Transfer Fair

 Men and women were lined up at Penn Valley to snatch students away. Well, those of us who were interested or able. I was merely looking in. A girl once said to me, "you can talk to me over the wall." Gee, I thought, what an all-encompassing notion. I stooped over the stairs with my satchel, looking, looking down at all the heads stirring with elsewhere fantasies, the places they'd rather be, where they'd like to be, and intermittently pushing bottons on their cellphones, eletric shavers.
 I began my usual count, starting with a fidgety woman in the first row, standing anxious at her booth, moving from side to side with her hands behind her back. Her eyes were aglow with escapism. Three -then over the entire row of stirring wistful heads - four, seven, five, eight, nine, six, and so on. My eyes moved over to one booth in particular. The woman occupying that area was staring into space and twiddling her thumbs. She was prim, her eyes glazed with annoyance, and she was twiddling her thumbs. Ah-hah, one. She was trying to fight off a white whelp, his pants hanging too low for acceptable appearances, using a blackman's cant by way of inadvertent identity crisis, indulging his own barrage of empty flirtation with her. She was accustomed to this and judging by the goings-on, she had become quite adept at rejection uttering, "Yeah, that's great - can I help you with something?"
 Who could blame him? She was very attractive and very uninterested. "I'm finishin' my business classes, yo." She payed him no heed, dodging overtures with intervals of response, but her eyes rolled over the things she wanted, the things not at Penn Valley. I diverted my attention to another booth. A tall fellow rapped up in black pinstripes and a half windsor stood very serious, very poised, and very direct, and materially sound. Ah-hah, eight. He wore dark, possessive colors, his hair shimmering with product, and his wrists bejeweled with weighty nonsensical adornment.
  I clutched my satchel a little tighter and cantered over to the man. I smiled modestly, showing no teeth. He smiled back, showing all of his purly whites'. I could see cigarette smoke and coffee stains in them. He was going to introduce his purpose to me, "Hello, can I" - I trudged over to the cafeteria instead. They have Subway. Sandwiches, perfect, so they must have coffee or tea. I was weary of all the flummery. The employees were gabbing about Superbowl Sunday, the one I missed. The student/customers sighed trying desperately to remain comported, conciliatory, and quiet. It was the usual number, the usual dance of dunces. The boys were trading boy stories. The male smoke screed consisted of what team members they thought were the real McCoy's, who should do what and how, replacing sound strategy with their own masturbatory sportsmanship, projecting the penis, and bickering about years of establishment that gets along fine without them. I felt surly and chaustic. My satchel impinged upon the cashier's station. "Excuse me! Is there a way to get coffee or tea?" I looked at all the saddened faces behind me, which were trying to smile, and put myself in check. "I - I just want some coffee."
  Thereafter I trudged away with my coffee with cream and sugar. I made my way back to the fellow who smacked of eight vibrations. I corrected my erstwhile stab at social niceties with a bigger, better corrected smile. "Hello, and how're you," he said. "Fine, thank you," I shook his hand, one and two. "What's up," he said. "Ohhh, math class with a one miss Rogers."  Miss Rogers was an admirable, able, and hardworking woman, but to be true to my feelings and thoughts, I didn't want to see the bucked-toothed pedagogue, blathering about negative infinite juxtoposed to positive infinite, taking brackets away accordingly, on a board for a school, that in the decision to cut back costs, would no longer provision dry erasers. I wasn't going to clutter up my realism with emotion, but so it goes. "How can I help you," said the eight fellow. "Can I help you?" Hmmmm. "Yes, yes you can. Which way to the East Coast?"