Konversation Eins: The Evening of May 10th or 11th 2007

First

So, I stood outside with this Italian kid from Brooklyn, dancing along to his sentences about observing an emergency Cesarean section:

"It looked like blood and yellow stuff mixed." he said, rubbing his hands together, then cupping them around an imaginary elongated orb. He swiched his hands like he was massaging a baby's head or an imaginary sack of mucous. He spoke as if he couldn't actually describe the taste of an exotic meat he had just tried, complete with smackings of the lips and pauses.

"The doctor had the knife in her and the placenta went POP! The yellowish red fluid was all over me, all over the doctor, and it hit the ceiling. It was on his cheeks . . . "

". . . he wore goggles?" I asked.

"Yes, he wore goggles."

I felt as if I was transported back in time 12 years, listening in horror, to my own lofty notions of equity, along with his blood and guts reality of life, death, and afterbirth.

Me and the kid continued to talk like old classmates except he was young and I was wiser.

"I am trying to move to New York." I said.

"I am from Brooklyn."

"Yeah?"

"New Jersey people are strange."

"How?" I asked.

"I don't know, they are just strange." he said.

We continued to hone in on this idea with the beams of the street light blaring. I wish I could have had a tap recorder.

Part Deux

"Hey, what time does the mall close?" a short stocky Taiwanese guy asked us. He was short and tan. He pimped gel spiked hair like a military Manga soldier. He said he was an entrepreneur, who got tired of looking at his paycheck and seeing that his bills were higher than his take home pay.

His lines were sincere but well rehearsed.

"My name is Hao."

Great I thought.

4 years of cross-cultural training has taught me that the hallmarks of an American Business Man is his ability to talk about sports all day. Then comes the pitch, but not before the awkward introduction by first names, which ignites a false sense of familiarity. The young Italian draws back.

"I am here looking for recruits.", his game was nothing that I have not seen before.

"I translate, as a freelancer." I said, hiding my true M.O. of international troubadour and cyber-bard with a literary overtone.

We exchanged numbers.

Brooklyn dragged on his cigarette.

The Taiwanese business man and I had small talk concerning business, but I was aware of his predatory nature, the law of averages, the idea of approaching 50 to get one customer, the idea of approaching 55 to get one recruit . . .

Then Hao was off to meet colleagues.

The Brooklyn student giggled to himself. Then said, "See, weird."

We smiled.

He went off.

I was left alone in the dark.

I waited for the bus.