frame in vain

Something about the grid of wrinkly napkins taped to the back of the bar brings to mind the spent pages of a desk-bound daily calendar, the kind whose numbered leaves are often shown fast-forward shedding in music videos that have to do with The Brave New Millennium, Very Fast Times, etc.

They also resemble tiles from one of those superfrustrating, supercheap toy puzzles whose small sliding pieces align to reveal a fun picture. As a kid, I usually pulled the squares off and forcibly snapped them into the right places, all the while swearing that I'd get an eight-ball key chain or a (Mom-forbidden) wall crawler next time.

Each napkin canvas bears the sketched profile of a male bar patron, maybe even a few different ones...but it's hard to clock subtleties from the distance of my pleather perch. Most share the feathery blue and black scratchitti strokes of the classic, plastic Bic. They could have been doodled over a marathon couple of months...or 11 years. Or more.

In the dim green-red light, each face in the room could be the napkin star, minus a pair of reading glasses and a filthy ball cap here, plus worse posture there. Candidates, all.

The paper squares lightly flipflap when the bartender fans himself with a peeled-off ramen bowl lid. I think a bit more about kid fingers pulling at plastic tiles, and then a calendar releasing its old days. I'm sitting at the end of my own day-trail, my boy at my elbow as I secretly check out a bunch of men who are many, many more days (and drinks) ahead of me. There are moments that slid me into my spot, this small square of shared time, and others that didn't. I stop puzzling and shift in my seat.

fell on 2005-10-24 at 2:27 p.m.

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