Subversion Laid Bare

I asked Lisa, “You gonna go out tonight and sit in the harvest moon?”

She forked at a plate of breakfast offered in every American diner. Raised in LA, I chewed an egg, chorizo and pico de gallo burrito. El orgullo de Mexico.

Lisa shook her head. “Is this ‘harvest moon’ one of those things where rebels meet behind a barn and plan an act of subversion or something?”

I shook my head. Before I could explain, she leaned in and muttered, “The way we dress makes subversion impossible. See the older guy there in the double-layered flannel?”

I slid my eyes discreetly to the couple across the aisle, then back. I nodded.

“Seventy degrees outside, and he’s in double-lined? He’s got a blood disorder.”

I told her she couldn’t possibly know that, but she pointed again with her eyes. “Back of his hands. See where the treatment needles go?”

Brownish blooms flowered the tops of his hands while callouses barnacled the bottoms. “Those hands once made cars,” I said. “He’s the right age. Still has the forearms. We’re seventy miles from where there was a Ford plant in his day. He’s still finding Levi’s not sold in any store around here. And Adidas? My guess is he wore an early version of them while working the line once upon a time. His union’s retirement fund bought that coffee. Also, he’s a Neil Young guy. That NY tattoo isn’t a sports team. Would also explain the flannel.”

Lisa nodded, cataloguing each comment, while simultaneously eyeing the woman across the booth from him.

“She’s still making an effort,” she said sweetly. “Modest earrings, the hundred-dollar hairdo, the form-fitting slacks even though time has had its way with her form. He may be ill, but she’s getting dressed up to go out with her guy.”

The couple eventually stood, got their coffees refreshed, readying to leave as if they still had so much to do and only a little of this bonus time in which to do it.

The man and his wife moved toward the door. He nodded his cup my way. I acknowledged. Lisa smiled at the wife, who returned the gesture with Revlon lips, a shade similar to what might have been her 1976 favorite. I nodded at the Ford SUV they unlocked with the press of a key fob.

“Still a company man,” I said.

Across the table I caught the moist glint in Lisa’s eye. I nodded, welcoming quiet.

“So what’s this harvest moon thing tonight?” she asked.

“Bright enough that you can keep working after the sun’s gone down.”

“I telecommute.”

“So take your laptop out on the porch.”

“You think we’ll get to do that?”

My eyes flicked to where she’d watched the SUV carry the couple away. When I looked back, the moist glint in her eye had begun a slow slide down her cheek.

“If we get lucky,” I said, “we’ll go deep into overtime.”