The Queue

My piercing bladder informs me I have, at most, fifteen minutes. I am
in a line, I’ve been here for nearly an hour, making my way ever so
excruciatingly slowly to the counter. Everyone, the clerk, me, the
other patrons, we are all annoyed. Most of us try hard not to take it
out on one another. The middle aged white man in front of me, the one
who has been huffing and puffing for the last fifteen minutes, he is
not so kind. He has started to, what I call, “broadcast monologue.” My
mother used to do it when she cleaned up after my father and us around
the house. It is a kind of general rant directed at no one in
particular, but is conducted for everyone’s benefit indirectly. Very
passive aggressive. At first I thought that only the lady in front of
this man and myself behind were the only ones who could hear. But I
detect from the stiffening spines of those further ahead in line that
this is not the case. Others too are absorbing the spewed negativity.

Now he has started to look for support, he’s trying to build some kind
of a consensus. – Yes. It seems others are nodding as he monologues. I
feel sheepish when he turns to ask me some inane rhetorical question.
I wonder why my head is nodding as he arrogantly cajoles my assent.
What power has gripped my nerves and muscles and bones?

Why am I smiling at him?

We inch up in line, and I am informed by the bursting balloon in my
gut that I must soon find a bathroom, and quickly. Now the clerk can
hear the bitter man. He is offensive; she is offended. His degenerate
metamorphosis into an impatient eight year-old is completed.
It is so hot, and we are all soaked in our own perspiration.

It is exactly one minute until noon. As the man in front of me makes
it up to the window, the clock ticks. The clerk looks him up and down
as he is unloading negativity like a storm cloud discharging
electricity. She locks eyes with this man stands up and lifts her arm-
and all at once I can see and agree that he deserves to be smacked for
being both immature and obnoxious. Right at the moment that the swing
comes, a window is quickly, but elegantly, lowered over the counter
and snapped into place. A stock message saying something about county
offices closing each day for a one hour lunch break fades into the
background.

I cannot hear the angry man’s irate response – I am fleeing out of the
line and into the hallway desperately hoping I can remember where I
saw the rest-room and whispering silent prayers to God that it be
unoccupied.

-Salvatore Labaro