walked in the direction of the street. the man and child who had been behind us were somewhere ahead, by a parking garage. a cool-looking 1980’s honda scooter in the parking garage seemed to interest alec and allie a little more than me. thought ‘i could take a picture of this but…no.’ alec said ‘my friend [anto i think] has a scooter, it’s so cool.’

we kept yelling ‘ey this is public property, ey!’ and ‘i’m walkin ‘ere, ey!’ and things like that as we walked.

we got focused on finding lobster rolls. followed alec into a candy store where he was being…hilarious…jesus…asking the people about lobster candy, if they sold lobster-flavored candy, where to get lobster rolls, saying how good the candy store was and how he wanted to recommend it to people. the candy store employee gave complicated pictoral directions to a place called ‘the lobster bar.’ alec was egging them on, kind of, like repeating the last thing they’d say…in a funny/non-antagonistic way…shit. thought ‘he’s not paying attention to directions.’ but he had been.

passed a sign that said ‘dropkick murphys.’ i said ‘dropkick murphys’ and pointed. no one looked. i was glad because i didn’t have anything to say. stopped to ask a guy with black slicked-back hair and tattoos, about the ‘lobster bar.’ he was sitting by a pedi-bike. the tattoo bike guy gave similarly detailed, pictoral, landmark-based directions. thought it was funny how people in newport…this is how they give directions, this is the newport way. thanked the guy and kept walking.

approached a shopping peninsula, where it seemed like ‘the lobster bar’ might be. a teenage or slightly older than teenage guy playing a guitar, leaning against a wall. aimlessly said ‘do they have…a punk scene…is newport ‘punk,” to minimal response. saw a sign for ‘the lobster bar.’ briefly sat at the bar and ordered beers, which came in plastic cups, then hostess seated us at a table where it was pretty and the sun was setting. noticed unusual green lights and transparent floating orbs in the water. pointed out lights to alec and allie. waitress took our picture.

alec asked the waitress about the green lights. she said ‘oh, we turn them on. we’re in charge of the lights. we turn them on at night, you know, for the effect. it looks different at night.’ alec was making ‘smooth’ conversation with the waitress. she said she gets to take a lot of pretty pictures at work. she moved to get her phone, then gestured or said ‘i shouldn’t do this, i’m at work, i’ll get in trouble.’ one of us said ‘no, show us.’ she passed around a picture and she said she wanted to submit it to a contest. alec said ‘you should.’ i said ‘yeah, do it, you should do it.’

people took pictures by our table. got ‘obsessed’ with taking pictures of a man who looked like werner herzog, standing near our table with a professional camera. alec stood in the ‘herzog zone’ so it could look like i was taking a picture of alec. herzog man seemed hilarious to me. herzog stood behind me, alec took picture.