Behind the Eyes

Like poems, characters usually present themselves to me straight out of the scenes in my life. I've got one or two trying to take shape in the mist of my imagination, but most are composites of people I've known or at least seen. Sometimes you just see someone who looks unusual, o who's acting crazy and you just know they would come to life again even more in one of your stories.

In my case, one such individual, who has become the protagonist in a novella I'm working on, crossed my path one evening when my husband and I were having dinner with friends from out of town.

We met our friends at their hotel in the heart of Hollywood, and decided to dine in the hotel's rooftop restaurant. Everything was great, we had ordered our meal and were in the throes of catching up, when I noticed a man out of the corner of my eye. 

A man of color, with dark brown skin to be exact, stood near the doorway of the dining room. He was small of stature and very well dressed. But his presence was unnerving, because he simply stared at us. He wore no name tag, nor was there any other indication that he was employed by the restaurant. He hadn't bothered to introduce himself or communicate with us in any way, other than to stare.

Finally, I asked our server to get the manager. When I explained my concern about the man (who continued to stare at us, even as I spoke to the manager), she said she was sorry I felt uncomfortable, and explained that he was a maitre d of sorts. He was apparently there to see to our every whim, and to be sure we didn't need anything. He accomplished this by staring at us. 

The manager must have spoken to him, because he approached the table and gave his own apology an explanation. He had a rich, velvety voice, and his dark eyes were even more penetrating up close. He went on to tell us the history of the restaurant, and make recommendations for our dessert. He even brought us special items from the menu to taste.

Needless to say, I knew this man had a story of some kind. But other than confirming that he was from Africa, he stated clearly that he didn't like to talk about himself. I swallowed my disappointment along with my last decadent bite of chocolate cake, and toyed with the idea of coming back to the restaurant at a later date and trying to convince him to open up.

But I decided to be a writer and expand on what he did give me. By the time he showed up in the narrative of my novella, I'd added about a foot to his height, and since he never specified what country he was from, I created an origin story for him. If you held up a picture of the man in the restaurant, it's doubtful you'd see much resemblance. But the dark, penetrating stare, and the silence he served us with in the beginning are trademarks of my protagonist.

What characters have you seen walking around today?


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