Given that everywhere I go I seem to know someone, it didn't surprise me that his face felt familiar. Boyish, clean cut, cute even, as soon as I heard his voice I was certain I knew him.
It only took a couple minutes for the memories to bubble up...he was a friend of a friend, it was years ago, we shared only a moment at his halloween party.
Back then, he was in improv, and I remember him being one of the rare good performers I saw, so I asked him if he was performing somewhere.
He faltered. His face shrank a little. He said no. He started to say why, what the reason was, and then, in a spark of honesty that impacted me like a natural disaster, he said he was just too lazy.
The news was doubly horrific because we were customers, at his table, he was our waiter and we were at Ed Debevic's.
There is nothing worse than being reminded that the thing you love to do is a phantom that you have abandoned by a stranger while you are at work. Well, maybe there are worse things, but that is pretty bad. This happened to me for a six year period of my life when I wasn't doing any writing and it is the sort of red hot raw embarrassment that makes your skin crawl. I can't imagine being found out in Ed Debevic's of all places.
He carried on with the routine--which, oddly enough is kind of like performing--and all was well.
At the end of our meal he brought us our bill. He stood in front of us and wrote on it while teasing us and for an agonizing moment, I was so sure that he was writing down his phone number, I was so hoping that he wrote down his phone number that I was shocked when I saw the words "Smell ya later!"
Part of me was relieved. I couldn't really call him anyway. Not now. Not anymore. Not now that things with Eric are back to some kind of normal. Still, there was something so tragic in his complete honesty that made me want to pick him up and love him. He was a great performer. It's too bad that he's not doing it anymore. He's not my mess to clean up.
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