calla_2

What a day Friday was. It was warm, at least that, I hate cold weather. The wind comes through Philly sometimes like you wouldn’t believe. There’s a musician where I work, he has the nickname Mojo, he says how cold it used to get in Chicago from the wind. If they had more wind than Philadelphia then I don’t ever want to go to Chicago. But the weather was nice Friday, and for most of the day that was the only thing that was nice. I had a sociology test in the morning, at nine o’clock, so there was no time to look over my notes right before the test. I don’t think I failed it, but I’ll be surprised if I got better than a C. This is not an economics class, what were some of those questions doing on the test? Damn it, I need to keep my grades up.

So that was to start. No, to start was that the white shirt I was going to wear today had a stain on it. I like wearing white, but white clothes sure don’t last, and every time they get ruined it’s an unpleasant surprise. So to start, my shirt was ruined by surprise, then I had a sociology test by surprise, and later on I had a surprise lunch that must have disagreed with me, because I disagreed with it about a half hour later. This day was going faulty shoida than show, it wasn’t making any big promises.

Why does badness come in bunches? This is why people wind up superstitious, because a bunch of bad things happen and they start looking for the reason. I guess flat out crappy luck doesn’t seem like a good enough answer. That was the kind of luck I had on Friday. And did the bad luck even end with puking up my lunch? At three o’clock I went out to drive to work, and my car wouldn’t start. I went back up to get my roommate to come jump it off, thinking it might be a battery or something. She must have walked out the door right behind me, my footsteps weren’t even cool. So she was gone, and I tried some other girls on the hall, but nobody had jumper cables, and I didn’t have any either. After a half hour one of the girls got her boyfriend to come over, and he had some, so I got the car started. I still don’t know what made the battery run down.

Once I finally got to work things got a little better. My clothes didn’t matter, because we wear red T shirts at work, and when I first got there the Spanish cook who tells jokes started in telling me some jokes that were pretty funny, so I began my shift with a better mood. He’s a funny guy, Alejandro. He’ll get irritated with the other cooks and he’ll say, “Get off my nerves.” And this weekend Mojo was playing. I like talking to him. When they got to their break I went over to say hello for a minute between waiting on other tables, and to bring them an order, since the band like to have a beer on break too.

“That was wet,” I told him, but then I thought how stupid, what if he doesn’t know that slang?

But he said, “I’m glad you liked it,” so I figured he must have at least guessed that I was trying to give him a compliment. Then he said, “I feel like I’m in the groove tonight.”

“You are,” I said. “You the big dawg on that guitar.” And he was, you know, I mean I don’t know why he doesn’t make CDs, being able to play like that. I mean I don't really listen to that kind of music, I like more modern stuff, and the blues is kind of old fashioned. But still, you know, I could tell he was good on the guitar.

“How you doing?” he asked. “Don’t get to talk to you much.”

I wasn’t sure whether to give an honest answer, which people usually don’t answer a question like that honestly. So I thought of saying something like “fine” but then I told the truth. “This has not been my best day,” I said. “I had car trouble this afternoon, so I wondered if I’d be able to come to work. And I did bad on a test this morning. Working and going to school, it is the way it is.” I had started to forget how awful the day had been earlier. I didn’t even mention all of it, like the unlunch.

One thing I like about talking to Mojo is that he seems to take an interest in me personally, in who I am, like he remembered what I study, even if he doesn’t seem to understand it entirely. “You’re studying religion in school, aren’t you?” he said.

“It’s not exactly religion,” I said. “I’m anthropology, but I’m focusing on religion.”

“So yall must read the Bible in school,” he said. “Is that a problem?”

“Is what a problem?” I asked. I wasn’t quite sure where he was going then.

“Having religion in school.”

“We don’t exactly have religion in school,” I said. I thought he meant like praying and stuff, like at a football game. “We study it.”

“So you don’t read the Bible in school,” he said. I believe Mojo thought we were having Bible study groups in class.

“We read some of it,” I said, “but it’s more than that. We do all kinds of religions.” I was thinking about my eastern religions class. “Why would it be a problem?”

“The way people are nowadays.”

“It’s not a problem,” I said, but this talk made me think about my brother, so I said, “But I’ll tell you what is a problem. What’s a problem is that my brother wants to be a preacher.”

“I guess it’s a honest job,” he said.

Oh my God I thought what if he’s a preacher himself. “You’re not a preacher?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t about to say yes. But he wasn’t.

“Calla honey,” he said, “if I was a preacher I don’t believe I’d be playing in a blues club.”

Well of course. Preachers are always acting like God is taking care of everything. “Because preachers don’t get the blues,” I said.

“No, everybody gets the blues,” Mojo said. “That’s the same thing as living. I just never heard of a preacher being a bluesman. You don’t like your brother being a preacher?”

Obviously Mojo thought it was no problem to be a preacher, even if he wasn’t one. “I can’t believe it,” I said. “No, I don’t like it.” God, Derek as a preacher.

“But if that’s his calling,” Mojo said. But if my brother thinks somebody is calling him to be a preacher, maybe he should listen closer.

I enjoy talking to Mojo. For an older man he seems to have a lot of life and energy, which you sure can’t say that about all men when they get older. Or you can’t even say that about a couple of guys I know my age. And unlike most of the guys my age, Mojo acts like he cares what I say when I’m talking. We get a lot of musicians come through, but I don't talk much to most of them. I like talking to Mojo, maybe it reminds me a little bit of talking to my grandmother.

So work was OK Friday night. I liked the music, and the customers were nice. I talked for a minute to a couple of women who had sat up front. One of them just ordered a salad, said she wanted to eat healthier. I can sympathize with that, I watch what I eat too. I even bring my own tea bags of green tea to work, so that I can have it when I take a break. I think it’s good for your constitution. So she had a salad, but the other one ate like most people do at our restaurant, with barbeque, french fries, the normal stuff. But anyway, I remember them because this weekend was close to Easter, so when I waited on them I said something about the kids would be decorating Easter eggs soon. You get better tips if you’re a little friendly sometimes, not too much, but a little. But when I said that, the woman who ate barbeque asked me if I had ever seen Ukrainian Easter eggs. I said I didn’t know they were any different from regular Easter eggs, and she started to explain how they dye the eggs in different jars of dye, how they use wax, I don’t remember all the details, but it did sound sort of interesting. I forgot to ask her if she knew that eggs are actually an old pagan symbol of rebirth for the spring and had nothing to do with Christianity.

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