Court Over Coffee

Names have been changed to protect the identities of described persons.

“I’m surprised you picked this joint over somewhere else.” John starts off. John’s forty-something, half bald, and wearing a New England Patriots t-shirt. He’s got a chin and a half and he’s wearing sandals with khaki shorts that are far, far too short for his being. I’m divided as to whether or not I like him. I do, on one hand, because of the Patriots shirt — the man may as well be family since he’s wearing that. But I dislike him because he’s trashing my coffee joint.

“I paid three dollars more for this than I would have at 7-Eleven, and it tastes twice as bad.” says Mark, who’s wearing a wrinkled, peach colored polo with jeans that are twice as big as they need to be. He’s also wearing black and white Asic shoes. His sideburns extend into his neck and he wears glasses that make his eyes look ridiculously tiny.

John is Mark’s lawyer. Why they’re here, at Starbucks of all places, discussing Mark’s upcoming legal battle over his alcoholism, is beyond me. Here I am, and there they are literally light years away in some other planetary system. The patio of a Starbucks is no place to openly discuss legal troubles, let alone one’s history with alcohol.

“I want to keep it as plain and simple as possible. Lisa and Marsha are going to say you did it on purpose and they’re going to bring up your previous AA meetings.” says John. “But we’re going to play humility. We’re not going to bring up your history and we’re going to play things out, you know? Here, look at this, just follow this plan and we’ll be fine.”

“Isn’t that — you know, them using other stuff — illegal?”
“No, Mark, pay attention. We’ve gotta be flexible and you can’t grind your teeth here.”

Mark is confused as all hell. He chuckles awkwardly over his apparently disgusting and far overpriced iced coffee, but he continues listening to his lawyer.

“This’ll be good for you. It won’t be easy, but we can compromise. I know you’re gonna laugh.” argues John.
“You didn’t even tell me about that. If you had told me that I’d have told you to fuck off, I could’ve seen that on my own.”
“Well I didn’t realize how many were in there!”
“It’s okay — you’re okay. Where’s David at? We haven’t gotten to talk to him…is he going to be there?”
“I-…,” John stumbles, taking a sip of his water, “I don’t know.”

From what I understand, Mark threw a fit at one of his recent AA meetings that he was ordered to attend after being arrested for driving while very, very heavily intoxicated.

“The cop asked me if he knew I almost killed a guy!” laughs Mark.
“Well you did, but we’re accepting that and, you know, you’ve got your chips.”

Lisa — another attendee of an AA meeting — was the victim of Mark’s outrage. She’s going after him for “assault or psychological stress or some shit like that”, says John. “Worst case scenario, you get put up for a few days and they move you to rehab. Fuckin’ paradise, man, you get massages and treated like a prince.”

Mark doesn’t seem to believe him. He becomes quiet and leans into John, waving his arms around and whispering loudly enough for those around him to realize he’s trying to keep something a secret but not loudly enough to know what it is he’s saying.

“You can drink more, just don’t drive when you do it! A fifth a day!” jests John.
“I’ve been clean for months, John! I haven’t had anything!”
“You know that and I know that but I’m just saying, you’re gonna be okay.”

His court date is coming up soon, apparently, within the next month. Mark takes out a cigarette and lights it up before asking where the ashtrays are — apparently he’s ignorant of the fact that Starbucks recently banned smoking within 25 feet of their stores, a rule that I’ve seen countless people break. He drops his ashes onto the concrete beneath him.

“What we could do is bring in other group members, I don’t know, ones that weren’t there that day.”
“Why?”
“They can attest to your previous behavior. Make you seem innocent.”

Seem innocent. I need to mull that over. I don’t know why people choose Starbucks for these kinds of conversations — cheating, divorce, alcoholism, shady legal advice — but I’m glad they do, otherwise what would I blog about?

The Old Gamer

He sits alone in the corner of the shop with his Toshiba laptop. I’m sitting maybe eight feet in front of him, but he doesn’t notice my watching. His eyes, enlarged by his wireframe glasses, are affixed to his screen. From here I can hear rampant clicking from a separate, gold colored mouse.

