MONO ISSUE 2 - Flipbook - Page 90
ROADSIDE CAFE
by Laurie Bolger
HERE I AM FRANTICALLY tapping diners on the shoulder asking if they’ll act out the
thing from the 90’s where I wear all lilac halter and weigh nothing so they put one finger
behind my ear, tuck my hair in and say something like
you don’t know how beautiful you are…
and I can push one boney shoulder out and look like I am just dying
for a hamburger —
and then I see him
on the way to the bathroom
and I love him more than anything
in the world.
He has to go slow because the floor has been mopped. He’s wearing a sports jacket like
my grandad might have and when he slides into the shiny booth and starts mirroring me
I pretend I don’t notice
I don’t even really look up —
and he’s done this drawing, he slides it under my face look — what du think of my
drawing?
I realise he’s been colouring in the sauce bottle this whole time and even though it’s a
real mess I don’t say that —
he — says don’t tell his friends but he wants to play the heartthrob in the play in the big
gym, he wants to be Romeo he says I just have to be him —
I want to say you’ve got the colour wrong there and you should have waited for it to dry
properly that’s why the colours have bled look — but instead I say yes it’s very good, a
very good drawing — he says what du think the meaning of life is? When I go to speak he
tells me I have something on my chin — I don’t say anything — just smile beautiful from
behind a napkin — giggle a bit.
When the waitress puts up the bubblegum chairs and sits on the high stool massaging
her tired neck — I finally hand him the cigar tin that my Nan left me — I’ve been holding it
this whole time like a shell and there’s some little note left inside the lid and it says the
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