“What do you think about this?” He carefully showed me a photograph of a nude man. The picture looked much as he would himself if he had a different face.
“Hmm,” I answered. “Yes. Hmm.”
“I see.” He placed the photograph secretively inside a plastic wallet and slipped it into his green greatcoat. We shook hands for a second too long and he ran off into a dark spot under some trees.
I decided that I would like a cigarette, and lit one immediately. Nothing of any importance happened while I was smoking it, so I left to go somewhere else. A bar, perhaps, or for a pizza.
There was a special offer on for people who used pizzeria's alone on school nights. A lot of restaurants feel sorry for the lonely. This made me feel like a statistic, but at least the pizza was cheap.
The waiters had smirked at me because I had been there every day this week so far to eat alone. Sometimes I asked specifically for table number 4, but tonight I didn’t specify my seating position. It was nice to watch the world go by, and pretend to have conversations with it.
I guessed they all thought I was pretty tragic, and I suppose they were right. It was clear that I had no one, no one at all. I imagined that this is how it would feel to be a minus digit, like –35 or –12.
They called me by my first name in this place. I hadn’t been able to tell them yet that the name they used wasn’t actually mine. I was too embarrassed, and found that being called something made me feel slightly more alive, even if it was a mistake, or a joke. If I had a credit card I wouldn’t have been able to pay with it, just in case the staff were upset by my dishonesty when the truth of my identity was finally revealed by the processing card acknowledger.
Once I was offered a green sash that had the word ‘single’ stitched badly onto the front and back. The text was in yellow. I tried it on and was told that I looked charming. An insincere waitress called Suzy with long red hair and strong looking legs suggested I wear it throughout my meal so that any single women who might arrive to take advantage of the same pizza offer as me would know that I was definitely single and looking for love, and not just a businessman taking a light supper alone between meetings. She laughed as she told me this, and said something about a dating initiative led solely by pizza.
I thought that Suzy must be attracted to me. This would explain her kindness. I wore the sash for the entire three courses. The other patrons didn’t take kindly to my presence. The restaurant was full of so many titters that it sounded like a weird production line in a jokes factory.
It felt as though even the language of the menu was against me. 9” was the size made especially for one, never to share. Every time I asked for the 9” pizza the waiters would reiterate it, play my loneliness back to me in their awkward foreign accents. It was as if had a dirty secret that was made public every time I picked up a knife and fork.
After I had paid my bill I removed the sash and folded it neatly. I gave it to Suzy at the door and thanked her for trying. Maybe it’s worth a shot tomorrow Suzy, I said. Although she was good enough to keep her hand over her mouth I could still tell she was laughing. Perhaps it was even harder laughing this time. She was a pretty girl.
“Would you like me to kiss you now?” I asked, offering her a tip of a pound sterling. She ran to the kitchen to the guffaws of the swarthy rugged chefs, and I didn’t see her there again.
I never saw anyone else wearing the sash after that, and was never offered it either. I supposed that the dating initiative hadn’t really taken off. A poster on a bus said that it was sad to be single. I agreed with that and wished I were younger.
The thought of pizza made me feel decidedly isolated, so I decided to go to a bar instead. I could have a house scotch on ice and look around. Maybe there would be some women who I could talk to. The television I watch has a lot of women on. They are always in bars, and excited about tall handsome men who will sweep them away as though life is a fairy tale.
I look like the spectre of a happy man.
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