the love lottery

don't get me wrong, i like sorella's. there's something about it. it's not quite a diner and is hardly an uppity cafe. the food can be sketchy. in June a kid was found puking his omlette into the gutter. you have to be smart about what you order. eggs over easy, luke warm home fries, dark toast with bacon usually gets the job done. the coffee is hardcore, a surefire diuretic promising the inevitable tippy-toe walk to the toilet or a sprint back home with your fingers pressed like a prayer against your sphincter. my favorite thing is to go there alone, on a Sunday, eat something safe, read and inventory the beautiful boys. last week they sat me upstairs. i prefer the original room with the ugly greek art and omlette signs, but i don't really care. the fat guy who waits on me, thighs chafing against thighs, is a scenic view in and of himself. oddly, there is not One Single Handsome Person in sight which is fine, making it easier to concentrate on my book. i live on the edge and order a vegetable crepe with a side of braised tempeh. it arrives tepid and dull tasting and the crepe the fat guy smacks down is spilling over with fruit. i didn't order fruit, but i refuse to make a scene. (we waiters never want to make a fuss or embarrass a comrade.) soon, however, the big man returns with the veggie version: raw onion, raw sprouts, damaged spinach in a cold crepe. I wolf it down, i'm in a good mood. my noir novel (The Dead Yard - McKinty) is clickity-clacking down the track. i get lost in it and in the dead yard on my plate until, simultaneously, two couples are seated on either side of my table. the girls are as striking as the boys. my eyes lift furtively from the page. the kid facing me on my left has black briary Brezhnev eyebrows, corn blue eyes and full lips, as if lipstick engorged. he and his girl spend hours lost in each other's eyes. they have that wet just-showered-after-a morning-fuck hair, thick and heavily scented from post coital cum (my imagination is off the charts). he smiles as i lurch up from the table to leave, a stack of singles under my coffee cup. i ask, nervously, if he's seen Rushmore. he has. 'you look like that kid', i say, with a big ingratiating smile. 'no kidding?' it's safe to connect on a silly pretense. but it is the boy to my right that knocks the breath out of me. i stare over my glasses at his legs, Beardsley profile, wild art school hair, big boots. i must look like a sex-starved librarian. i picture him in boxer shorts, boner poking a tent, a cliche porn fantasy. what's most captivating is what he and his girlfriend are doing. they are taking turns drawing on a single napkin. that's right, drawing, with a blunt golf score pencil. she is engrossed as he looks on. it is as if she traces a line on his naked back, in the sun, on the beach sending a shiver up his spine. she pushes the paper over. it's his turn. i try to see what the images are. i'm guessing they're hieroglyphs of a personal, in-joke nature. i can't tell. it doesn't matter. it is this thing between them, this happy, sandbox way of liking each other that is beautiful. i love them for it. is she French? she has that Paris girl, Band of Outsiders vibe with no makeup, pouty lips, a sexy overbite, disheveled hair and who cares clothes. they are lost in the game. they have won the love lottery.