While signing “Avoid the Clap—Jimmy Dougan” onto a grown man’s baseball (per request) two girls come up to us for a suit picture.
“Where’d you get it?”
“At a place near my girlfriends’s house.” I rarely use the possessive form when talking about Amanda, but in a meat market, it’s nice to slip into the conversation that I have no ulterior goals.
We introduce eachother to our friends and they get talking. John and Nick hit it off very well with two girls named Jennifer and Ashley. When I finish explaining how I bought the suit with my first paycheck from the newspaper, Ashley tells us about her shirt. At this point, Jennifer has a confession to make.
“You know Ashley has her nipples pierced.”
She peeks them out and the whole time I look around the street, not at the rings. A homeless man in back looks on as if everyone is having trouble opening a jar that he might be able to crack.
We get a phone call from JD who was supposed to meet us 4 hours ago for dinner. I go north to meet him and get thrown out when I ask a bartender for quarters so I can buy a newspaper while I wait.
What a town when you can get thrown out of the street.
I meet JD and Tommy, but when we come back, Nick walks up the street without John, who is in the middle of walking Ashley to her car.
We later run into two men, one of which is celebrating his 32nd birthday. The digital camera in his hands excites him very much and he can’t wait to show us all the pictures he took that night of women’s breasts. Most of them covered, several not.
He is so happy and it makes me so sad.
I make a promise to myself never to develop a roll of film like that on my 32nd birthday.