What Happened To Your Face?
February 29, 2004
A friend at work owed me a dollar and gave me four quarters.
"Here's the dollar that I owe you."
As she put the quarters in a little stack on the table, I couldn't even remember what it was for. "Don't you have any paper money?" I asked.
"They say it's all the same," she replied.
"Yeah, well, they're wrong. I don't spend metal money. I may as well take these quarters and toss them in the garbage."
"What? You need a jar!"
"I have a jar. But look at this," I said, and dug down deep into my pocket and pulled out a fistful of coins. A few pennies overflowed and fell to the ground, rolling into the dusty corners of the room.
"Jamie!" she scolded me. "That's bad energy to be carrying around that much metal in your pocket."
"You think so? I never even thought of that."
"Yes! It's true. It's not good."
"You might be right. And it's so close to my testicles, too."
After work, I took that fistful of metal money to the bar that my friend TRUE* says was named after a Stendhal novel. It was moderately busy when I walked in, but not so crowded that I couldn't grab a seat at the bar. The bartender was the girl from Amsterdam that I wrote about a few months ago. She recognized me, asked how I'd been, and made a little chit chat before introducing me to two girls at the bar. One of them was her sister. I shook hands with the sister, who then told me that she knew me from before. Since she had just arrived that day and was visiting from Amsterdam, I was confused about what she meant. "I know you from the last time I was here," she explained. "A few months ago." I apologized for not remembering. "No, it's okay. We didn't talk or anything. I mean that I remember seeing you. Here in this bar."
"I think that might've been the last time I was in here," I told her.
"Funny."
Then, out of nowhere, she reached over and touched my cheek with the back of her hand. "Did you do something here?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" I said and gave her a curious look.
She got embarrassed and pulled away. "No, never mind."
What was she talking about? Her English was excellent, but perhaps there was a language barrier of some sort. "No, tell me," I said. "What do you mean?"
"Your face here? Did you do something to it?"
I ran my fingers along where hers had just been. "What do you mean?" I asked again.
She looked embarrassed and shook her head. "No, no. Nevermind."
"Tell me." She reached out and held her fingers a few inches from my cheek before pulling them away.
"Did you—did you get hurt or something?"
"You mean, like, did somebody punch me?"
"Yes." she nodded.
I burst out laughing. "No." I ran my hand across my face trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about.
"No, no," she said. "Never mind."
"It's just my face," I shrugged.
Whatever. One time I was in that bar a girl came up to me and told me that I looked like her Japanese uncle.
