Is a two-part one-shot called a two-shot? Well, even if it isn't (and I really hope it isn't), this is one! Or two. Or something. Written on the bus home from NYC yesterday. First part is two years pre-RENT, second part will be a year after RENT. Just a little thing I whipped up, a lot like my other stuff. Except...a hell of a lot shorter.
Not dedicated to anyone. How do you like THEM apples? Ha! Ooh, I've got it! Dedicated to my first reviewer!
"The human eye can recognize more shades in the green spectrum than any other color," he said softly. I barely looked up from tuning my baby, not really all that interested. G was still a little sharp, I could hear. "Uh huh. So?" Just a little more to the left...
"I learned that in the first year of anatomy/physiology," he continued, undeterred by my lack of enthusiasm. "It's because green occurs so much in nature, our eyes can actually pick up a lot more shades of it. But I never figured out—well, maybe I would have if I'd stayed in school," he admitted ruefully, "whether it's something we learn to recognize, or something bred into us. Because you can't take a baby and ask them how much green they can see, you know? You can't test it until they've already learned the words, and by then they've also learned their colors."
I had shrugged. "I guess." He was talking about green? That was something only he'd do. I moved on to my E string, thinking he'd run out eventually.
"There's a guy who works at the Duane Reade in Times Square who's never been out of Manhattan." He was still talking. Usually he'd stopped by then, gone back to flipping god-only-knows what switches on his camera, but not this time. "You think he can see as much green as I can, or as you can?"
"There's green in Central Park." I looked up at him, grinning like an ass, but I had misjudged his mood. He wasn't coming up with this off the top of his head, he'd been thinking this through, waiting to tell me. From the crushed and frustrated look on his face, I guessed that the 'green stuff' speech had been leading up to something. "Mark," I tried to say, but he'd already started shaking his head in that repressed way of his. "It wasn't important," he muttered, clutching that goddamned camera to his chest and escaping into the other room. I swore, one of those days I was going to hurl that thing through the fucking window.
But not that day, not right then. Mark had already made his escape, dashing into his room and ignoring everything I tried to say. I shrugged, not really all that concerned. The Hungarians and I had a gig that night, and I didn't feel like getting distracted. Besides, I really needed a hit.