writewrite

I often ask my creative writing students to go somewhere and eavesdrop. You know: listen in on other people’s conversations. There’s great material out there. All you have to do is be alert for it. Here are some recent things I’ve overheard:

In Target, a mother to her child, the child small and young enough to ride in the carriage seat up front:

“Do you think Daddy will kill me if I bring home one more pair of shoes?”

I carefully whisper: you go girl. Get two pairs.

Also in Target, another very small child and his mother:

“TATTOO!”
“Tattoo?”
The child nods vigorously. “I wanna TATTOO!”
“You want a tattoo?
“TATTOO!”
“Why do you want a tattoo?”

This is, of course, where I would love the child to morph into some intelligent being and say, sagely and slowly, in a low voice unfit for his age: “Why, mother dear, it is the word itself I love, not the thing — the sign, not the signified. What I adore is to repeat that word, with its own double voiceless alveolar plosive, the letter “T” appearing twice on my tongue, three times in the word itself.” Ah, but the little guy does not say that. Instead he says:

“Daddy has TATTOO!”
The mother sighs, audibly, and offers her translation to the boy. “You want a tattoo because Daddy has one.”
The boy nods happily.
“Where do you want your tattoo?”

I hate to say it, but I missed what body part the little boy pointed to. I can only imagine.

And last of all, this, at the Speedway gas station. I am standing in short line of customers, waiting to buy a diet Mountain Dew. In front of me, a shortish man in navy blue dockers and a pale blue shirt is pacing in the space before the counter, holding a cell phone to his ear, talking away very loudly while drinking a large fountain drink. He is in the midst of what sounds like a business deal. “They’re close, really close,” he says. “It’s just a matter of time.” The man in front of him, at the counter making his transaction, is very old and thin, wearing a threadbare t-shirt and baggy blue jeans. He has just slowly poured a little mound of coins on the counter. The clerk is very patient with him, and very kind.

“How are you today, Michael?”

Michael nods a couple of times, mumbles a few words that sound vaguely positive. Then he asks for something, what I can’t quite hear. The clerk turns to reach for some cigarettes. At that moment, the cell phone man, who has not stopped talking, tosses a couple of dollars on the counter. He points to his drink with his cellphone hand. “I have a large,” he says, very loudly and slowly as though the clerk is mentally challenged.

The clerk just looks at him, then looks back at her customer, Michael. She carefully rings up Michael’s cigarettes, hands him his change, and tells him to have a good day. Michael shuffles away from the counter and out the door.

Cell phone man is now at the register, jittery with impatience, self-importance, a barely suppressed contempt for the kindness of small town people and the pace at which we move. I only notice now that he is wearing sunglasses. Inside. And he is still — still – talking on the phone. The clerk hands him his change and he bustles out the door.

Now it is my turn.

The clerk is still watching the cell phone man as he strides toward his car. I follow her gaze. He is getting into a gleaming white fancy car of some species. The plate is Illinois.

“I hate that,” the clerk says. “Didn’t he see that I had a customer?”

I want to say: yes, he probably did, but in his scale of measuring the world, a man like Michael doesn’t count. I just nod, sympathetically, then try for some levity to make her feel a little better. “I feel sorry for his wife, or girlfriend,” I say.

“Yeah. I bet he drives them nuts.”

I laugh. “I bet he doesn’t HAVE one!”

We both laugh. I pay for my Mountain Dew and walk toward my own car. Mr. Cellphone’s car is purring away from the station, headed east. And I don’t know about the gas station clerk, but now I’m really laughing thinking about that silly little man, pointing to his drink, announcing in that loud smug voice: “I have a large.”

I wish I had had the courage to say: “Sir? I have a distinct feeling you don’t.”