Untitled
A beautiful young man in black shorts and black tank top sailed up in his new shiny-clean black sports car to fill up at Johnny’s. His hair matched his outfit and he was obviously proud of his fit physique. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was headed to a workout. He was lovely like a Dirk van Erp lamp, an early Corot landscape, or an Irish setter racing across a meadow. He looked over at me—masked, gloved in latex, pumping 10% ethanol gas into my pollen-encrusted 20-year-old car, an old fat geezer wearing a splotched bandana—and gave me that entitled sneer one often sees on the faces of young men who suppose you are ogling them with lust when in fact you are only recognizing the splendor of vital fresh life, as one does a smart young woman with bright eyes, a frolicking horse, a freshly-bloomed tulip nodding in the breeze. He tossed his hair then ran his fingers through it, pulled the nozzle from the pump with his bare hands, started filling up, rubbed his itchy nose and then his mouth with the back of his hand, oblivious to the pandemic, heedless of warning, entitled to a possible early death that would ruin forever the lives of his family. I looked away as though he were cursed. His youth and vigor suddenly seemed as fragile as an eggshell.