Patio Excerpts

Do you like to eavesdrop. I do. It is like being an extra in a movie. Anonymous, but still in the scene. Like tonight, I am sitting in a restaurant beside a table four men one one side of me and a couple on the other side. The men, in their mid thirties, discuss home renovations and butchering animals and old girlfriends. I am always amazed by the randomness of the discussion . They speak is short sentences, like a Hemingway novel. On the other side of my table is a conversation of silence, punctuated by requests to pass salt or pepper or scrapes of their cutlery on the plates. A man in his 50s, drinks too much. His actions are becoming sloppy. A woman in her 30s looks over his shoulder as if she is trying to see something and seems to be endless chewing her food . Their silence is a loud reminder of the distance between them. The group to my right erupts in laughter when one of the guys says, " It has been a long week at work doing nothing." The waiter asks if I would like something else. I say another glass of wine as the scene is still unfolding.