It’s not that no one paid me no mind. I sent any number of evil “don’t sit your ass down here” looks at men who were gracious, good-looking, well nourished, I always pay attention to that. All I wanted was to draw this man with the braids who sat just beyond an arch that separated the serious diners from the middling drug-booty cruisin’ set. He always had a full meal. I found something exciting in that. What he wanted to eat. The muscles he used when he raised his fork to his mouth and set it down, how he pulled brown bread with raisins apart and spread real butter. I am telling you this from inference. I can’t see his face. Never tried to. What would be the point? I come every day. I sit right here and wait. He comes every day and sits right there. I draw as much of him as his time allows, before he’s surrounded by these women who’ve made an art of themselves. When the curls and busts start to hover, I pick up my things and take the local train home. That way it takes longer to leave him. I don’t like wanting anything too much, that’s just my way. In a fit of independence one evening, I think Little Willie John was singing something, I bounced off to the ladies’ room with my friend, Nadia. We must have stood outside those two itsy-bitsy stalls all of a half hour before these girls couldn’t anybody hardly see if it wasn’t for ALL them eyelashes and bags coming ahead of them, came falling right down in front of us. We could have laughed, I guess, but we were getting ready to powder our noses, too. I swear I’ve spent as much care and energy examining Nadia’s nose for traces of white powder as I spent seeing to myself. I had lived with a junkie once who was adamant that being a junkie didn’t mean one had to look like a junkie straight off.

Well, Nadia and I got right lit up. I forgot about my other obsession. I even told Nadia, there was a guy right outside who’d give Teddy Pendergrass or Reggie Jackson a run for they money outside this very door. But we didn’t budge. Stayed up in that mirror like goddamned Snow White’s stepmama. Oh, Jesus, talk about some peligrosa foolishness.

Somehow Nadia and I managed to stumble and giggle our way back to the cafe itself. She was in amazing suede shorts that made me reconsider the significance of thighs. No matter, we came screeching and hooting bout stuff that was nobody’s business into the rush of the late supper crowd as opposed to the early morning crowd which was a boisterous collection of educated hoodlums. We hushed abruptly. That’s how folks were looking at us like we should hush. We did.