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31_days2012-05-29 03:23 am
treeflamingo.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2012-05-29 03:23 am
[May 27] Original - The Clientele
Title: The Clientele
Day/Theme: May 28th, astronomers, thieves, lovers
Series: Original, one-off
Rating: G+
Wordcount: 1673
A/N: This was supposed to be short. :( If it had been, I wouldn't be posting it at 3:20am on the 29th, according to my time zone. Ah well. It's still the 28th somewhere...
The old man who owns the coffee shop on the corner of Maple and Carter has been many things that are neither barista nor entrepreneur. I screwed up one time when I went to use his bathroom, found myself embarrassed, and him mildly surprised, when I opened the door to his little kitchen by accident. He runs the coffee shop out of what used to be the first floor of his house; the doors look the same and are unmarked; it was an easy enough mistake to make. There in the kitchen, in a narrow strip of wall hidden from general view by his impressively arrayed floor-to-ceiling cabinetry, I spied a motley collection of framed and yellowed diplomas - something medical, an ancient electrician’s certification, a BA from the state university, and an MA from a different state university. My interest was piqued, of course, but that was hardly the time for examinations. I’d had three lattes already that day and not nearly enough bathroom breaks. I was sort of in a hurry.
They stuck in my mind, though.
He has about a dozen chairs in the place, and they span descriptions from Lay-Z-Boy to lawn; only two tables - mismatched little living-room pieces, one of teak and the other Ikea; and a solid oak bar equipped with tripod stools, water stains, and a few breadboxes of pastries he gets from the bakery down on Juniper. One wall is floral papered and peeling. One is literally covered, bricked, with framed prints of dogs playing cards or wearing suits or pushing prams. There’s a little bookcase on the papered wall filled with board games and paperbacks, and a curio cabinet of ceramic novelty salt-and-pepper shakers hanging above it. The wall which faces the street is dominated by two enormous bump-out windows. Each window seat has a small family of brightly colored throw pillows, and a little potted plant in either corner. The back wall, behind the bar, is probably water stained and moldy, but cleverly concealed behind those cabinets; behind the bar is all cabinets, oak and glass-doored, except for a long, low row of coffee-making apparatuses on a narrow counter pushed up against the bar. And, apparently, a tidy little rank of unapplied credentials.
In the context of the place, the diplomas really almost make sense.
I asked him about it the next time I happened by, which happened to be two in the afternoon and, apparently, not prime coffee-drinking time. There was no one else but me and him. He smiled bashfully, and I instantly felt like an ass. He rolled his creaking swivel chair - he gets around entirely by swivel chair, I think; there’s a brass-handled cane that rests outside the kitchen door, but I’ve never once seen it moved from its place, and I’ve been about a hundred times now - he rolled to the back of the kitchen and cast a long look at the diplomas.
Finally he said, “I never could decide what I wanted to be.”
I waited for him to continue, but gave up after about ten seconds. “You eventually settled on coffee shop owner?”
He smiled at me slowly. “No.” He paused again, and I was beginning to feel so uncomfortable that I was going to have to say something stupid again, when he went on. “Just ended up in it, I guess. Don’t mind it, particularly. Might be my favorite, now I think about it. Just might be.”
“Why?” I blurted.
That same smile, like he was my granddad and I was five years old and explaining to him how the sun worked. “The clientele,” he said.
I had no idea what he meant. Usually when I’m at his place, I stay slouched down in the comfiest chair I’ve been able to snag, staring at my laptop screen as it perches on my knees. What was his clientele even like? I hadn’t a clue.
So that day I paid attention.
The bell on the door jingled a little past four. Four high schoolers came in, one wearing the pleated uniform of St Catherine’s School for Girls. They giggled up to the bar, fiddling with their iPhones, checking various calorie-counting apps to decide if they could afford to drink hazelnut lattes that day, and, if not, how many extra laps they’d have to run the next day to work it off. The three girls in jeans got their lattes and piled into one of the window seats, heaping their backpacks together in the corner with the dog pictures. The Catholic school girl stayed at the bar deliberating a bit longer, but eventually decided loudly on a double-shot espresso with just a touch of cream and no sugar. Her friends in the window seat admired her forbearance and made gloomy prognostics about her homework load for the night. She laughed nervously. Her friends turned their attention out the window - some good-looking college guy was walking by, apparently. The old man was focused on the espresso machine. The Catholic school girl darted a silent hand into one of the breadboxes, grabbed a chocolate mini-croissant, and wolfed it down so fast she couldn’t even have tasted it. I saw her brush a squirrelly hand over her lips and lapels, then turn to face the window, leaning easily against the bar, and professing an opinion about the boy as if she’d seen him. I pressed back into my chair so that I could see the old man behind her. He was smiling - he’d seen her do it - and he dropped a little spoonful of sugar into her espresso. My eyebrows went all the way up to my hairline, but nobody so much as glanced in my direction; it occurred to me that both the old man and the girl knew me fairly well. I was always there, but never watching.