He’s been here for hours, I presume, as he usually is on the days he comes in. I’ve seen him here before in the daytime, only to see him in the same spot when I return hours later.

League of Legends, World of Warcraft, DOTA 2 — God only knows what he’s playing, but it sucks up enough of the store’s internet to slow down everyone else’s. He doesn’t appear to care, though. He’s enveloped in his mystical world, and has probably transformed himself into whatever character he’s playing as. On occasion he’ll suck his teeth in disappointment, or grunt in excitement. He constantly looks back and forth, his eyes darting from one end of the screen to the other over and over again in unison with his clicks. He’s so into it he requires a sweat rag that sits next to him on a table that also holds his drinks and his food.

The drink he ordered is now gone, replaced by ice and Brisk pink lemonade. He hasn’t touched it since I arrived, and beads of perspiration drip slowly down the sides of his cup. A scone of some kind sits on a brown wrapper,  but there only appears to be one bite taken from it. I imagine he’s too deep into his game to care about eating.

He’s a nice man — I know this from previous, brief discussion with him. One night a couple of weeks ago as he left the shop, he stopped and asked me about my laptop.

“MacBook?”
“Yessir.”
“I bet it has a great battery, I wish I could afford one.”
“It does alright.”
“You play any games?”
“I’ve been known to fall into fits of playing Civilization V for hours on end, but other than that not really, no.”
“I love games, man, I wish they had this stuff when I was your age.”
“Come here often?”
“I come here for the free wi-fi, I stay because they’re nice to me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Well hey, have a good night.”

After that he sat in his car for a few minutes, scrolling through his smartphone.

He has a scruffy, peppered goatee. He’s got a gut that fights against the pull of a red Under Armour shirt, and legs like tree trunks that sprout from the openings of black basketball shorts. He’s slightly overweight, but not unhealthy. When I say he’s old, he’s maybe in his mid-50s — and I presume he has some joint problems based on the fact that he walks with a cane.

But he’s young at heart — he’s genuinely nice to everyone around him. He offered to give up his seat tonight to a family that had just gotten in from New Jersey, which I assume is a big gesture from him given how entrenched he was in his MMORPG.

As nice as he is, he sits alone. I have to wonder where his family is, or if he even has any family. I have to wonder what drives him to play games that are meant for my demographic. Is he playing vicariously for a lost child? Or does he just really love virtually killing and looting people? Does his imagination run free like, perhaps, it couldn’t when he was young?

The possibilities, I imagine, are endless. But then so is his imagination, at least so it seems.

Hostile Conversation

Names have been changed to protect the identities of described persons.

Starbucks is, admittedly, a poor place to rekindle any romance. I love it as much as the next caffeine deprived person, but it isn’t the ideal place to re-ignite the flame that a 30-year marriage can apparently put out.

But here they are. Tim, sitting barrel chested with a silver crew cut, and Betty, a Martha Stewart-esque portrayal of a woman in her fashion but not her build — they sit awkwardly opposite one another at the same small table Mike and Jennifer sat at. They got here a few minutes after I did, ordered quickly and sat quietly. For the first ten minutes there was almost no conversation, the two of them just scrolled through their iPhones (she was up to date with an iPhone 5, he was falling behind with an older iPhone 3G). The two of them face the Subway across the street. He sits on the right side of the table, she on the left. Her phone beeps and she smiles, thus initiating the first of a few awkward conversations.

“What’s that?” he asks her.
“Nothing, just something a friend sent me.”
“Which friend? Natalie?”
“Nope, you don’t know…” she starts, seemingly distracted by her phone again, “…her.”

He nods his head and continues scrolling, and has yet to even take a sip from his drink. A venti-something-or-another, I assume it’s hot because it comes in a tall white cup as opposed to a clear one. Betty places her phone into her purse and grabs her…what is that, a caramel frappuccino? Let’s call it that. She sips her frappuccino and stares blankly towards the Ross across the road.

