Wednesday, February 05, 2003

Eyebrows, Man
How long had it been? Two, 3 weeks? So I'm riding the few short blocks to work Sunday morning, and decide I need to nonchalantly ask the manager what's up with Eyebrow Man (but not to use those exact words, of course). As I approach the corner, there's the white truck. I hear sounds, someone-loading-a-truck sounds, and quicken my pace (quicken my pedaling?), park, lock the bike, and walk over toward the back entrance (ahem) and glance toward the truck parked across the street. Walking from it is a tall man, different ethnicity, different headdress than Eyebrow Man. He gets to the door ahead of me, I say hello as I walk in, he says nothing. Hmmpf. Who is this guy? Tall with a big green scarf wrapped up over his head, no beard, no hairy forearms, NO EYEBROWS!!

Maybe two hours later, there's a pause in the workflow for the manager (he bartends and wait tables as well), and having decided I need to ask in the most matter of fact, "oh just curious but no I don't have a huge crush and my head hasn't been aching for 3 weeks wondering kinda way" - since I've noticed my coworkers just love to gossip. "Hey, you know what's going on with the truck driver, haven't noticed him around lately?" "Oh! Last we heard he was in a jail in Virginia."

After struggling to help me pick my jaw from up off the ground, he continues: "Yeah, we got an odd call, he had been arrested, and was very strange on the phone, said he wouldn't be coming back to work. I think he was going to be fired anyway, the boss wasn't too happy with him; I know he seems nice and all on the surface, but he's an odd one. Didn't really seem to know the basics about driving, and parking, and when the boss took a ride with him uptown, was shocked that the guy didn't even know how to signal...." . Um, woah. He's like just gone? And this flood of "information" is too much, but he continued - "Oh yeah, the boss said one day (Eyebrow Man) is just hanging around and says 'Wanna hear a poem I wrote? - here it goes:

Roses are red
Violets are black
There's no sound I like better
Than the sound of a knife in my sister's back' "

Then the manager gets busy again, and that's where the conversation ended. Eyebrow Man's gone, jailed in Virginia, rumours about not particularly liking his sister, sheesh! He used to talk about wanting to check out biker bars, but um, well, for all I know this is all bullshit and it was his weird way of quitting. Still, it's sort of a disappointing ending to this particular fantasy, especially since I had just cleared out my sock drawer so he'd have room for his not-too-distant regular 2-day stayovers with me.