Eastwood city on a saturday night is like a beehive, a burgeoning mass of dressed-up, made-up humanity. “City,” in this case, is really just a euphemism since its land area is barely larger than your average barangay. But maybe they called it that because it feels like the whole city is crammed in there with you.
There were no less than 3 separate events going on when I passed by this evening, not to mention the hundreds of people who were just there to hang out, middle-class style (myself included). Basically this involves a cup of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and a long conversation. This place makes a killing with beverages: the collective body heat of 10,000 patrons evaporates most drinks faster than you can knock them back. Of course, having a bladder the size of a thimble means I still have to keep hitting the john every two or three minutes, but that part of Eastwood is airconditioned so I don’t mind much.
You know you’re having one of those days when the guy beside you at the toilet queue is a painted mime, complete with red suspenders over a black & white striped shirt and a little French artist’s cap. I swear, seeing him at the urinal was absolutely surreal. I was like, Is he really peeing or is he going through the motions just to annoy me? Sadly, I was too weirded out to actually look over his shoulder and check. Another one of life’s great mysteries goes unanswered.
After a few moments, he “zipped up,” turned toward me and waved. I was speechless for a while until I thought to look behind me, and see another (!) mime. God only knows where the second one came from. Maybe he pulled himself out of the hand dryer or something.
They nodded at each other briefly, and one of them said (!), “Today, we’re educators.” They both laughed heartily.
I was staring fixedly at my piss stream through most of this, so I never saw how they exited. I wonder if they did one of those annoying, going-down-the-nonexistent-staircase routines. That would’ve blown my mind.