A few words on someone who deserves to be seen.

To the 25-year-old contractor who paints buildings:

This is probably just some temp job for you. Maybe it’s the only trade you ever learned to do. I saw you down at the loading dock, your silhouette in the doorframe, standing outside in the rain. Your damp, shoulder-length brown hair began to curl. You pulled out a cigarette, might have been Camel blue, and reached for your lighter, but stopped because you saw me watching. I think that made you nervous, or perhaps embarrassed, so you moved out of my line of vision the way a dog runs under the couch after it’s scolded.

You didn’t say much until the contracted work was at its end. By then, you were giving me full smiles when I held doors for you, and nods of greeting subtle enough to have been imagined.

From what I saw, you only have two teeth. I wonder how you lost them… Too much soda in high school? A fight? Those Camels you try to hide? No matter. I get the feeling it is inconsequential to you. You are likely not from the same crop of people who get their way just by looking nice. No, you’ve had to work for every little shoelace and gallon of gasoline you’ve afforded. Appearances are as menial to you as luxury trips to Santorini or terrace-at-sunset mojitos on the cape. Survival is all.