Company Business

Lunch at a big picnic table outside somewhere in SoCal.   Pamela, Sunnylyn, Micah, Patrick & me.   The place is a cross between the old Venice pavillion & the old Santa Monica mall.   We’re all talking, eating, drinking beers.   Sunnylyn is wearing glasses, black RayBan Wayfarer frames but with clear lenses—one of the lenses is cracked (the left one) & has been repaired with some scotch tape.   Patrick says poetry readings are pointless, “nobody listens & nobody knows”.   He gets very agitated about this.   I say something about how it doesn’t matter, “The Poems” are all that are important, the audience isn’t even an afterthought.   Patrick leaves the table, walking stiff-legged, pumping his arms in a Frankensteinian rage.   What’d I say?   Pamela & Sunnylyn are concerned.   Micah is amused.   I’m confused.   Patrick tries the doors of an oriental rug store but they’re locked.   He lurches off so consumed by supressed anger that I’m afraid his head might explode.   “Don’t worry,” Micah says, “he’ll get over it.”   I remember then that I am scheduled to read at Beyond Baroque.   I don’t have enough money for bus fare so have to start walking now in order to get there in time.   Heading off I notice that I’m barefoot.   I wonder what happened to my shoes.