Time for our weekly coffee, I've been remiss, busy with projects and other distractions, it's time to catch up.
He comes in to the cafe, there's a single girl, young, early 20's at a table near to us, working on her computer. And on his way to pick up his coffee he stops to chat with her, she's on a Vista Machine, that's a fortunate coincidence as the government has been covertly infecting his PC with viruses and he needs a VISTA disc to reinstall his OS....maybe she has one?
She's pleasant, she nods, she does have her disc, does she mind running home so he can borrow it? No? Great....She's going to go in just a few minutes...
Now this is crazy. Walking into a cafe and asking a complete stranger if they have a spare OS kicking around that you can borrow. But maybe he's met his match.
She looks like a treeplanter. Fluorescent fake fur boots, torn coat, matted blond dreadlocks. We go outside for a cigarette, she comes along. She's sort of pretty in a youthful way, hard to tell, she's wearing layers of army clothes...and she keeps leaning over to spit, there's a puddle of saliva at her feet, not the forceful, manly sort of expectorate, but more like big gobs dribbled out by someone chewing tobacco. It's not attractive. He asks her about it, why she's spitting all the time, she says "It's my style...".
Now maybe there should be some flags, some clues that things aren't what they should be. When we go back in she disappears into the washroom, he's mentions her spitting, he thinks she's crazy....
Probably she is, but it's really not his place to be throwing stones...
He asks her again for the disc, she tells him in a while, she's waiting for a friend...
Now she's not waiting for a friend. Maybe she doesn't have the disc, maybe she thinks he's crazy, but she's not going to go get it for him. She's stalling, looking over at me and smiling, it's uncomfortable this, being in the middle of Crazy VS Crazy....
He offers her a ride, but she says she lives just around the corner, she's going to go in a few minutes...
We go out for another cigarette, our coffee, our conversation is done, I'm just hanging out now to see how this pans out, Crazy VS Crazy. She comes out and joins us, a pretty smile, perfect teeth stained with tea and tobacco, pieces of popcorn and cookie stuck all along the gums.
It's pretty fucked up. And still he wants his OS, and she's gonna go and get it, how long will we be here? And I gotta leave, it's nuts this, he's going to wait, she packs up her PC and leaves and anyone could tell that Crazy's won, but he's going to wait just to be sure. But when she's left and he's waiting he tells me, he doesn't know what's the matter with her, but he thinks she's crazy....