Some days, I go to the coffee shop outside the movie theater to flirt with the barista.
“So?”
“I haven’t read it yet.”
“But you get it right? The opening lays out the central claim concisely?”
“I haven’t read it,”
“You still have my flashdrive?”
“It’s around here somewhere.”
“Look,” I leaned in as if I were telling a secret, doing her a ‘favor,’ “The contents of that flashdrive will change Psycholinguistics forever.”
“Excuse me. I have a customer.”
I waited for a few moments, not taking my eyes off her.
“I’ll get you your flash drive.”
“Fantastic,” I said looking down.
“Last I saw it, it was in here,” she said holding a container.
“The ice blender?”
“I hate to say this. You seem like a nice guy. But you have to stop coming in here and talking to me.”
“Hundreds of hours of work, just to be poured into a Goddamned Latte!”
“There is someone out there for you.”
“Who was the last person who ordered a Latte?”
“I’m a Libra, you’re an Ares.”
“You, over there,” I said pointing to her co-worker, “What was their name? The name of the cocksucker who is drinking up my Thesis?”
“Gabe, I think. White shirt. Was carrying a book. Left about a few minutes ago.”
“Okay, this is the situation now. This is a robbery. I want your palms flat on the counter. Now. Now!”
I hopped over the counter, spilling stinking Kombucha on the hardwood. I reached under the counter, grabbing a ziploc, shattering an antique Edison light as I stood up.
“Where is the rice?”
“There.”
I walked out in a flurry of insecure bombast, manhandling the door, slamming it shut, saying Goddamnit, Goddamnit, with increasing frequency, under my breath, as I jogged down the beautiful street, with pure ugliness and hatred in my head.
I was running full speed, among the fine crowds of the Financial District. I crashed into a man with a white shirt, spilling coffee all over him. I checked the name on the Latte as fast as it took him to say “I’m going to fucking kill you.” The name was “Alex.” No dice. I kept running, crashing into as many white shirts as I could, burning myself, making that hot liquid splash in all its glorious viscosity, racking up assault charges left and right. I felt like I was playing a video game, I felt alive.
A string of police men were working their way towards me through the thick human brush. My first impulse was not to run, but to ask myself does attacking white shirted men constitute a hate crime?
Running again. Running more. Knocking down any white shirts along the way. Crossing 7th and Main, I saw another pair of Cops walking towards me. I went down the alleyway to the left of me, past dumpsters and fire escapes, through the rows of buildings and out into the open street beyond. There was a scent of rotting waste floating in the morning air. I got a strong whiff of it as I passed the bakery, the one next to the failing antique store with the overweight shopkeeper.
Catching my breath, the time on my phone screamed out to me: “11:14.” I was late. A tally mark against my name. No raises for 2 years. The looks I’ll get from the staff. What will my students think of me? How will my advisor see me?
Now I was just stopping, not tackling, men with white shirts, and asking their name. My desperation was losing its steam.
I had finally caved and realized my flash drive, my masterpiece, was gone. This separation anxiety lowered my adrenaline, and made me a little melancholy. I decided to go to the pizza shop on 6th and Dover.
I waited in line, staring at the chalkboard menu. The service girl had drawn an octopus today. I usually preferred her sketches of old celebrities, but it seems as though the opening shift was hard on her, and that she could only manage a measly octopus. Oh well.
I sat down with my water cup, anxiously staring at the other restaurateurs, couples, friends, all of them together with someone else, except for myself and another person sitting across from me.
This person sitting across from me looked like just about anyone else you would expect to see on a day like this, in a place like this. He was curiously enough, wearing a white shirt, tucked in, but not what I had pictured. I imagined an immaculately pressed button-up tucked into slim navy unpleated pants, but no. There was none of that there in him. It was a wrinkled top-button undone type of deal, very casual. This must be his day off. There was no way this guy could walk into an office setting without quiet judging looks, without generating an unspoken heaviness in the room, only broken by the ring of phones or the the glug of a water cooler. No, I thought, this man does not work for anyone else, he must be some kind of self-employed prodigy, one who is not a master of any particular field or way of thinking, but a master of life itself, a master of just sitting there serenely listening to podcasts waiting for his name to be called so he could eat his pizza and go back to his fantasy life of Manhattan condos and bottomless attention. And his name was called.
“Gabe.”
No way. No fucking way. My flash drive is gone, lost, and yet here he is, white shirted Gabe, having a slice of pizza after downing a Salted Caramel Latte. Inside me a million little sparks were going off, and he just sat back down, happy the way a dog is happy, holding his pizza vertical to watch the grease drip down onto the paper plate.
I decided to approach him. He was going to be hostile to any conversation I threw his way, because I am a very approachable unlikeable figure. Surely every moment I speak to him will be torture, he will seek to get rid of me as easily as possible, and yet somehow I had to gain his trust enough to point me in the direction of my precious flash drive.
“Enjoying the pizza?”
“Always. This place is the spot.”
“Have you tried Giueseppi’s?”
“Never tried it man, but I’ve heard good things. Why don’t you pull up a chair? My name is Gabe.”
I grabbed a nearby chair, scraping it against the ground, saying “fuck,” under my breath as the noise caused everyone in the store to cast their eyes on me.
“My name is Travis, nice to meet you.”
“So, Travis, what do you do?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“That’s great. So are you tenure tracked?”
“I’m supposed to be.”
“Well atleast you get paid well, I’m sure.”
“Not at all.”
“You’re doing something you’re passionate about, you have that, right?”
“That’s right,” my left eyelid twitched.
“What do you do?”
“Engineer. Boring stuff.”
“A lot of money in that.”
“It’s enough.”
“Say, I’m collecting used disposable coffee cups, the kind you get at the one near the movie theater. Do you happen to have any laying around, say your apartment?”
“Why would you do something like that, collect coffee cups?”
“My cousin, he uh, he is an artist. An art installation. I need to collect them for…”
“Oh yeah sure man. I actually have an empty one in my bag right now.”
He stuffed a fist in his bag, went elbow deep, and pulled it back out, setting it on the table.
“It’s a little smashed up. Do you think it’s going to make the cut?”
“Yeah, I think it will,” a smile plastered on my face as I felt the rattle inside. I quickly took out the flash drive, under the table, out of sight, and tossed into the baggie of rice.
“You ever do crossfit? There is a free group session later on today. You should come by.”
“I haven’t worked out since high school.”
“Well that’s even more reason. Come on. Trust me. You’ll love it.”
And like that we were going down the highway in his open air Jeep, yelling over the constant blast of wind.
“My place is at this exit up here. Do I have to wear anything specific?”
“Just your usual workout clothes. Basketball shorts. Compression shorts come in handy, if you have them.”
“Sounds good. Yeah this exit right here.”
“So, you have a girlfriend?” he asked me.
“No.” This was the moment that terrified me. The question that hung over me this whole encounter, especially getting in his car, the Sword of Damocles that simply asked: Is this person just trying to fuck me? I stuck to my guns, hoping that he was a more normal person than me, and didn’t see ulterior motives in other people, and simply saw me as a “cool guy to hang with.”
“I’ve been dating this one girl for two years. Pretty serious.”
“How is that going along for you.”
“No complaints. We share a place on Orchard.”
“Orchard? That’s a nice area.”
“It is.”