NunBun Redux
(Postscript: Almost a year later, I’ve just realized nobody knows what the hell I’m talking about here. Worse yet, I’ve forgotten bits and pieces. All you need to know is that the world-famous cinnamon bun resembling Mother Teresa was stolen 12/25/05 when an intruder broke into a Nashville coffeehouse, leaving the cash register and all other valuables intact…save for the shellac-laden bun. Two months later, Bongo Java scheduled a campy tribute to the cinnamon bun in the theater upstairs from the dining area. The public was invited to bring poetry, art, or music to the event. The roast was to feature an independent film, made nine years earlier, about the legacy of the controversial cinnamon bun. No, I didn’t read my poem. As you will probably agree, it wouldn’t have quite fit in.)
***
Oh, what I go through to finish this damned book. The moment I’ve been waiting for arrived last night — a tribute to the most famous thing ever to come out my “office”. I figured with a corps of Bongo employees converged in the same room, many of whom are the muses inspiring my characters, I’d get more work done in one sitting than I usually do in a week of innocent observations from my vantage point on the ground floor.
I hoped there’d be more of a joint presentation in which all the old-timers would take turns onstage, some performing (only one patron took Bongo Java up on the invitation to create songs and poetry for the event), and plenty of time to watch closely and take notes. As it happened, it was just Muse 202 playing the Nun Bun film plus video clips of the press coverage, sitting onstage and waving his jaw to ’60s soul ballads. Muse 112 was in the back of the room doing something technical and hard to see in the dim light, and 119 traipsed in late. I knew the evening with the Spice Nun would be a tad cheesy. What started out as a tiptoe through the Cheddar morphed into a Woodstock mudslide through the Cheez Wiz. But all was good. We were relaxed, we were sitting still, and I wasn’t in the midst of digesting a bagel.
Onscreen, I captured another glimpse of Muses 182, 106, 181, and 200, who are gone now, quickly jotting down whatever minutiae I could as the film zipped through. (I have cuter names for them all, but during the notetaking stage, it helps to be a bit more clinical.) Muses 186 and 119 as I remembered them during my college days. Oh, how time flies. The old glasses, the old hats. Sweaters I didn’t remember. Seconds to scribble it on paper. Obviously, I couldn’t whisper commentary on the Walkman this time. If only I’d known I’d one day need my ”mental jpgs” for posterity, I would have come here more often in my years as a Hillsboro Villager. If only I’d known, I’d never have eaten in the back or upstairs. If only I’d known, I wouldn’t have whipped myself into a frenzy to capture moments in time I shouldn’t have lost in the first place. If only I’d known. If only.
Apparently they’d been expecting only a dozen people, because that’s how many seats they set out and that’s about how many showed. The only problem was that I couldn’t turn around to observe 112 without being obvious, so I decided to sit out front and pretend to occasionally be distracted by something behind me. The routine went like this: Observe TV (or Muse 202). Feign distraction. Look backward quickly. Make mental note. Jot down. Repeat.
The golden moment arrived. Muse 202 asked 119 a question, so I quickly relaxed and turned around, quickly shifting my gaze from 119 to 112 and back again. The problem was that it’s hard to observe mannerisms, body language and facial expressions when a subject is snuggling with a chick and her head is blocking your view. I resorted to telepathy. Move, chick, move. A little to the left. No, I need to see the whole head. No — no. Hold off the huddling for 60 more seconds. Can I see a bit of his arm? WaitWaitWait…Come on, pretty please…MoveMoveMoveMove GANGWAY! HAUL HEAD! MOVE, CHICK, MOVE! Just a little to the left would be most kind of you, madam…
The mysteries of the unknown came through for me. Chick got up and left, instinctively knowing she was putting out for the future of literature. (A few minutes later, she willed Muse 119 out the door with her, leaving me only with 112, 202, and a Groundhog Day of memories of the muses who got away. May the NunBun thief burn in hell — or gehinnom, or a less-than-satisfying transmigration, or the closest Jewish equivalent thereof — for putting me in touch with my Inner Neurotic New Yorker last night.
