“It’s worth its weight in sand,” Oscar said.
“Hey,” Joe said, “Nice boots!” noticing my Rollens for the first
time. “Built like little tanks.”
“They’re ridiculous,” Oscar said.
“I had the same pair for years,” Joe said proudly, “Finally
crapped out on me last month. Probably saved my life a few times.”
“Sometimes it seems they’re enchanted,” I said.
“Funny thing is, I always seem to get along with other people
who wear them.”
I shook his hand, sealing our fetished friendship.
Oscar could have his Juddhism. As for Joe and I, our faith was
fixed firmly upon the earth, leathered and laced. We were lifted
upwards by our bootstraps.
Its incredible how much you can open up to a total stranger in a short
period of time when you find yourselves thrown together in
uncomfortable circumstances. Unable to sleep much and eager to
chat I came to feel as if Joe Fortune and I were old friends. I even
went so far as to share with him the story of my woes—though not the
whole story.
“Sounds like you’ve been on somewhat of a magical misery tour
of your own,” said my new gargantuan and compassionate friend. “So
your ladyfriend punched you in the heart? It’s an old story, I’m
afraid. You know, we might as well give up trying to figure women
out—it just makes us fellas more miserable in the end. But you know,
Junior, if they made sense to us we probably wouldn’t like them as
much as we do. Remember when you were a kid and everything was
mysterious and fascinating? And no matter how many times some
things were explained to you, you still couldn’t really comprehend
them—like people landing on the moon—and do you remember how
this made you feel? Not frustrated, but kind of like anything was
possible and that there were so many things and so much to look
forward to, right? Can you remember when those feelings sort of
dried up? When you started waking up in the morning and the world
really didn’t seem all that new or interesting any more, and you kind
of felt like maybe you’d seen it all. Remember? You don’t remember?
Of course you don’t. None of us are ever paying attention when the
little kid inside of us kills himself. Adolescence is such a trauma that
by the time it’s over we’re just happy to take whatever we can get.
Sad, huh? Well, it’s not all that tragic. Later on, the one thing that still
BIG AMERICAN BREAKFAST
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