A Dull Lustre

My life is incessant loitering.
I wish to immerse myself in this black and white fiction: I pity a young and slightly retarded fellow who wanders down the middle of the road, sweeping dust frantically. He doesn't realize what he is doing is frivolous, nor does he care; for the sweeping gives him purpose. I envy him for this. I pass him by in my filthy '32 Chevy pick-up with this strange ambivalence. I call him back to town. He briefly glances up --his face so pale and unaware -- and the wayward breeze blows his cap from his head. He turns and chases his cap, broom-in-hand, and I can't help but notice his peculiar run: he prances from side-to-side, with very short and robotic leg and arm movements, and again I think: so unaware. I stare at him a while, then carry on.
I approach the Danny Shakes joint to collect my pay. I climb out of my truck and I'm met by a wall of thick, sultry air that engulfs my entire body. I languidly push my way through this natural incubator, and pull open the door to the beat burger joint. But the air inside is just as relentless and unforgiving as it is outside. Danny had to pawn off his air conditioner a month ago. "It'll get 'em buying more Coca-cola," was his frequent defense to the complaints. Naturally, he couldn't tell them that he couldn't afford it -- even though everybody knew.
The place was empty and desolate, save two kind eyes. Guinevere wiped her brow with a red handkerchief and sighed, "Hey Duane, here for ya pay?"
"Yass, ma'am".
Slowly, nudging herself from her indolent repose, she arose and shambled toward the back, where the money was secretly kept in an old vase. Guinevere didn't say "vase" like the rest of us; she said "vase" emphasizing the "a". Some folk thought it made her sound snooty, but I quite liked it. Guinevere had a difficult life: barren and uneducated, she had married a drunk who beat her with his leather belt. She used to show up to work with bruises and a contrite face. She unsuccessfully tried to divorce him four times, until finally when her deadbeat husband attempted to rob a corn farmer and it was a 12-gauge shotty that divorced them eternally. "Here ya go, Duane: 3 dollars and 40 cents."
"Thanks, Guinevere."
Neither of us could think of anything more to say. I turn to leave the sullen Guinevere behind, and exit into the street, but I'm left with a malaise that had been making a home of my stomach lately. I'm about to climb back into my truck when a red convertible passes through town. Aboard the fancy jalopy is Jacy Farrow: an ingenue with a delicate face but eyes wild as an antelope. She frowns in my direction, and I bashfully raise my hand to acknowledge her. Her head may of nodded, or it may of been the wind blowing her hair -- I don't know. Some had labeled her: The Golden One. But not the aforementioned slightly retarded fellow; his swept so blithely that she was just another mere person to sweep around.