Give and Take

She pulls her mini-skirt down and shifts in her seat and he lights up a cigarette and tosses his head off to the side to get his hair out of his face - a move that tips the balance ever so slightly (.302 lbs.) and sends the chair tipping backward - he catches himself gracefully and smiles. Slumber party girl smiles and asks for a cigarette. He shakes one out of his pack. She takes it and leans over the table with it between her fingers and too far in her mouth (.33 centimeters), catching the flame on the end of his waiting lighter. He pockets the lighter, hits his cigarette and blows a smoke ring that floats over her head like a halo as she tries not to gag on the smoke.

Scattered applause greets War Hero as he steps down from the microphone. As he sits down at a table with more of his own species, a bright-eyed kid in a baseball cap steps up to the microphone with a wrinkled piece of erasable bond typing paper. He pulls the microphone down and clears his throat. A meek little voice starts out in monotone - flat. I don’t even have to hear the words. I know it’s a love poem. He looks up from his paper - right at the slumber party girl. She looks up from her coffee and takes her thumb out of her mouth. Bleach-head turns around and Baseball Cap buries his face in his paper, but steps 6.4 inches closer to the microphone. He is talking louder - with more confidence, more vocal inflection. Math Man looks up from his trig and smiles over at me. I raise my glass to him. For a second, the room shimmers a bit. We know each other, but we’ve never spoken. He looks over at the girl, then at the boy on stage and shakes his head as he looks back down at his calculations.

Bleach-head cocks an elbow over the chair and smiles at the girl who shakes off the look on her face with a smile. He leans in to her in confidence and whispers something with a gesture toward the guy on stage. She gives an uneasy laugh and puts her thumbnail back in her mouth. Math Man is staring at them, chewing on his pencil. War Hero yells something and eyes dance with fire under Baseball Cap's brim. The girl looks up at the stage, but he doesn’t see her. He finishes up and some of us clap, others shout, most are silent. Bleach-head grabs her hand and pretends to admire a cheap turquoise ring on her finger. She turns back to him and smiles.

War Hero is laughing at something his tribe said, and Math Man stares at the ceiling, rubbing his chin. Baseball cap is heading back to his table now. He sits down and gently folds up his paper - in half, perfectly, then another perfect crease in the opposite direction. Bleach-head and the girl stand up. He looks over at Math Man and shows his teeth as he takes her hand and they make their way to the stairs. The girl looks over and smiles a little, then looks at the floor. Baseball Cap watches them walk out the door. I put another spoonful of sugar in my coffee and glance up at Math Man as I stir. He is looking at the kid in the baseball cap, his pencil in the spine of his book.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I turn off my laptop and the room shimmers a little. Bleach-head winks out of existence and the girl disappears in a puff of patchouli oil. Math Man closes his book and Baseball Cap dissolves into a maelstrom of equations and symbols. War Hero and his tribe are nothing more than vague description - annoying patrons #1, 2 and 3.

The room is silent now. I take a sip of my coffee then tip my glass to him. For tonight, I've won. I wrote them - the players in a little game of give and take, and Math Man couldn't make it add up. I'll admit, it probably shouldn't, but hey, that's the breaks. He'll be back tomorrow, and he'll come up with new variables, and I'll write them. Maybe tomorrow he'll win and she'll go home alone, or maybe Bleach-head will choke on a logarithm. Who knows?