i am a waitress by day. at a vegan restaurant. les vivres. the lives. kitchen so clean you can eat off the floor. and that is what we are doing. night shift is over. and we are all bended over bowls of rice and beans and sweet curry sauce made from blueberries that grow in the greenhouse out back. its me, in my white cotton slip that the hare krishnas gave me when i left their compound. and a black tshirt with a silver spider web on it that some rainbow boy gave me cause his mama didnt like it. beside me is the algerian boy with almond eyes and cruel hair. and on the other side of me is the blond french boy who i slept with a week before. he said he wanted to kiss a black girl to see if it felt different. i threw up a lil bit in my mouth and then let him kiss me. whatever. an orgasm and a free bed for the night isnt the worst thing. plus he is married to a dutch girl with grey eyes and grey veins, who hates his sexual liberation and just wants a townhouse on the hill and two sweet blond grey babies. it was sunday night. and the place had been packed. the kids from the quebec rainbow gathering had flooded the city, masking tape on their pants and glass beads in their matted hair. so we had hustled all night long. cause its not closing time until all the weed is gone. a couple of the rainbow boys are staying the night in the back of the kitchen. their dog is doped and mangy snoring in the corner. im counting up my change. trying to figure out how im going to find a place to call my own making 60-80 dollars a week.
my feet hurt. id rather wait tables barefoot. but its against code. so is smoking weed in the kitchen or keeping a dog behind the counter. but we can make allowances for necessities. the only shoes i own are a pair of black two inch velvet heels with mary jane straps and pointed toes. i work those shoes.
–nice shoes, one of the rainbow boys says. he is wearing a blue shirt with sparkles and a rainbow bracelet in his hair.
–thanks. i say. the night is young. and i feel like going dancing all of a sudden.
i stand up to wash my dish and stack it in the drying tray.
–want me to get yours? i ask him. reaching my hand to his empty bowl.
–thanks.
the air is cloudy. there has to be a festival somewhere in the city. and the rainbow boys have a mystery van parked out back.
Mai’a Williams
Mai’a Williams is a visionary and media maker. She has lived and worked in the Middle East, southern Mexico and east Africa with refugee and displaced women under the threat of violence, also she has organized and accompanied communities and persons within the US/Canadian urban landscape, engaging in issues including: race, working poor, sex work, prisons, drug addiction, police brutality, and queer rights. Living in Cairo, Egypt, she is a freelance writer, poet, journalist, zinester, photographer, multi-media performer, and outlaw midwife.
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