white castle

in a cab tonight, late, coming home from a bar, monsoon's on the way, raindrops already, i get in a cab cause who wants to walk these dogs are tired and my gut is distended and i got to pretend it's a little earlier than it is and the cab driver has a blue tooth on, you know, one of those ear holsters so he can talk all the time day and night nonstop til you drop and it blinks a bright blue blink blue blink and he's talking a language i've never heard. i don't think i've ever heard it. and because i don't recognize it i listen even harder to make sure and then i'm sure it's foreign. and he says something into the blink blink and then he laughs a kind of chortle heft that pops and at the same time he's eating french fries, chopping them with his teeth, i see the pasty white insides, and it's not mcdonalds i know that because when i got in the cab i said, it smells like mcdonalds in here and he said, no white castle, but it's the same smell you can't miss it. and the laugh makes him puff out his cheeks just a little even though he's roundfaced and they're already a little puffed and i feel like i've stolen a glimpse of something tender and warm and maybe he's talking to someone in another neighborhood. maybe it's his wife. or maybe it's his younger brother in another country and they're telling jokes. i have no idea because i don't know what language they're talking but the pop-laugh is so terrific and robust and honest that i i have to write about it, have to note it, acknowledge how much i love little moments when you accidentally come upon someone else's gesture or grin that wasn't intended for you and is unself-conscious, organic—you bump into something profoundly intimate and loving. that kind of moment makes me want to live.

he was speaking nigerian he told me and i told him i was embarrassed by my ignorance that i ddin't even know that was a language and he said i shouldn't be embarrassed because at least i asked and that's not ignorant and that made me gladder still.