What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [10]
That was when he noticed the weirdo staring at him. The man was, as Liam’s Irish grandma would have said, “a wee bit husky” – not all the way fat, but definitely well-endowed in the man-breast department. He was also short, and had a largish nose and brilliantly-hued, electric blue hair, which he wore in a severe bowl cut, making him look kind of like a Smurfy Beatle.
Maybe, thought Liam, the guy recognized him from television. That was probably it. He’d been on the news a bunch lately. It was completely random, but then it just kept happening. It would start raining blood or a bunch of frogs would come out of nowhere, and television crews would show up, see him, and suddenly he’d be on camera, giving his account of whatever weird shit had gone down. He didn’t particularly care about being on TV, and he certainly didn’t know any more about the frogs and locusts than anyone else. He just seemed to have a knack for being around whenever weird stuff happened. So that was probably why the dude was looking at him.
Liam caught himself staring at the guy’s haircut, and looked away quickly. He glanced here and there, trying to act naturally as he fixed his gaze on a series of random spots in the coffee shop. When he looked back, Ringo Smurf was still staring. And then the man winked.
This sent Liam into a bit of a panic. Like most straight guys, he professed to being cool with homosexuality. In fact, he was generally able to resist the typical hetero male urge to offer an unsolicited clarification of the fact that he would never, ever, under any circumstances, touch another man’s penis – or that, if such an extraordinary thing were to happen, he wouldn’t enjoy it. But here? Now? With this blue-haired weirdo actually making eyes at him? Liam lost his cool.
Weren’t gay guys usually pretty good at figuring out whether other guys were gay? And weren’t they usually pretty weight conscious? He tried to avoid the gaze of the world’s only non-manorexic homosexual with broken gaydar by looking around immediately for a chick to ogle conspicuously. But all of the hot coeds seemed to have disappeared to that alternate dimension where keys and matching socks get off to, and all Liam saw were two grandmas and what looked like a dugong in a floral dress. It was no use. He was stuck, and ended up giving the guy kind of a half-smile, half-constipated look.
Of course, all of this took place in a matter of just a few seconds, but, as Einstein proved, time is relative, varying inversely with the awkwardness or uncomfortableness of a particular social situation. For Liam, time had slowed almost to a dead stop.
Fortunately, time hadn’t actually stopped, and it was finally his turn to order. He turned to address the barista – Mr. Dao Tiêntri Duong – the craggy, weather-beaten Vietnamese proprietor of Holy Land Coffee, who looked as if he should be off guarding the ancient secrets of the Wu Lan Mountain, and whose sparkly, black eyes barely peered over the counter.
“I’d like,” Liam started, but before he could finish, he realized that he was already holding a hot beverage.
The tiny barista had already swiped Liam’s credit card and was completing the sale. “Freeoooww!” he said.
Mr. Duong often did weird shit like this. The soundtrack was a new addition, however.
“What’s with the sound