Lilith Saintcrow

To be a writer is to be an inveterate observer. Yes, the world will roll in ecstasy at your feet, even without your effort. But writers are dyed in the wool voyeurs, and if they don’t start out that way the search for material will make them so.

It’s not that you have to look very hard for stories. They are hanging from the vines all around you.

I went out for Thai last night, all alone. It’s not often I get out alone, though I had Teresa Mendoza for company (I LOVE Queen of the South, reread the whole damn thing in one gulp yesterday). As I was sitting there, turning pages and waiting for my Pad Kee Mow–I love that dish, and not just because the phrase “drunkard’s noodles” makes me giggle–a story unreeled in one of the other booths.

She was beautiful, in a freckled, healthy way. The type of girl with long brown glossy hair, a clear misty complexion even with the freckles. She had that upper-middle-class all her life look, little gold ball earrings, expensive but not designer clothes. A type of well-bred innocence. A tilted up cheerleader’s nose.

He was another tale entirely. Heavy now, but you could see he’d been on the football team in high school. Round face, dark buzzcut, scruffy beard that would have looked raffishly engaging minus a few years and about fifty pounds. A T-shirt that had seen better days, and shorts that strained at the waist and fell to the knee. Hairy legs. Sandals that were popular last year.

I pegged them as longterm boyfriend and girlfriend, probably two years out of high school, him struggling to make it in a world where he didn’t have the school-hall ecology to make him a big predator. She’s going to leave him behind in a little while, unless she gets knocked up, I thought.

Hey, I’m allowed to think what I want.

I settled down with my book and the waiter who knows me took my order and left me alone. Then I noticed the girl was holding her hands out cupped on the table, and he wouldn’t touch her. It was a strangely supplicating gesture on her part.

My nose for plot tingled.

“It’s not just that you lie,” she said finally. “It’s that you always have a reason.”

My ears perked.

He said nothing. She moved her hands back, but he was quicker, dropping his fingers into hers. A shadow of distaste crossed her face, but she left her arms stretched out the way they were. I took this in, little sips of glances over the top of my book. They were so busy with each other they didn’t notice me, and I’ve learned the trick of un-obnoxious surveillance.

“Baby–” he finally said. Pleading, a sort of nagging tone. I’d guess it had always worked before.

“No.” She sat up straighter. “If you didn’t always have a reason for things not matching up, I’d believe you. But you’ve always got a reason. You always explain. You haven’t changed at all.”

He let go of her and settled back, crossing his arms. I couldn’t see his face, but his entire body shouted. I had to watch the reflection in her body language to figure out what it was shouting, though. She took a sip of her water, folded her hands in her lap.

They were silent.

My noodles came. Her tomato noodle dish came about thirty seconds later.

He stuck to water. I took this in and made a private bet with myself that she’d be picking up the bill.

She ate with good appetite, like every bite was her last. Quick but neat, nice manners. The waitress filled up her water. I kept my ears tuned.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said suddenly. “It’s a hard job. And that bastard–”

She set her fork down and fixed him with her big brown eyes. “I’m not moving back.” Quiet and firm. Pushing a strand of long brown hair back behind her ear. Her earring glittered in a reflection of sunlight bouncing off a passing car’s window. “You had enough money to go out drinking. You had enough money for an XBox. You had enough money for weed.”

“It’s not my fault,” he repeats, slouching back further.

“Was she not your fault too?”

“Liz*. Come on.” Cajoling. I got the idea he’d said it a lot before. He reached his hands out, almost touching her plate. She looked down, took another bite. I got the idea she wasn’t really eating the noodles. It was some other dish she was tasting, a bitter taste but one she liked.

“You always have a reason.” Another bite, chewing mechanically. “I’m going back to college.”

“College girl.” Now he was nasty, but he tried to make it sound affectionate. “I had to work.”

“Everyone’s got to work.” She lost her appetite, pushed her plate away. “Are you ever going to grow up?”

He shrugged. I saw the movement of one meaty shoulder.

The distaste was open now, drawing down her mouth and crinkling her forehead. I saw what she was going to look like in a few years. If she went down the bitter road she would get washed-out; if she didn’t she would still be pretty.

