Perspective

Aaron has been here less than a month.

He is a very bright guy. He's already been to India, Thailand and a bunch of other places to take pictures for publications. He's graduating from a prestigious mainland photography school at the end of the year. He might take a trip to Greece to photograph the Olympics in Athens. He has state-of-the-art laptop and fancy camera with all kinds of expensive accessories.

At dinner the other day he turned to me and said, "Andrea says I should go up to a Hawaiian girl and say, 'Hey, I want to fuck you.' What do you think my chances are? Close to none or none?"

Andrea, sitting across from Aaron, giggles. "Hey it never hurts to try."

"Well it might, depending on where the girl's boyfriend is standing," I quipped.

Aaron turns to the local guy Andrea is currently seeing and repeats his querry.

The guy offers a half smile and this witty comeback: "Well it depends on a lot of factors. Like how much the girl weighs, how much kids she get, whether her boyfriend is still in jail. Actually, I think you got a pretty good chance my friend."

Andrea laughs. "I just want to see you try and fail, Aaron."

A bunch of kids at the next table over start making noise and Aaron says, "So I hear a lot of the girls pop 'em out young here."

"Doesn't that happen in California?" I reply.

"No, not really," he says. Then to the local guy, "Is it true that the girls here have a lot of kids when they're really young? That's the word I hear anyway."

The guy gives that half smile. "Well, I had my first kid when I was 17. She's 14 now I think."

Aaron stares.

The guy nudges Andrea and bursts out laughing.

Aaron looks sheepish. "Ah, ha ha. Yeah, I'm gullible and you know it too."

Pause.

"Hey man," Aaron tells the guy. "You know where I can get some weed?"

The guy takes a sip of Andrea's soup and looks at Aaron.

"I'm just going to be really blunt here, man, and ask."

The guy tells Aaron he'll talk to a co-worker.

We wrap up dinner. I feel like throwing up. Aaron is the type of guy that is going to be in charge of things in a few years: Smart, well traveled, fluent in several languages, personable and completely and totally ignorant and insensitive.