An hour and a half later the bell jingled again and this college-age couple filed in. I say filed because they were wearing one long hand-knit scarf and had to march in tight sync in order to get through the narrow door. They clasped hands and smiled these identical, glowing smiles at the old man as they pretty much floated up to the bar. I held back a gag. The old man smiled at them - that exact same grandpa smile, which made me feel both a little better about myself, and a little less special - and asked if they’d be having their usual Tuesday. The girl laughed and leaned into the guy, who wrapped an arm around her and kissed her head. That was a yes, apparently, because the old man got to work, and the couple retreated to an enormous beanbag chair placed between the papered wall and the teak table. They got on their knees and fluffed it up together, plopped down together, leaned forward together when the guy went to pull the table in toward them, leaned left together when the girl got a deck of cards from the bookshelf, then got up together when the old man put their tray of rosehip tea and scones with jam on the bartop. The girl asked the old man some questions about his tea collection, and about his gout; the guy nestled his hand into her waist and listened; the old man remarked that their scarf was longer; the guy drummed his fingers against her and said they were taking color suggestions. The old man suggested rose pink.
The bell jingled a few more times but I admit I stopped paying attention; habits, you know; and I was busy with the waking Tokyo stock market.
Just before eleven at night, which is when I can take a break, and when the old man closes up shop, the bell jingled again and a frazzled looking woman in khaki and navy hustled in. She had thick, graying hair pulled into a ponytail and pulled out in chaotic strands around her face. She carried a black canvas backpack with a dog-eared roll of poster paper poking out the top. I’d seen her before but never listened to what she talked about. She talked about astronomical events. The old man had a cup of coffee ready for her on the bar. She sipped it black and passed him an enormous dented old thermos, which he filled as she rattled semi-coherently about apexes and oscillations and billion year old explosions. I don’t know, maybe she made perfect sense. The old man seemed to follow, at any rate. He asked about her students. She snorted in disgust. They chatted sporadically for a few minutes while the old man cleaned his machines. Then the woman glanced at her watch and nearly spewed coffee. She dug a crumpled ten out of her backpack, pressed it into the old man’s hand, gulped her coffee, and made for the door. He called her back, by name, gesturing softly at the thermos. She rushed back, grabbed the thermos with a thank-you that sounded more like an apology, and was gone.
The old man looked at me then, for what I was pretty sure was the first time since 2:30. I had paused while sliding my laptop into its sleeve and was standing in a pretty awkward position, bent just a bit too low for comfort over my backpack, which was resting on the arm of the Lay-Z-Boy. “She forgets her thermos every time,” he said.
I laughed awkwardly.
“You seemed a bit distracted today,” he said. “I hope you got your work done.”
I felt pretty embarrassed, but I tried to smile for him. “Yeah,” I said.
“See you on Thursday,” he said.
“See you on Thursday,” I said.
I still go there every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, my work-from-home days. It used to be, whenever people asked me why I prefer that out-of-the-way coffee shop on Maple and Carter, that I’d say it was because it was empty most of the time, and quiet. Now I say, “The clientele.”
Day/Theme: May 28th, astronomers, thieves, lovers
Series: Original, one-off
Rating: G+
Wordcount: 1673
A/N: This was supposed to be short. :( If it had been, I wouldn't be posting it at 3:20am on the 29th, according to my time zone. Ah well. It's still the 28th somewhere...
The old man who owns the coffee shop on the corner of Maple and Carter has been many things that are neither barista nor entrepreneur. I screwed up one time when I went to use his bathroom, found myself embarrassed, and him mildly surprised, when I opened the door to his little kitchen by accident. He runs the coffee shop out of what used to be the first floor of his house; the doors look the same and are unmarked; it was an easy enough mistake to make. There in the kitchen, in a narrow strip of wall hidden from general view by his impressively arrayed floor-to-ceiling cabinetry, I spied a motley collection of framed and yellowed diplomas - something medical, an ancient electrician’s certification, a BA from the state university, and an MA from a different state university. My interest was piqued, of course, but that was hardly the time for examinations. I’d had three lattes already that day and not nearly enough bathroom breaks. I was sort of in a hurry.
They stuck in my mind, though.
He has about a dozen chairs in the place, and they span descriptions from Lay-Z-Boy to lawn; only two tables - mismatched little living-room pieces, one of teak and the other Ikea; and a solid oak bar equipped with tripod stools, water stains, and a few breadboxes of pastries he gets from the bakery down on Juniper. One wall is floral papered and peeling. One is literally covered, bricked, with framed prints of dogs playing cards or wearing suits or pushing prams. There’s a little bookcase on the papered wall filled with board games and paperbacks, and a curio cabinet of ceramic novelty salt-and-pepper shakers hanging above it. The wall which faces the street is dominated by two enormous bump-out windows. Each window seat has a small family of brightly colored throw pillows, and a little potted plant in either corner. The back wall, behind the bar, is probably water stained and moldy, but cleverly concealed behind those cabinets; behind the bar is all cabinets, oak and glass-doored, except for a long, low row of coffee-making apparatuses on a narrow counter pushed up against the bar. And, apparently, a tidy little rank of unapplied credentials.
