First time I saw one of those awful blue tooth ear devices was about three years ago. This guy, though, technology had bitten him in his scrawny, red, Irish ass.
He sat at the end of that polished bar right off 4th Street in a gray, button-up-the-front shirt with pink flowers and cream color slacks with woven basket sandals. And he had this bald shaved head that shone a light pink color because he’d forgotten to cover it in the sun. So it got burned up. I could even see it peeling under the low light.
None of it seemed to bother him as he rambled on the phone with his hook nose and beady eyes. He swilled this giant goblet of white wine. He sniffed the crap and then swirled it around his mouth. Then he slapped his lips like he was some freaking expert. What a tool.
I could over hear brief snip-its of what he said. “Yes…John-Paul…we inked the deal today. Yep…$1.1 million sale with a 6% commission for us.” Then he barked out this high-pitched laugh that sounded like a hyena caught in a lions mouth. All the while he stared off into the mirror behind the bar, and this blue light beeped on his ear.
I’d never seen anything like it, and my first thought was he was some redneck version of Lo-Bot from the Empire Strikes Back. Then I thought he was crazy and talking to himself, but I saw his rectangular black phone strapped to his thick, black, leather belt with the same blue pulse.
That’s some damn phone device, I thought.
Before I could ask him about it some blonde with a tight white dress and big boobs bounded up and kissed him. She looked like she could tear him apart, and she grabbed his hand. They started to leave out the front door as she tottered on her red spike heels. Apparently she’d had a bit to drink.
Then it got weird––that's not the right word for it––it became surreal.
Blue tooth guy started screaming. "My hip is burning. My hip is burning."
And it was. I saw this smoking coming from that giant cell phone. Pretty soon his pants started to smoke. I imagined they were highly flammable. Some guy ran in from the back room with a fire extinguisher, and he sprayed him off, phone and all.
Then a guy from somewhere in the bar came and said, "Let's go." And they went without the woman. And she didn't seem to care. She started hitting on another dude at the bar. I supposed they went to the hospital, and she lost interest.
Things settled down. "And the band played on," as they say.
I saw the bar tender with a wan smile on his face as he started to clean up the guy's glass and napkins. He saw me watching him. "Everyone knows those Samsung phones will burn up on you, but I guess he didn't get the memo. Too busy making deals."