Terrace Beverages (Early Middle June)
"Why is orange so good at arguing?"
The view is subtractive. A patch of heavy cloud clears. Hazy evening sunlight falls slanting, fleetly dappled over the bay, as container ships lay idle at anchor, the view subtractive and scenic, crucial to regional and national trade interests. The sunlight falls on the bayside bistro terrace. Beverage vessels of assorted geometry fluoresce. Infusions of menthol and ethanol, of citric acid and carbon dioxide, splutter into the same bucolic flatness.
A vagrant collapses in the parking lot—gratis, for customers only. The paramedics stretcher him along semi-vacant vacation rental bungalows. Bookings are down a quarter from the year before. The world has grown more difficult for all us, opines the bayside bistro and bungalow proprietor, the world has grown more difficult, more ugly, and our collective indulgence fails the most vulnerable among us. Her niece-editor, or rather her editor-niece, receives and files another editorial without amendment, save for the stray typo.
Servers sweep the parking lot. They carry various beverages to the terrace. They raise and lower umbrellas, as per customer preference. Lite piano instrumental versions of post-punk classics play. The proprietor opines. Her mother and brothers and aunts and uncles all opine. It’s part of the family business. They have lived, they have owned, they have opined in the city for generations. The way things are going there is much too much to opine over. The proprietor files her editorial to her editor-niece. She cuts the checks. She leaves for another restaurant, her spouse’s not hers. Another day of building value is accomplished. Her luxury electric sedan peruses the vagrant’s ambulance. Lights are flashing but the traffic is slow.
