Mutually grey, heads touching, sitting on the same side of the table, talking intimately.
They were probably one of those couples who had been married for 40 years and still found things to talk about.
I had never been to Ireland before, but if I had, I could imagine that it might be similar to the bar where I was currently sitting. Beatles playing, windows open, ketchup bottles on every damn table.
Honestly, I had followed someone here-- well-- not here exactly-- and not too closely, mind you---
but at the time had been curious to an extreme, uncharacteristic of me.
The waitress brought a couple of salads and random looking side dishes over to the couple. "Here's your sauerkraut."
"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed the lady, eyes as if it were cabbage from heaven.
I had just been through a sort of chase.
Around the library, into Whole Foods. In the meat section, I nearly ran headfirst into my follow-ee. Quickly I shimmied to the counter and ordered some applewood smoked bacon.
An obvious move.
The worn-in wooden tables made you wonder how long the bar had been here; it had the usual Irish bar decor- posters of the motherland and toucan birds (don't those only exist in tropicalities?), but this bar had an airy and open common-senseness, none of that cold/cave/closet feeling I usually associated with Irish bars.
I had passed by the Starbucks with its usual friendly Portland police patrons, and as soon as I rounded the corner, shit, I nearly ran into him, the very person I was tailing.
"Excuse me!" I said in a pitch high enough for dogs to hear.
He stood there for a second, grounded, staring, narrowing his eyes.
Dang it all.
I reached into my disorganized tote bag, frantic, pulling out a pair of black sunglasses, rammed them on my face, and started to bolt.
Then, realizing fleeing would constitute "odd behaviour,” I stood too long in the same spot.
"Oh, there it is!"
The door to the Irish bar materialised, and I found myself inside in under a minute. Beads of sweat and formed on the inside of my wrists, and for me, a person who sweats once or twice a year, I knew.
I was doing something very much illicit, indeed.
