Charles

I can't get back to reading. I've tried but now I've done gone and got distracted. What'cha thinkin' bout Nate?
I'll tell you.
I just had my first significant English conversation. Sitting, reading a chapter from I, Lucifer in a Mister Donut, a fellow approaches my table. The man is Nigerian looking, slender, not much taller than a 14 year old and is wearing an orange polo, not fitting quiet right because it's stretched out about the neck. He introduces himself, telling me that he was on the bottom floor outside when he looked up at the glassed in upstairs and saw me reading. He said he felt compelled to speak with me. Ok, sure.
'Have a seat'.
We shake hands and the man seems pleasant. He gives me his name, Charles, and tells me he's a "world traveler". At this point, he hasn't yet quit the handshake and when he turns my wrist over to ask me where I got my watch and if it was important to me, I realize trouble's just pulled up a chair.
I set my book down, so as not to be rude, and the man has dropped my hand to pick it up. No invitation just turning it over a few times. He marvelled at the book as if he were surprised to see written pages fastened together so cleanly, and with a glossy cover to boot.
'What's it about?' Charles asked.
'Uh, the Devil gets a second chance on Earth.'
'Oh, are you religious?'
Stop right there. I think I've figured it out. Charles must be some scared-if-you're-different, tongue-speaking, "Extremist for Jesus" that saw my book with Satan on the cover from down in the street and thought it a perfect cry for help: a lost boy just achin' for a savin'.
'No, I don't subscribe to any one thing. I think that there is something that runs beyond us and....'
He interrupts, 'Have you ever heard of the "Power of the Invisibles"?'
Honest Abe, the 'Power of the Invisibles'. I figured he was a little loose but now I'm sure he hoped on the crazy train and blew right past Certified and Bat-Shit a long time ago.
I say 'no', thinking that he'll continue but he quickly gives the subject up to talk about his marriage, his girlfriends, his time in Japan, American media, and his "world traveling" which included 36 (unnamed) countries. After 34 minutes, yeah I was counting, I notice: the man's spittle collecting at the side of his mouth, the readiness and frequency with which he adjusts himself in the chair and changes topics, a seeming inability to blink and an incessant chewing of his upper lip. After listening to Charles' not-so-detailed account of the Amazon which he saw on vacation... in New Zealand, I get it.
Charles is tripping balls. Hours earlier in the rising high of a drugged-out euphoria, he must have been window shopping for one thing alone: a fixation point. Perhaps after a long tour of the neon lit, pulsing, slot arcade; eyes dilated and full of wonder, Charles stopped in front of a Mister Donut. And there on the second floor, perfectly wrapped in solitude behind glass, he found a bargain.
Credit where it's due, I stuck it out. Frequent sips at my cup of tea allowed me to break out of his acid glossed, take-it-all-in, Medusa stare and with only vague, half-answers on my part, he grew weary. He wrote his number out on a piece of paper ('No, really. I'll call you.') and headed back downstairs. Back to hunt down another courteous Westerner or focal point for his last few hours on the magic journey, which is a shame because I know the Japanese have gotten Pan's Labyrinth: that would be a trip.