THE FIELD

Imagine this, only on as a faint vision on pavement. Found here.

On the way to this coffee shop, I saw a stain on the ground that looked like Burt Reynolds. It was just some leaf residue or something, but I stopped to stare.

Then while I ordered, this guy behind me asked the barista girl if she had “notes” on her wrists. This man was over 60, kind of a lumberjack-biker-Santa type. The girl was old enough to be tattooed and she had two tats on her wrists. She had strange symbols, neither meaningful nor obvious to a midday purchaser of iced coffee like myself, but hopefully significant and pleasing to her. She was tending to my change ($2.52) and Lumberjack-Biker-Santa’s question caught her a little off guard. Before she could answer what the “notes” were, he lifted his sleeve and showed her his wrist.

“It’s a little paper cut,” he laughed.

That remains a deceptive description. He had eight inches of thick scarring—a long slice—along his left wrist. It was longer than most tragedies might impart on their victims. No one pressed the man for details—too many taboos, I suppose. Or maybe the symbology on the girl barista’s arm communicated something that Lumberjack-Biker-Santa understood and related to. Maybe they had a bond. Maybe he sees his scar as a kind of tattoo, or her tattoo as a kind of scar.

I was in the middle of it and not a part of it all at once. Lumberjack-Biker-Santa is long gone now and girl-barista’s shift ended a while ago. I have a few more suppositions and questions than normal.

It’s a nice day.



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