FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING

FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING

People are always telling me I look younger than my years, which is pretty amazing considering my diet, my habitual drinking and smoking. As of late, the only exercise I take is dog walks on the beach. Appearances aside, I was dreading my thirty-seventh birthday like a visit to the STD clinic. I don’t own property, have no retirement plan in place, and I’m living in overdraft protection. By today’s standards, I’m a failure, or at least a loser, but I’m a determined failure, which I think, more than makes up for my shortcomings. “If anyone told me this is where I would be at thirty-seven, I would have laughed in their faces,” I’ll offer up, almost as an apology. That said, if you passed me on the street, you would never guess I need a payday advance to cover rent, or that I own more beer glasses to pots and pans. Such was the case when I took myself out to breakfast on my birthday.
My plans for the day were loose at best. Peggy had given me a pair of tickets to, “Joni Mitchell River,” at the Playhouse, but I had been preparing to work at my crappy second job until eleven in the morning. Last Sunday, I had all but quit my second job. “This is isn’t my notice,” I told the General Manager of the restaurant, “but you should start looking at some of those resumes I’ve been putting on your desk.” She called me the night before my birthday to apologize that the job didn’t work out, and that I didn’t need to come in the next day. I was relieved I didn’t have to work, but I had factored my lousy tips into my birthday budget. But money is no object on your birthday.
I hadn’t been to The Elbow Room in years. The last time I was there, I felt the place had lost its charm since it moved to Davie St from the small house it occupied at Jervis and Georgia. The rude service seemed outdated to me, something that had gone out in the Eighties. It was like not being able to finish a book you had read in one sitting, making you wonder what you ever saw in it in the first place. But birthdays are about second chances, and new beginnings; plus we had been talking about pancakes the night before and The Elbow Room was on my mind.
It was raining pretty hard. I put my copy of Jonathon Franzen’s, “How to be Alone,” in a PayMo bag to keep it from getting wet. I hadn’t showered or shaved; I had on my GAP “Yachting” jacket, and my L.L. Bean rubber shoes, everything else were cast-offs from friend's closets.
“Dahling, you look cold and wet,” yelled the Slavic waitress. She was short, blonde and old, her apron reminding me of my mother’s. I half expected her and dry my head off with a towel, vigorously rubbing my hair in that heavy-handed way that European women do. Tough love. “Take a seat here near the kitchen for you to warm up there.” She dropped a cup of coffee from an inch above the table, like I were her husband just coming back from work at the government run farm. “Have you read the rules?” I hadn’t but I knew them: first cup of coffee is brought to the table, every cup after that you have to get yourself.”
Everyone seated in the café looked like business people: black over-coats, laptops and luggage on wheels. Where were the homos? I was the slacker son who lived in his parent’s basement compared to these people. I ordered a six-inch stack of pancakes, a side of two eggs and sausage.
“Have you not eaten in a while Dahling? That’s a lot of food,” the waitress said, not even bothering to write it on her pad.
“That’s just how much I eat,” I said. I was tempted to tell her it was my birthday, but didn’t want her to think I was looking for a handout.
“Where do you put it?” she asked. “Just remember, we make you donate to the Loving Spoonful, if you don’t finish your food.”
I pulled my book out of the PayMo bag, crossed my legs, and settled in with my warm cup of coffee, wishing you could still smoke in restaurants.
“Look at you mister smarty-pants, “ the waitress said. “Doesn’t that look intellectual?"
“It kind of is actually,” giggling at my pretensions.
“Let me look at that.” She took the book out of my hand, pulling it to her face so she could see it. “How to be Alone. What is this? Self-help? You’re alone already; this is it!”
“They’re essays.”
“Oh, essays. That’s different then.”
After she set down my food, the waitress came back to my table with a flyer from Future Shop. “What do you think of this for the man who has everything?” She pointed to the new refrigerator with a TV in the door. I thought I had seen an ad for one on TV but I was stoned at the time and wasn’t really sure if I hadn’t just hallucinated it.
“And then they complain about obesity,” I said.
“It never stops,” she said, throwing her hands in the air.
As ridiculous as a refrigerator with TV in it is, the waitress’ assumption that I had “everything”, was pure fiction by comparison; it was like saying I was a baron or a magnate. “I don’t even have food in my fridge,” I wanted to tell her. But what was the point in that? I didn’t tell her it was my birthday because I didn’t want her to feel obliged to do something for me and I didn’t want her to know I was poor because I wasn’t looking for sympathy. Just to have someone assume you are the man who has everything, made me realize I do. I have everything I need. For now.

GarpinBC