catching up

"Have you no fear, English?"
"My fear is my concern."

-Lawrence of Arabia

When I worked at the paper, I learned some of the ways people lie: about themselves, other people, events, circumstances, ideas, reasons, religion, states-of-mind, pictures... anything. (I am listening to a man lie right now, in fact. He's several tables down from me. He lies shamelessly, loudly, constantly and with his ego in his voice. I once told him after a meeting I was covering that he was a liar and he screwed his face into this faintly disbelieving smirk and continued lying... but lies are tricky. It's not always a blatant lie, rather a slight rearranging of true things so that the final quilt comes together false)

Now, in the service industry, I'm getting full doses of pettiness. Really (really) does your table matter THAT MUCH? I think it's fear of death.

So most of the customers at both jobs are older and most of the people working at both jobs are younger. The older fears the younger, fears our ability to (I don't know) kick them in the shins when they're not looking and run away very, very fast before (perhaps) the police can catch us and beat us with night sticks. They believe we were raised by wolves and we're eying their tendons, ready to run them down like sickly elks.

"Why are you seating me at this table? Is this where the floorboards are rotting? Do I hear a chainsaw? Are you going to con me out of all my money?" They clutch their glasses of water and watch my every move. I am out to cheat them, part them from their money, their dignity and wrench open their hands to sever the pinch they've kept on life which they have held onto not for any joy life brings them or they bring to life, but out of habit, because their fingers bend that way.

But then there are the nice elderly people.

The couple so old and bent and confused we wondered if they should be out at all. They sat on the same side of a four-seat table and she kept her hand on her husband's knee while she ate dessert. She kept apologizing to the server for her messy hair. "We were driving and it was windy and now my hair's a mess and I'm wearing a hat inside. I'm sorry you have to see me this way." They left holding hands and smiling vaguely when we thanked them for coming in.

And there was the man, who struggling to get out of his chair, both hands laid flat on the top of the table, working his knees and hips, caught my eye as I passed with a water pitcher, commanded me, smiling, "Don't get old."