All the People in the World

Chapter 16: Equal Exploitation

The couple next to me sat close together while talking. They shared their food with a sickening sweetness. And while I had been uncomfortable with the amount of time he spent looking into my eyes on his way back from the bathroom, he did seem to like her. They quipped and laughed. He ate some kind of egg burrito and the girl ate pancakes. She had a large cup of sugary iced coffee, that was from an outside store. Bold of her to bring it into another restaurant. Or maybe not that bold, but I'd be too anxious to. I'd be too anxious now. I wouldn't have cared before but I did these days. You could tell that the coffee came from a chain and not a hole in the wall shop. The design on the cup looked like it had been printed a million times, and the cup itself seemed as though it had been recycled, broken down and reassembled a million more. It was begging for something different. Begging to be thrown into the ocean where it could slowly decompose as it helped to pollute the waters like all the garbage that came before it. At least then it would have something to see. Something to do. A purpose, even negative, to serve. It would die for a negative purpose to serve. I watched her take another drink from that sad, unfulfilled coffee cup, feeling empathy for it. I had humanized it too much. In an attempt to reverse it I thought to myself, some mornings that was the best kind of coffee though. From a big, money grabbing capitalist chain. Syrupy and watered down and lifeless... yet it was the only thing on earth that could get you through your Monday morning. I looked at my watch. 2:21. Well past lunch. But this was obviously their first meal. They had a late morning. I smiled to myself. I imagined they'd spent their morning making love. I had to, I suppose. But I would never describe it that way. And I sat alone on my second meal of the day, a chicken sandwich, appropriate for the hour, and yearned to be them instead.

I was them once.

We don't allow thoughts like that anymore, Ava.

But you were-

I was a painter now. It had been four years since Nonna's passing and I was one of considerable recognition. I had done many paintings, several decent enough to be put up in galleries. The only ones that had gained any real traction however were a collection of conservative landscape and still life paintings I'd done. They were based on my time in Italy as a child. I had done the piazza, my parents house, Nonna's home, the exterior and a few interior shots. Other places too. The tree house. Several places. People liked them. They were soft and felt like "an escape" or "a memory" many said. Nonna's house was my most popular and the most printed piece. It wasn't a surprise to me. I imagined the stiffest of people, buying the canvas prints and hanging them up on their grey, joyless walls. I imagined them standing and staring at them for hours. Their kids growing up, playing dolls underneath, looking up occasionally just to wonder why their parents had chosen this, cold dreary life, instead of the life they enviously plastered up on the walls.

Sometimes I felt guilty though. Or... not guilty, but certainly not proud. I hadn't really painted that piece. Nonna had. She had spent a lifetime building up that house, choosing the eclectic pieces, splattering light onto the walls, chaotically assigning murals to stairways. And I had just... well I had just remembered it. Copied it down onto a canvas like my fourth period math homework my friend had already done and said I could borrow. I was worried... I was just worried I had exploited her.

You were worried Luca would think you exploited her-

I do not worry about Luca. I do not think about Luca anymore.

I was with a man named Reagan. A photographer. He had worked an art show I had a piece in once and we got along. He was mindless for me. Like a television show you turn on purely to forget about the world, not to understand it better. He liked sports, football mainly. He was a Packers fan and talked incessantly about how they would "be back". I had gathered, over the course of several rants, that the Packers were one of the NFL's great dynasties and I suppose he was just waiting for them to rise again. I found football foolish and amusing. It captivated me, if I'm honest. Because everytime I watched it, I was overly aware that these were grown men in spandex playing with a ball like kids on a school yard. And most of the time, when they would score, and people would erupt in cheers, this is what I thought I was thinking about. The intensity of it all and the fact that these men in tights were affectionately viewed as gods amongst men in American culture made me chuckle privately in my mind. And yet, sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, I would find myself cheering along. Because at times there was an undeniable impressiveness about it all. Perhaps it was the training, or the physical excellence, or just that even I was susceptible to getting swept up in the mentality of a surrounding crowd. But there were moments where I was genuinely entertained. I was fine to be foolish and cheer and scream at the tv set for grown men in tights. It was exhilarating.