Conversations with a Critic

She thumbs the coffee cup’s plastic lid, making a “fwip, fwip” noise. In her right hand she holds the papers, flipped back diagonally, and she slouches. Around us music plays. Something jazzy. Something light. The baristas talk about buying a condo or renting a condo or something about a condo, and little else. No customers to help at one-thirty on a hot August day.

“Why don’t you talk more about the girl?”

“Huh?” I say. I look to her from the barista’s belly button. “What?”

“The girl who flirts with you,” she says, shaking the diagonally-back-flipped papers at me “why don’t you talk more about her?”

“What? Oh. She’s not important. It’s not about her.” I take a pull from my coffee. Mexican mocha. Just like mocha but with cinnamon and sweeter. “It’s about the hamburger, that's why its called ‘Sammich’”.

“I think it could be important.”

“Then you’re not reading it.”

“Bullshit. I am so.” She fingers her nose-ring. Two days ago she had caught it on her sweater before taking a shower and now it is infected. Yellowish crusties cluster around the edges. These, she rubs away, not noticing how intently I notice. “You mention this chick and then you don’t talk about her again.”

“She’s filler”

“Filler?”

“Yeah. Fuck Katy, she’s filler. You know, like Drano in crack. Filler.” She stares at me.

“Still.” She says. She looks back at the papers and I can see she is getting angry. She is invested in being right about what I wrote. She looks up at me, brightly, clearly thinking she is about to win a strategic victory. “And what about that television you give that kid?”

“What about it?” I ask. I shift my legs, uncrossing one leg smoothly and into the cross with the other. My knees crack.

“Why did you give it to him?” She says, smiling through a squint with her lips all pursed, as if she knows something she clearly doesn’t. “Was it because you wanted to feel superior?”

“What? Superior? Whuhddya mean?”

“Okay,” she says, “you give this kid, whose family is all… like… totally poor, a television. Why? Was it to make him feel good or to make yourself feel good?” She indicates lines in the text with her forefinger as she leans forward accusingly.

I lean over to look at what she is pointing out. I sit back and slouch into my chair comfortably. I make sure she sees how comfortable I am. “Didn’t happen.”

“You say it,” she says, getting emphatic. “Right there.” She taps the manuscript. “You even say… right here…” She flips to the front page and sits up straight. As she reads she emphasizes her words with tight shakes of her head. “A semi-autobiographical account of the life of an artistic liar.” She squints at me from beneath her severe bangs “AUTObiographical.” She says

“Genius.” I say. “It also says SEMI and of a LIAR.” I exaggerate the shape of my mouth around the words. I feel as though they should not have let me exit the ninth grade.

She flushes. Slowly, she sits back in her chair, glances at the manuscript and flaps it onto the table. She turns away from me sharply and stares with some interest at something on the wall decidedly not me. “Still.” She says.

“Its about the Sammich.”

She crosses her arms. “Still.”