The Rice Eater Blues

The girlfriend says we (mother and I) cook you take the dog outside he hasn’t been out today. I wait a moment look at the puppy and agree to the task. Cradling him like a baby in my arms as the elevator doors open. It goes down to the ninth floor where her best friend gets on with an ugly skinny older man probably in his forties. She’s holding his arm and hugging him around his waist. She’s smiling, laughing and flirting with him. This is strange to me because I just met this girls “boyfriend” last week who seemed to be a very nice man and this old ugly skinny man was definitely not that boyfriend. Still clinging to his side she nervously starts telling him about the little dog in my hands. The man ceased speaking and stared at the elevator buttons as if they were going to disappear. For some reason he became ominously quiet. He stubbornly refused to look at her beaming face(she has a strikingly beautiful face one that is very easy to look at). The elevator doors open as she slaps him on the ass in-that-flirtatious-we-just-had-sex-sort-of-way. Still ignoring her outside, not turning around he walks sharply in the opposite direction disappearing in the rush of 6PM at the train station. She eagerly watches him walk away and shouts bye bye in his direction but he doesn’t respond. A moment later she turns to me and casually says, where are you going? Oh me I’m just taking the dog to shit that’s all. Where are you going? I go to eat dinner. Oh, okay, have a good night! Yea, bye bye! Mmm, bye.