Conversation Over Soup
The Chaos of a Roman Carbonara. Photo by Joe Inoue C. June 2022
We both ordered soup. There were two soups to choose from on the laminated menu: Chicken tortilla soup and Italian meatball. The latter being an odd option available at a Mexican restaurant.
Once the soup came I asked for a side of guacamole. The waitress repeated it back to me in the most beautiful natural way that made me sorry for ever saying it ever in my life. I said gwack oh moley. She said gwack ah molay, but really fast and like it was no big deal.
I thought the soup was salty and brown. Joe thought it was green. We sipped the supposed chicken tortilla soup, green or brown or whatever, tucked safely in a booth. I told Joe how I have been feeling a gross amount. Joe told me about his life and how I am human as opposed to something un-human like other people.
It felt like the whole conversation morphed into realizations about personal pursuits in this so called “life”. We asked each other if life was always going to feel like this, but neither of us had an answer yet. Meanwhile, girls in short tight dresses slurped margaritas and an old man walked behind Joe with a ragged tiny dog in his arms.
I kept looking at Joe because that is what you do when you sit across from someone. I could not help, but see him in this new light. The moody perfectly dimmed light of El Coyote on a Friday night. Joe looked so young and old all at once and was telling me the most magnificent things. It made my heart break, because it seems no one else gets it like he does. It is like when you try to explain the reason a group of people are laughing when someone walks up a little too late. They missed the punchline. And everyone else missed how Joe talked about how steps are better taken than days because to take a day is too broad and a step is methodical in the way it is not attached to time, but rather a reasoning of some sort. He also mentioned that thing that I guess happens when the years pass you by, the person you were some years back feels far away. Their wants are stuck there and you think you are supposed to still want those same things but you don’t, but you really should because now you are here and not there and if you don’t want that, then what the hell are you doing here in the first place?
There was also talk of insecurity. The kind about how you look in the mirror and how you act around different people. And about how you should go on a run and stay up late to get that thing done and Joe used the word laden and I liked it.
All the while, I felt like asking for more chips to dip in my gwack oh moley
***
It felt like a blip. The night. That conversation. Both of which happened on a whim. I guess we both had storyline fever, and I know we had an overly salty soup that was nine dollars and I wondered about the Italian meatball soup. The funniest part is we ended up there because a pizza establishment with good parking turned us away. We left after the kitchen closed and a man who bussed our table had me blow out the candle. I am now just trying to remember what I wished for.
