I am in
Boston, Massachusetts. I am
Christmas shopping with my
girlfriend's
best friend. It's
snowing a very pretty
snow.
I
think for the first time (certainly not the last) these two
thoughts, in rapid succession:
when we talk about weather in english, we say "it's raining, it's snowing a very pretty snow" and so forth. same in german: "es regnet. es schneet eine schoene schnee." "it is" represents...
there's no good word for what "it" represents. the atmosphere, maybe, or the sky. but we think weather independent of the sky. when it snows, weather is all around you. you can see it. it lands on you, and you shake it off. weather is snowing today.
I am standing outside
Quincy Market with Nicole. I'm drinking
coffee, we're both smoking
cigarettes. Across an intersection we can see
Government Center covered in
snow.
A
man approaches. He appears to be a half-step above
homeless but very, very far from
homeowner. We notice him when he is about twenty feet away. He seems fixated on me - he doesn't even glance at Nicole.
When he is ten feet away and closing, he says:
"Mister, you look like you've got the
strength,
speed and
stamina of an Italian stallion."
By the time he's finished the sentence, he's right in front of me.
"I'm not
Italian, if that's what you're getting at." I have no idea what to say.
He rubs his stubbly
chin, then fetches a pack of
cigarettes from his pocket.
"Cigarette?" he says.
I hold mine aloft. "Got one, thanks."
"I usually
smoke two at once. One for each
lung, you know?"
I chuckle dutifully.
"You know, I haven't seen my
wife in twelve years?"
He looks into the distance. I'm silent.
"Yeah. Her name was Carrie. We were in
Chicago. It was
snowing, like this." He holds out a hand to indicate the falling
snow. "We were
Christmas shopping, and we got into a
crowd, and I just lost her. One minute she was there, and then I turned around, and then she was gone. And she was a
frail thing, you know?"
The man is silent for a moment.
"She didn't like
sex..." Pause. Shrug. "So we didn't have any."
He turns his back to us and walks away.
Nicole and I don't speak for a long time. I finish my
coffee, and we both smoke our
cigarettes.