Like Dizzy Gillespie's Cheeks

Sixty

Max asked me to meet him at the Pearle Vision on Michigan and Wacker. The place was musty, and the dark winter sky, as well as the brightly colored balloons, did nothing to help the place feel more cheery. I walked among the Perry Ellis frames, the Armani's, the Ralph Lauren's, the Calvin Klein's, the DKNY's—I felt like I was at Bloomingdales, not an optometry megachain. There must be a lot of money in the frame business if all these labels are making and selling frames. There was even a section for Eddie Bauer—go figure.

At times, I wish I wore glasses, just for the fun of it. I knew this musician named Gregor Click—not a bad tenor sax player, but an odd, odd fellow. Gregor used to wear glasses with no prescription in them. He'd just buy frames and do kind of a Paul Schaffer thing, and change them depending on what clothes he was wearing that day. I think he moved to Nebraska to open an optometry megachain.

As I waited, I messed with the "Lens Center," where they displayed all the tints and stuff available for your glasses. As I was standing in front of the Lens Center, my first and only thought was why would anyone get tints in their glasses? I had a high school history teacher named Mr. Stewart who had the tints. They were pretty lame then, and as far as I know, they're pretty lame now. We'd be in class, inside of course, and Mr. Stewart would be talking about the Monroe Doctrine, or Yalta, or whatever, it didn't matter, because when the spring sun would melt the snow, and Mr. Stewart's glasses would absorb the reflection, it would activate the tints. This would happen all the time, until finally one day, Sissy Chapman asked Mr. Stewart why he was such a dork. Unfortunately, it was one question Mr. Stewart didn't have an answer for.

Next to the tints were these goofy things called Flexibles. Glasses that bend but don't break. I took the challenge. I bent the hell out of them. Pulled them one way, then the other—every way I could. I even went so far as to flatten the earpieces until they were in a straight line.

"That's right, sir, unbreakable," a squeaky voice from behind me said.

Startled by the voice—in both tone and presence—I dropped the glasses to the floor. I looked over and found a small woman, probably in her early fifties, with bad teeth, a load of bad perfume, and a smile that made me wish for an entirely different reason that I needed glasses.

"Hi, the name's Cass," she said as she bent over to pick up the glasses.

"Hi ... Cass."

"And you are?"

Reluctantly I gave her a name.

"Jeff."

"Is that J-e-f-f, or G-e-o-f-f?"

"Uh, the second way ..."

I looked around wondering where Max was.

"Well, Geoff, did you know we've got a frame special going on right now that ends Friday? Buy one pair, get another free. And that includes sunglasses ... and Flexibles."

"Thanks, but I'm just meeting a friend here."

"Do you wear glasses, Geoff?"

"No."

"What about sunglasses?"

"Got some," pulled a pair of sunglasses from my jacket.

"Those old things ..."

"Yeah, I'm real sorry, Cass, but I don't want to waste your time. I'm not going to purchase anything today. As a matter of fact, I've really got to use a restroom. Do you have one?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Geoff, but it's only for customers," she said with a smile that revealed a front tooth that actually protruded forward, as well as a mouth full of smoke-stained, yellow teeth.