In An Odd Restaurant

When we walked into the restaurant, there was almost nobody there -- only a few people scattered around the room and no one in line to order. (This was the kind of restaurant where you order first and then sit down.) As we were waiting to pay, two men got into line behind us. The first man stood barely an inch from my left shoulder.

Now it's not like I have a very particular sense of personal space. But whatever kind of space I've got around me, this guy was breaking the boundary -- not just invading my heretofore unrecognized personal sphere, but moving in and out of it, rocking back and forth, looking up and down, and just setting off all kinds of alarms that I never knew existed. Before Trudy got the receipt, I grabbed our glasses and left quickly to fill them with water.

We found a booth at the far side of the room next to the window. And when we sat down, we looked back and saw that the two men had been joined by ten others. These guys were -- like -- clones of each other. All were in their 50s, wore loose fitting shirts, had gray thinning hair, and wore glasses.

No problem so far, right? (Except of the agitated guy.) They must have been some men's club -- guys' night out or some such. That's what we figured, telling each other that we got there just in time (just before the rush).

But then one of them, the guy who had triggered my left shoulder alarms, came over to our booth and started moving tables and chairs, pushing the tables together and lining up the chairs so that they were arranged on two sides of the tables. He didn't just push and line up, though, he pushed and repushed, lined up and fine-tuned. He moved his glass of water first from one place to another, and then he the salt and pepper shakers back and forth. He looked up and down the rows of chairs, and then he looked back to the other men who were each ordering their meals. There was not a moment when he was still.

One by one, the others came over to the makeshift banquet hall. There was something not quite right about each of them. It's hard to describe this second hand, because it was really their body language that wasn't quite right. One guy pointed to the thermostat on the wall just behind us and suggested that if they got hot they could adjust it. Another stared mercilessly at the guy next to him as they talked, cocking his head back and forth and squinting his eyes as the other man spoke. A third man wore a loose fitting Mexican shirt, perfect for the 100+ weather we've been having, except that it was black, as were his long pants and shoes.

Trudy and I were speechless.

I think this place is a little too close to the hospital, I said.

At the other end of the room, a woman who had been sitting alone (also dressed in black) spoke to an employee in an animated fashion, pointing to something on her table, then pointing to her shoulder and making a distasteful squinting face. He nodded sympathetically and walked off. She stood up and pulled a belt of shiny silver and turquoise medallions around her large midsection, struggling to get it buckled. And then she left.

We ate our chicken and spinach and salad. I guzzled my water. Trudy sipped her wine.

I like to think that they were the odd ones and that our body language didn't radiate the same kind of messages -- that we didn't set off alarm bells.

I wonder if that's true.

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