His face is lit up like the sun

He’s alone in the lobby of the Chinese joint on the corner. He kicks a plastic ball — the big, colorful kind you buy at the dollar store for fifty cents — against the wall, and he focuses intently as it travels back to him. He pauses as I walk in, and resumes as soon as I’m safely at the counter. The woman who took my order when I used to come here every weekend finishes shoving sodas in the big refrigerator, and turns to a face she doesn’t remember. She’s aged more than a year in the past year. She looks tired and worried. Her small breasts jut frantically beneath the stained white t-shirt that shields her slender frame. She looks as if she hasn’t known happiness for a very long time.

I order a quart of white rice. The worried woman spins around and shouts something to the guys working in the back. I turn to the boy in the lobby. His jet black hair is spiked, and his clothes are dirty. I look at him. He looks at me. I nod at the ball and open my hands. An ember sparks in his eyes. He tosses the ball to me…

And the game is on.

I pass the ball back to him. We begin to kick it back and forth. He kicks it in the air, and I catch it on the inside of my foot and send it (almost) back to him. He looks pleased. He kicks it on the ground, and I pick it up with my toe, bounce it in the air a few times, and gently punt it against the window behind him. He struggles to hide a smile. He kicks it high, and I head it back to his surprised arms. His resistance finally fails, and his grin shines with the radiance of joy. His face is lit up like the sun. His smile is enormous.

And so is mine.

Two women walk to the front door just as my rice arrives. The woman behind the register says something quiet and sharp to the boy; his face falls and he sits down with the ball on his lap. My wallet and a ten dollar bill sit, forgotten, at the counter. The two women decide it’s safe, and they walk inside. I apologize to the cashier, and I tell her it was my fault that he was playing. I don’t think she understands me, but she smiles and nods. I pay for my rice.

I turn from the woman who bears the weight of a shitty restaurant in a shitty part of town, and I face the boy who bears the same weight. I smile at him and tell him good night. He smiles shyly and stares at the big blue ball in his lap. He seems ashamed for freeing his happiness for a few moments. I know how he feels. He doesn’t speak, and I walk out the door.

When I arrived here tonight, a whore was sitting behind the bus stop, training a strung out young man about the finer points of selling incense sticks from a tattered cardboard box. She’s gone now, but the man diligently sits with the incense. I walk toward him.

“Bye.”

I look behind me. The boy stands outside the glass door of the restaurant, the marbled blue ball tucked safely beneath his left arm. He waves at me and smiles. I wave back and tell him good-bye.

My face is lit up like the sun.

Credit: Chuck @ The Way of Chuck