They looked at each other. More silence. I ate a little more tofu, considered the situation. Took a long draft of water. It was icy against the sting of peppers.

She finally looked away. Scooped up her Coach-knockoff purse and dug in it. “I don’t know why I did this,” she finally said.

“What am I going to do with the cat?” Now he leaned forward, a fisherman who senses an escape. A last desperate tug on the line.

“My dad’s picked the cat up, and my television. The rent’s paid through the end of the month.” She laid a bill down on the table and scooted out of the booth. She moved stiffly, like an old woman.

“Your dad?”

“I gave him my key. He’ll turn it in at the office. The lease is up this month.” She looked down at the table and her still-steaming plate. “Have a nice life, Jay.”

He stared at her. She turned and walked away. Didn’t look back once as she made the hard turn at the end of the aisle. From behind my book I watched her walk out the front door and into the golden heat.

Now that was interesting.

Jay sat at the table for a few minutes, then hooked her plate across. When I glanced up next the bill she’d laid on the table had disappeared and he was halfway through her food. By the time I’d finished my noodles he was done. The waiter stopped by to ask how things were.

“Perfect as usual,” I said. “How about a salad roll? And a choclatini?” I need something sweet to get the bitter out of my mouth.

“Celebrating tonight?” He gives me a gap-toothed smile. He’s a nice kid.

I grin back. “Just out by myself.”

“Yeah, I never see you alone. Choclatini coming up!”

“Thanks.”

He strides away. I watch Jay. He thinks he’s alone in this, his tragedy. I wonder what’s going on inside his head, if the story’s finished. This is where I would probably end if I was writing the short story. Tie everything off nice and neat. In fiction, you can do that.

Jay slides to the end of the booth and glances around. His eyes pass over me quietly reading my book, dismiss me. He gets up. He’s stockier than I first thought, and he heads for the restrooms. They’re down a long hall, and he’s chosen his moment well. The staff are either at the bar or on the other side of the restaurant.

Jay nips smartly out the side door the waiters use for going out onto the patio. There’s a few couples out there, but I’d bet money he keeps heading for the back of the building. He can walk around and get to his car that way, assuming he has a car.

The waitress for that side of the aisle comes back, looks at the empty table, and looks around for a whole twenty seconds–a long time in the restaurant trade. She says something under her breath and begins clearing the table.

My waiter comes back with the choclatini. She stops him, asks him a question in the language they share. He looks around, then his face changes to a picture of dismay. They unobtrusively scan the whole restaurant, but it’s too late.

She bears up well, shrugging and taking the plate. It’s empty and strangely clean, scraped dry. In under two minutes the table is cleaned and reset, their water glasses–hers three-quarters full, his empty except for ice–gone. I catch sight of her talking to the manager, a stolid Asian man who shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

My waiter comes back with salad rolls. I want to ask him about it, but I keep my mouth shut. I go back to my book. Neither the manager nor the waitress look particularly surprised, and I see the manager pat her shoulder and say something obviously soothing. He shrugs, makes another comment, and their laughter rises. The cook is in on the joke, he laughs from the other side of the steam counter too.

When I’m finished, I tip double and leave. A few years ago I might have paid her bill, hating to see a waitress taken advantage of. (What part of witnessing makes me responsible? What part of the role of observer have I chosen to escape responsibility?) Now, however, I walk out into the hammerblow heat of a ninety-degree afternoon. I drive the long way home, and when I get there I am strangely pleased to see the kids smiling and bouncing.

You see? The world offers stories everywhere. Raw material. Sometimes the writer’s offended sense of symmetry will provide the ending. Sometimes all you get is a snapshot. The lives keep going on, and on, with us stealing little glances around the corner, peeking. The most private of tragedies, the smallest of crimes, played out in the most public of spaces, right under the nose of everyone.

When some people tell me they can’t find story ideas anywhere, I often just stare at them, amazed. Stories are always there, ripe for the plucking. They fall out of everything. The world teems with them, crowds of unquiet ghosts just waiting for an open door to step through.

All you must do is look.

* Names changed for obvious reasons.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 10:58 am and is filed under Writing (About). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.