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Smoke Break Conversation
I'm out back with the test engineer.
We light up and he tells me
he's getting married again.
He's almost forty.
He's got a couple kids from
a crazy ex-wife, and
he's knocked up a Filipino girl.
He's happy about the marriage,
infatuated with the girl.
Her parents are happy, too.
She's Catholic. I ask
what religion he is.
It's confusing, but
he's a Catholic-Atheist-Muslim.
"Oh," I say, "so you kneel
towards Mecca but
you don't know why."
He laughs.
He talks about his ex
and how he ended up with her.
As I field strip my cigarette
and throw the butt in the garbage
he tells me, "That's a good one.
I'm a Catholic-Atheist;
I genuflect then
don't believe I just did that!
I'm going to use that."
We go back inside.
He was married
by a justice of the piece
a few days later.
Written: May 12, 2001
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