Those Are American Mumbles

I’m done.  But I still need dinner.  It’s late.  But I still “need” dinner.  Two blocks up from my apartment residence I know they’ll be open.  They are.  I get a booth by the window where I can watch the night pedestrians move along outside.

There are two other tables with diners this evening.  Across from me, the gent wears a cap atop a bearded maw and has a tattooed forearm up at his shoulder that I can’t quite make out beneath the maroon V-neck tee-shirt sleeve. I don’t think he speaks any Chinese though I could be wrong.  He is American.  He is only mumbling.  That’s all that reaches my ear.  But I recognize those mumbles.  Those are American mumbles.

The woman he is with is overweight.  She has glasses.  Perhaps it’s his girl. Perhaps. I am staring at her sticky hair, that hangs down unappealingly from the back of her head.  She turns now, and her humanity is exposed.  It’s easy to disregard someone when you can’t see their face.  Why do I disregard them both?  Why do I wish they with their unnerving familiarity, were not here?

My pan friend dumplings are here. Why do I order such things.  The first bite will taste great but these aren’t good for you. Here comes my big shizitou.  In my mind its all meat so it won’t be to fattening but we know that it’s a meatball with lots and lots of bready stuff kneaded into it.  There are old rituals to ordering in a Chinese restaurant and they don’t change easily. 

Outside a guy is packing up a min van.  The door is left open.  This would have been an invitation to thievery in the Lower East Side of my day.  This guy walks off.  Walks back.  Walks off again.  He doesn’t seem to worry.   Now, a middle aged lady in a gaudy dress has hopped up into the door.  The guy in the white shirt closes the door walks around do the driver’s seat and they drive off into the night.

The mumbler with the cap was looking at me until I looked at him.  We may be in Shanghai but we both understand the polite norms of staring.  The waiter approaches their table and the lady speaks to the gent in Chinese.  In an instant, I’ve reframed my narrative of who they are.  Rather than a couple, this must be the clueless brother in from somewhere-ville U.S., visiting his sister, who has been studying here in Shanghai.   Could be. 

Monday 6/11/18