in disgust. The stained terrycloth shirt and shorts she was wearing indicated to me that she had dressed herself and was unprepared for it being as cool as it was tonight. Her attire looked like it has escaped from the reject pile at a nearby Goodwill. Her appearance made me despise her parents who were nowhere to be found.
The thickest glasses I have ever seen hid tears from people looking at her straight on. But, from the side, I could see them and at that moment in time felt them. I wanted to put my arm around her and tell her that the world was shi tty and that she would come into her own making her mark on this cruddy world. But of course I didn’t.
A young girl standing nearby clutched a pink fur-lined cell phone to her Hillary Duffed chest. Her gaze landed on Elena’s bottom, where the terrycloth revealed an outline of a pad sticking out in an odd angle right below her butt. The girl laughed instead of having an intimate little female football huddle with the younger girl. Had I been a mother, a Mrs. Weasley-type, I might have had that huddle with her, but being a man, I didn’t.
In no time at all, the line began to creep towards the entrance of the bookstore. We marched like columns of devout nuns to the St. Barnes of the Noble Church. From time to time, I assessed the line, looking forward griping here and there at inattentive wizards and lollygagging witches who hindered the line from moving. Elena looked at the ground as she walked. Dry spit had gathered at the corners of her mouth.
Before reaching the counter, the line snaked around a table mounted with Potter Books: big yellow tomes with that famous kid on it lifting his palm high in the air as if he expected someone to plop a wad of cash into it. And we did.
Elena had her cash in a sandwich bag. Rolled up ones, coins here and there and what looked like six receipts folded and battered stacked against her cash. She handed the sandwich bag to the tired man passing out the books and he informed her that the cashiers were ahead of her.
As I chose my book, making sure I didn’t get someone else’s reject, I lost sight of Elena.
I paid for my book and raced outside. I wanted to see her face now. Would it be any different? Would happiness replace the worry that seemed too familiar to her visage? I found her outside on a staircase leading to the parking lot below us. She sat on the steps hugging the book as if it were a newborn child. She wept.
Tears of joy? I wasn’t sure.
I lingered about pretending to read the first couple of pages, wondering what was to become of Elena that evening. People walked around Elena as if she were a smashed cat on a busy freeway. Every so often someone would bump into her. They made me hate them.
After five minutes or so, a pudgy woman with Elena’s face climbed the stairs to her. Her hair was recently released from a salon and Escada had allowed the dress to exist. She planted her fist into one hip and a frown cracked her face like an earthquake across a beige desert plain. She unleashed a claw to nab Elena by her upper arm, forcing her to her feet. Elena continued to look at the stairs at her feet.
Elena’s mother grabbed the book from her daughter with the swiftness of a hawk on a rat dinner. Elena looked up with clarity in her eyes. Her frown matched her mother’s and she snatched the book back. She shrugged her arm away from her mom’s grip and walked down the stairs before her mother. Elena’s mom stood with her mouth wide open while a bridge of spit connected her fat lips.
I watched as Elena walked down the steps with a smile on her face. She gazed at her retrieved treasure fondly, Mom in tow.