“I should go to Ross tomorrow — see if they have any luggage.”
“Why do you need luggage?” prods Tim.
“I told you, work is sending me to Indiana next month for a conference.”
He grunts, “I must have forgotten.”

Tim’s phone goes off. His ringtone, oddly, is Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'”, which is loud enough to cause myself and the group of what appear to be Muslim men to stare directly at him. Come on, Tim, don’t you know Starbucks doubles as a library?

“Hey man,” he starts, “No, no, I’m just sitting here.”

The phrase “just sitting here” causes his wife to look at him and sigh before taking another sip of her drink (Tim has still yet to even touch his). I feel like Betty wants something more than her frappuccino, though, perhaps wine. Perhaps a large fishbowl of wine, maybe a margarita. She seems desperate for contact, but more than just simple conversation…like she wants to laugh. She hasn’t even noticed that Tim’s removed himself from his seat to walk over to their car and talk, pacing back and forth, throwing his hands in front of him like he’s talking to someone who is actually in front of him. He returns about five minutes later with a reddened face.

“What’s wrong?” his wife asks.
“Huh? Oh, nothing, we just have to get rid of a few people.”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask.”

Tim finally puts his phone away and, at long last, takes a sip of his drink. He looks at it, puzzled, and puts it back down. It’s the only time he’ll touch it all night, and he leaves it on the table when they leave.

“What’d you do today?” Tim asks his wife.
“I was off today.”
“I know, but what’d you do?”
“I had another man over and had my way with him.” she jokes, but Tim just stares at her blankly.
“And I fucked my secretary. What’d you actually do?”
“I talked to Marcia [their daughter] and I went grocery shopping, Tim, I know you wanted salami so I got some.”

Betty appeared to be joking, but now I see why Tim was so persistent in finding out who made her laugh earlier. Maybe there was some infidelity in their marriage, but on whose side? Did Tim actually fuck his secretary? Their banter went on for another ten minutes, talking about different work related things (Betty works for a pharmaceutical company, Tim works for an aviation company), before finally leaving.

Betty and I lock eye contact while she struts behind Tim, and I swear I saw the slyest smirk form on her face.

The Smoker

She sits alone under the carport, a shield from the downpour that surrounds her. She’s older, but not elderly, and “slightly overweight” – something she says her recent back surgery caused. I’ve talked to her once before, and she explained that the pool gave her relief from her pains, both physical and emotional.

“Floating supports my back,” she told me, “and going under keeps everything in my head quiet.”

A couple of months ago she told me about her mental state and how her ex-husband had pushed her to driving a shard of glass into his stomach. He survived, and she was left with a scar in her palm (she held her hand up to show me – there was no scar). Psychiatrists had prescribed her a number of pills to take daily, but according to her they’re doing more harm than good. She says they add voices, rather than remove them. Her family is the root of her problem, she tells me, “The bane of her very existence” — having cut her off from grandchildren and financial support. She now lives with her daughter and grandson – the only two people that haven’t yet abandoned her. She explains that were it not for them, she would not be alive today.

She once told me that this, her current existence, is hell.

She sits under the carport smoking one cigarette after another after another. Even from my spot, some twenty feet away, she appears blank. Maybe it’s the gloomy weather, but she seems more depressed than usual today. On occasion I’ll see her outside smoking, usually standing and pacing – today she’s sitting in a purple lawn chair, staring into the many thousands of raindrops falling in front of her.

Four cigarettes, and she consumes each one down to the butt. Hot orange tip after hot orange tip.

After she finishes her last cigarette, she reaches for another but the box is empty. She sets it back down on the little square table to her left side, and proceeds to dump the ashes into the little patch of grass that would – I suppose – be called her front lawn. It’s no larger than three feet wide by five feet long.

Even without cigarettes, she remains seated for the next ten minutes, staring idly into the rain. When she attempts to breathe in, her first real breath I’ve seen while watching her, she coughs. Hard enough to make her bend over and hold her chest, but not hard enough to make her go inside. I rarely see her outside, so I’m not sure if the cigarettes are what’s killing her or if, ironically, it’s the fresh air.