Civility Has Its Limits

He stood up. All six lanky plus feet of him.

“Would anyone like a drink?” he slurred, three sheets to the wind and sailing off into his own personal oblivion.

The chat and hubbub of the rest of us swallowed his words whole. I was close enough to hear, though, I said yes, please. Somehow the altitude affected his hearing, or his ignorance did, something. He wasn’t looking at me. He had spent the whole night pretending I occupied a vacuum.

He asked again, and still nobody responded. Other than me, I responded again. Yes, please. He waved his hands, trying to gain the attention of the others seated around the table. Radiohead blared out of the speakers behind his head. I fixed him with my stare.

“YES!”

He turned his attention on me, the vacuum dissipated.

“VODKA AND COKE!”

“Oh,” he said, the words inching from his mouth like a glacier, “it’s like that, is it?”

“What?” I said. “What?” Exasperation building, confusion mixed in as well.

He turned away.

“Rachel, would you like something to drink?” His body, his voice, his whole being unctuous like Fagin, making some ridiculous point about how I was the one being rude.

“Vodka and tonic, please, Jim,” she said, sweet girl that she is.

He looked back at me.

“That’s more like it,” he said.

Three days of niggling, three days of clinging to civility, finally came to a head.

“I asked you nicely twice already, and you ignored me. I only shouted so that you could hear me,” I said above the misery of Thom Yorke.

He waved a hand dismissively in my direction, and continued asking around the table, who would like a drink, who would like a drink, would you like a drink, so very politely.

“Forget it, then,” I said. “Just forget it.”

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” said his idiot friend, laughing and clapping his hands.

Fight, fight, fight. Somehow it had become a fight. Still, I managed to turn away and pretend he hadn’t spoken.

Conversation turned back to work, and life, and what do you really want out of it all? He returned from the bar. A drink was put on the table in front of me. He sat back down next to me. The drink, unacknowledged and untouched, sat on.

© J R Hargreaves 2006