Hook

"I'm going to start a pineapple farm."

Like a giant, rabid moth beating it's powdered wings frantically against his apple-shiny cheeks, the makeup girl made no discernible acknowledgment of his comment. He was but simulacrum seated before her, one of many light-bulbs against which she could bash her talcum talents into exhaustion. Certainly her metal had been honed by richer, more idolized figures. Her disinterest interested him. He swallowed a lump in his throat that was his pride.

He had the intense urge to say something outrageous just to get a reaction — like, "Your mother mentioned something in bed last night..." Her stoic gaze and carefully metered patting was almost animatronic. She didn't even apologize after slapping her dust-bunny into his open eye when he had flinched at a sweat bee sting. After all, he was the one who jerked. He was the jerk.

A man in tight shimmering pants strode past carrying a xylophone mounted to a harness. A very disenchanted llama followed behind him, which of course evoked the question: Who was that harness was for? Did the llama play xylophone? Did it dance as the man in shiny pants played? What was the hook?

Sitting in the make-up chair, his hook was obvious, as it was a foot long 7/8th inch tapered piece of curled chromoly jutting from his right wrist. The hook itself was not the hook, however. That proxy had held his hand's place for nearly 22 years. The reason CBS executives thought people would want to see him on television was entirely unrelated.

The audience wouldn't want to hear about when he was twelve and the boat carrying 40 cuban refugees, himself among them, had broken apart 25 miles off the Florida coast. His mother had drown along with 28 others.

The crowd didn't care about his daughter's courageous fight against Melanoma, surviving numerous rounds of chemotherapy and skin grafts, never allowing her fear to surmount her will. She was at home in bed, dreaming.

All those people watching had no interest in his struggles, inspirations, affirmations, insights — in him as a human. He was a grinder monkey, a nameless automaton with a flawed nasal canal that allowed him to whistle through his ears. He would close his eyes and blow, people would clap, and he would slink back off into obscurity.

Suddenly overwhelmed, a tear ran down his cheek. Which, consequently, finally got the make-up girl to acknowledge him, and in her startling husky voice, she said, "Shit."