Several months ago I witnessed one of the most memorable arguments I have ever seen or heard throughout my life. It took place in the middle of a relatively upper-class Mediterranean restaurant where I was eating with my girlfriend on a rainy Valentine’s day. The conversation between a balding man and his Vietnamese wife sitting in the corner of the joint gradually erupted into explosive shouting and insults. The interesting thing was that they seemed perfectly fine and happy together when they walked in, but after several minutes of looking at the menus the shouting began. I could hear the voice of the woman slightly escalating with a whiny twinge, while words like “why are you always…” and “this is why we can never...” were flying around in the mix of a hushed down angry whisper. Unaware of what was about to happen, assuming the argument was never really going to take off, my attention went back to the yellow rice and fish sitting in front of me, as well as my girlfriend's voice I could hear somewhere in the background (she was a real fucking bore. Why I was spending that night with her instead of getting high and watching TV, single and happy about it, is still a real mystery to me). From what I can recall our conversation at the time went a little something like this:
“What would you do if I slept with someone else?” she says, trying indirectly to get me to say how much she meant to me.
“Well… I'd hit you over the head with a shovel and bury you somewhere in Western Australia”, I said with slight humorous attempt and general lack of interest.
“No, but what would you really do?”
“Probably just stab you to death. I don't even have my P-plates yet.”
“Am I ever going to get a straight answer from you? Ever?” She asks.
“Fuck, is that Tom Waits?” now focusing on the music coming through the stereo.
This is how most conversations between her and I were conducted. Stupid questions, lack of interest, stupid questions, etc. etc.
So the argument that happened that night in the restaurant was an absolute life saver, if it was ever possible to die of severe boredom. At this time I was especially not paying attention to what my girlfriend was saying, and she wasn't dumb enough for this to go unnoticed. However, my excuse was that I was a little hazy from the sleeping pills I took the night before that give me strange nightmares, and this is what I told her. It was all entirely true and I had a free pass for inattentiveness for the rest of the night. What I didn't tell her though, was that I was taking the pills for inspiration; I was writing a short story horror collection that had a chance of being published by a friend of a friend, and the deadline was just around the corner. First time I swallowed these pills I took twice as much as I should have, didn't get to sleep until 4am, then woke up at 2.30 in the afternoon screaming like a goddamn banshee. It was a strange drug, or perhaps just a strange reaction on my part. At least they were good for something, but really, my waking life in the past week had been like a preview of the afterlife. Barely felt like I existed at all. Funny thing is, I was still tired as hell. Got my prescription changed a few weeks later.
I was stabbing at my fish with a fork continuing to think about my state of mind when the balding man stood up and started yelling in the corner of the restaurant. “Hey! I got an idea!” he screams. The whole restaurant jumps up and turns around at this. “Why don't you wipe your cunt with a fucking tissue and come back when you feel better? You and your temper you bitch, you and your fucking period, can't fucking stand it, can't stand you, you cunt!” He goes on like this for a while and storms out after being confronted by a waiter. Hilariously, the Vietnamese woman stays and orders a full course dinner banquet and a bottle of wine, with little to no change in her body language or facial expression. “What a prick!” my girlfriend says, referring to the man who left, and to this I can agree. The woman though, to me, appeared elegant and graceful. She changes something in the air and the way I feel about where I'm sitting, and what I'm doing there. After several minutes of contemplation, I stand up and grab my jacket.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” she asks.
“What am I doing? I'm going home to die in my sleep, I'm so fucking exhausted. Have you even glanced at me today? The bags under my eyes are so deep you could go grocery shopping with them. My face is so pale I can almost communicate with the dead. I had a heart attack looking at myself in the mirror before!”
She pauses and looks back at me with a confused look.
“…No movie??”
“No movie. I've already seen The Wrestler.”
“You know what this means, right? I mean, it’s Valentine ’s Day…”
“Yeah I know what it means.” And I leave. In retrospect, that was one of the most heartfelt conversations I ever had with her.
Wish I had the courage to thank the Vietnamese woman that night. She gave me more inspiration than those pills ever will. It’ s good to be free and we know it like nothing else. Me and her. Fucking carnival of freedom.
