Santa Barbara Shopping Party

While I’m pissing out an overpriced
chardonnay, I overhear nine-year old Finn
fearlessly talking to some stranger.
I turn around to find a homeless guy
with tattoos covering his skinny arms
wetting his long, greasy hair at the sink,
while our friend’s son, sporting his first Mohawk
(spoils of a battle his parents decided
not to fight this summer), seems to find it
harder to stifle a war-yelp with every word
the guy says: “Dude, go slow on the tattoos;
you might mistake a girl’s name or a dragon
for something they’re not.” I can see
young Finn wasn’t buying it—just more
adult crap. When I say that only one in five
people with a nautical tattoo had ever
been on a boat, the homeless guy laughs.
Back in the restaurant courtyard, packed with
people attending a wine-tasting,
Finn’s mother and my new wife talk on
about the fun of impulse shopping and
the many things in life we don’t really
get to choose, as the boy pretends to bury
the hatchet in his mother’s blonde head.