The lad at the Indian joint on Arab Street yesterday with Gab cried out for notice. A number of the guys had been lighting up in the exchanges, watched from the side by the angel. The lad behind the counter by the till – not on it – went the extra mile. Lighting up like the others with the pleasantries exchanged, that included some fragments in their own language; before raising it a notch further when he saw the $100 bill passed over. Fifteen buck lunches he had surely seen at those premises earlier. But two zeroes, three numbers like that, on the one note, never in his born days. From 60 wattage suddenly upped to 120, widening the whites around his dark pupils; more perfect the row of choppers. It was as if he had rec’d the note himself, for his own pocket. Wow! & one half. In fact, merely standing to the side of such transaction was an honour. Immediately following the radiant gleaming, widening & glinting, the left breast was palmed. Humble thanks for that act of grace. The former iteration there on Arab Street was part of the ABC chain, shut down recently by the authorities because of all the foreign workers, when pretending the local quota had been fulfilled. Yesterday again not a single of the boys was from here. Tamils in the main; the one taking the orders with a smattering of English Bengali. Doubtful that the palmer had understood there were even $1000 notes in circulation in the blessed Republic. Nor faint chance the underlining that the white guy had never had a piece of that pie himself. Terribly, excruciatingly embarrassing appearing a big, big shot like that. Gold ring (inherited from a paternal uncle), shirt collar, newish panama. Luckily the Versace thrift shop specs had been left upstairs at Gab’s, along with the Eyephone. That woulda been too, too much.
No comments:
Post a Comment