I ordered an alligator sausage poboy. Not my normal choice, but one I pick when I can. French bread is solid. A crunch followed by a sink. Dressed just right. Cooked just right. Parkway Bakery is everything people say it is.
Saints/Bears Sunday. Saints win. I sit with an old roommate. We talk. I didn’t get the lead in the opera. I should have. I’m good enough. I’m a senior. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this when a local theatre company is doing Spring Awakening? A musical I loved so much it threw me into a long depression. The kind where your parents have given up on asking you how you are and go straight to your friends. Why am I doing a second rate Offenbach operetta when I can be doing a first rate award wining musical? I don’t know. John Paul didn’t know either. But we talked about it. I felt better after eating with such good company, though it is only a matter of time before I am alone and have only myself to criticize.
It’s a hot day, but we sit outside anyway. Parkway has pulled out all the tables for all the Saints fans that left the game hungry. It was cooler inside, but it was too loud. Sometimes high volume makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t. We wanted to talk and joke and eat the way we usually do on our “dates.” Crystal hot sauce bottles can be found at every table. The roast beef is cooking. I didn’t get the part I wanted, but Parkway is still working. Things can’t be all bad.
We decide to get dessert. I jokingly advise John to just share my banana pudding instead of also getting bread pudding. I was wrong. Both were delicious. While we were waiting for his bread pudding I saw two things happen. John wanted to take a picture of the kitchen because it was so beautiful. So he gets out his iPhone. The girl passing poboys from the kitchen to the customers smiled. Her smile was embarrassed but encouraging. She knew she wasn’t ready for the photo and did not usually let herself get caught off guard like this. She also felt famous. Strangers don’t usually take pictures of me, she might think. Shortly after, her partner at the window reached over and fitted her head with a hairnet she had forgotten to apply herself. A move of love performed by another observed by another in another poboy shop.
The way you handled the conversation about not getting the part was perfect in its economy. And throughout, using short sentences seems to fit you (you as a writer, I think, is what I mean) well.
ReplyDeleteThe timing confuses me a bit. You are eating inside, talking, and then you move outside to eat and it's too loud to talk.
The inclusion of "date," and the bit of comfort you feel in witnessing that move of love, and "only a matter of time because I am alone and have only myself to criticize" sort of blurs, for me, what the conflict here is. Are you more disappointed about not being in the play or about being alone? What do those to things have to do with each other?
And a side note, when you end on "another poboy shop," haven't you just devoted time to a very specific poboy shop, which you have named? Doesn't seem to me "another."
Mmmm.... "A crunch followed by a sink," I'm not sure anyone has been able to articulate exactly what I like about biting into good french bread/po boy like this phrase does. Thanks.
ReplyDeletedefinitely agree with Remi regarding french bread. It does just that! This piece seems disconnected. It is very short, and thereby every sentence is expected to matter. In other words, we as readers expect some connection between the waitress caught in the picture and the situations you are describing about yourself: not getting the part you wanted in the opera and deciding to get an alligator sausage po boy. The process of writing is all about omission, otherwise you would drive yourself insane. In any situation, there is LITERALLY everything: endless colors, endless shapes emotions, etc. One simply cannot write everything, so I would like to see some connective tissue between those things that you did decide to include. What is the subject of this story? Being unwittingly in the spotlight?
ReplyDeleteThis begins in past tense, shift to present; keep it consistent (the present is working here). You're onto something here. A well-rendered scene, and two apparent subjects: the disappointment of not getting the role in the musical, and the saving grace of a friend, a good poboy, a Saints victory, and a small, beautiful moment. Keep writing and draw out the connections between these two events.
ReplyDeleteI like this piece, especially the beginning where you talk about the actual poboy and when you bring up the conversation about not getting the lead. The problem I encountered was after that paragraph, it felt jumbled to me. You jump back and forth from different ideas and topics ,so it gets a little confusing and I don't really come out of it knowing what you really wanted to have it be about. Choose one or two topics and elaborate instead of bringing a bunch of different ideas into it. For example, I'd like to see you talk about the actual poboy and the restaurant more in depth.
ReplyDelete