So Much Can Be Said Without Actually Saying Anything At All

--or--

Goddammit I Love My Job


Tonight at 315am a girl and guy walk in. She looks pretty young, and her face is broken out in what looks like acne. He's older. I figure she's his daughter. She asks,
-When's breakfast?

-I usually have it open at about five.

-Can you give me a ring when it's open?

-At five? Two hours from now? Are you sure?

She says,
-Honey, I just got off of work. This is my day. Five in the morning is good for me.

I realize that she's not his daughter.
-Yeah, sure, five it is.

On the counter is a case with candy in it, one of those charity deals, twenty-five cents for a tootsie-roll. She asks,
-If I put a dollar in here, can I get four tootsie-rolls?

-Yeah.

The guy asks,
-Hell of a price for a tootsie-roll, ain't it?

I say,
-It's for the kid.
I point to the picture of the girl on the front of the case.

-If it actually goes to the kid, sure.

-Where else would it go?

-The mafia does this sort of thing a lot.

-I think maybe you've seen My Blue Heaven one too many times.

-No, I know what I'm talking about.

I look at his girl.
-That's good. You probably also know that you just don't know what a person's last name is. If you know that, then you know that not every Italian comes from Sicily. And you would know that about an hour's drive north of Milan is a little village called Lecco. And everybody in Lecco has blonde hair and blue eyes. Quite a lot of the people north of the Po river are blonde. But then you knew that.

I smile at him.

They go back to their room. I go back to my office.