At Lunch

I placed the "reserved" sign, as well as my newspaper, on the cafe table and went in to order my lunch. That’s the procedure, reserve your table with the silver triangular signs provided and go in and place your order. Some people take the table number with them, so people can't double book the table. I guess, it doesn’t matter which way you do it.

When I came out, there were three wog-chicks by my table, one of them had placed her stuff on one of the chairs.

"I'm sorry, but I've reserved this table," I said.

"But we've just ordered on it," said the younger, prettier of the three women. Gorgeous really, beautiful eyes, black black hair, just the type to make a straight boy’s tail wag. However, unfortunately for her...

"But, you haven't reserved it," I said. I looked down at my Age and reserved sign.

"We were here first,” said the pretty girl, a little more determined. “We were just ordering our meals."

"I'm sure we were probably here together, but,” I shrugged. “I reserved the table."

Three differing perfume scents seemed to engulf me, as I felt the chill associated with nicotine depletion of my first day of quitting smoking, run up my spine and disseminate through the cells in my body.

"Well, be a gentleman and give us the table,” said the older, less beautiful juzzi type with voluminous hair. She proceeded to sit down, as though that was all she needed to say.

The process is that you give the cashier the number of the table so your meal can be brought to you. So, it was either me, or them, heading inside to change the details at the cash register.

"In these days of equality, no," I said.

The older juzzi-type stood up again. The three women stared at me and then they all looked down at my reserved sign sitting between them and the table.

"You're no gentleman," she said. "That’s clearly obvious!"

I shrugged. I wasn't sure what to say. I held the superior position of being in the right, after all.

They headed inside, as I made myself comfortable, ready for my lunch to be bought to me. The two younger women came back first and took one of the many vacant tables, across from me, looking back at me.

I opened my newspaper and started to read.

The older one came back out, still with the other table’s number in her hand, detouring passed my table.

"You're no gentleman," she said, as she walked by."You're a pig!”

I’m a normal issue gay boy with a standard issue sharp, acid, gay tongue, who was on my first day of quitting smoking, you do the maths. This could have gone very badly for her and her friends. I felt like I had been exceptionally patient.

I smiled at the thought of what I could have been saying to her. She had on too much makeup and clothes which were a couple of decades too young for her, desperately clinging to her youth. There she was strutting about in her cheap shoes taking the moral high ground when she was clearly in the wrong.

Then she was back, she’d done a u-turn somewhere between the tables. “My husband and any of his friends would have been gentlemanly enough to give us that table.” She said as she passed by again. Kind of hit and run.

I sat back in my chair and watched her strut away. Every cell in my body ached for a reply. I could feel it solidifying on the tip of my tongue. But I didn’t say anything. My guns were cocked, as they say, but I didn’t fire.

Then she was turning and heading back again.

“I hope your food tastes like shit." She spat the shit.

I exhaled loudly. "Why are you being rude to me, I haven't been rude to you," I said. "I have just told you the process."

She rubbed her hand under her chin, in that European fuck you kind of way, at which point I looked down at my newspaper and started reading.

The cafe owner came out and said, "I'm going to give you free coffee today."

"You don't have to do that," I said.

"No, I do. I want to."

I've learned lately just to accept such offers. "Okay. Thanks."

The girls had obviously said something when they were in changing their table number. More than one thing, no doubt.

They sat just opposite me, but I didn't look at them once. What is that old saying, the best revenge is a life lived well. I read my newspaper, ate my matriciana pasta and drank my free coffee.

On their way out, the older one said, "I see all your friends joined you... pig!"

I guessed that was clever, but I wasn’t sure.

I didn't look up.