In the context of the place, the diplomas really almost make sense.
I asked him about it the next time I happened by, which happened to be two in the afternoon and, apparently, not prime coffee-drinking time. There was no one else but me and him. He smiled bashfully, and I instantly felt like an ass. He rolled his creaking swivel chair - he gets around entirely by swivel chair, I think; there’s a brass-handled cane that rests outside the kitchen door, but I’ve never once seen it moved from its place, and I’ve been about a hundred times now - he rolled to the back of the kitchen and cast a long look at the diplomas.
Finally he said, “I never could decide what I wanted to be.”
I waited for him to continue, but gave up after about ten seconds. “You eventually settled on coffee shop owner?”
He smiled at me slowly. “No.” He paused again, and I was beginning to feel so uncomfortable that I was going to have to say something stupid again, when he went on. “Just ended up in it, I guess. Don’t mind it, particularly. Might be my favorite, now I think about it. Just might be.”
“Why?” I blurted.
That same smile, like he was my granddad and I was five years old and explaining to him how the sun worked. “The clientele,” he said.
I had no idea what he meant. Usually when I’m at his place, I stay slouched down in the comfiest chair I’ve been able to snag, staring at my laptop screen as it perches on my knees. What was his clientele even like? I hadn’t a clue.
So that day I paid attention.
The bell on the door jingled a little past four. Four high schoolers came in, one wearing the pleated uniform of St Catherine’s School for Girls. They giggled up to the bar, fiddling with their iPhones, checking various calorie-counting apps to decide if they could afford to drink hazelnut lattes that day, and, if not, how many extra laps they’d have to run the next day to work it off. The three girls in jeans got their lattes and piled into one of the window seats, heaping their backpacks together in the corner with the dog pictures. The Catholic school girl stayed at the bar deliberating a bit longer, but eventually decided loudly on a double-shot espresso with just a touch of cream and no sugar. Her friends in the window seat admired her forbearance and made gloomy prognostics about her homework load for the night. She laughed nervously. Her friends turned their attention out the window - some good-looking college guy was walking by, apparently. The old man was focused on the espresso machine. The Catholic school girl darted a silent hand into one of the breadboxes, grabbed a chocolate mini-croissant, and wolfed it down so fast she couldn’t even have tasted it. I saw her brush a squirrelly hand over her lips and lapels, then turn to face the window, leaning easily against the bar, and professing an opinion about the boy as if she’d seen him. I pressed back into my chair so that I could see the old man behind her. He was smiling - he’d seen her do it - and he dropped a little spoonful of sugar into her espresso. My eyebrows went all the way up to my hairline, but nobody so much as glanced in my direction; it occurred to me that both the old man and the girl knew me fairly well. I was always there, but never watching.
An hour and a half later the bell jingled again and this college-age couple filed in. I say filed because they were wearing one long hand-knit scarf and had to march in tight sync in order to get through the narrow door. They clasped hands and smiled these identical, glowing smiles at the old man as they pretty much floated up to the bar. I held back a gag. The old man smiled at them - that exact same grandpa smile, which made me feel both a little better about myself, and a little less special - and asked if they’d be having their usual Tuesday. The girl laughed and leaned into the guy, who wrapped an arm around her and kissed her head. That was a yes, apparently, because the old man got to work, and the couple retreated to an enormous beanbag chair placed between the papered wall and the teak table. They got on their knees and fluffed it up together, plopped down together, leaned forward together when the guy went to pull the table in toward them, leaned left together when the girl got a deck of cards from the bookshelf, then got up together when the old man put their tray of rosehip tea and scones with jam on the bartop. The girl asked the old man some questions about his tea collection, and about his gout; the guy nestled his hand into her waist and listened; the old man remarked that their scarf was longer; the guy drummed his fingers against her and said they were taking color suggestions. The old man suggested rose pink.
The bell jingled a few more times but I admit I stopped paying attention; habits, you know; and I was busy with the waking Tokyo stock market.
Just before eleven at night, which is when I can take a break, and when the old man closes up shop, the bell jingled again and a frazzled looking woman in khaki and navy hustled in. She had thick, graying hair pulled into a ponytail and pulled out in chaotic strands around her face. She carried a black canvas backpack with a dog-eared roll of poster paper poking out the top. I’d seen her before but never listened to what she talked about. She talked about astronomical events. The old man had a cup of coffee ready for her on the bar. She sipped it black and passed him an enormous dented old thermos, which he filled as she rattled semi-coherently about apexes and oscillations and billion year old explosions. I don’t know, maybe she made perfect sense. The old man seemed to follow, at any rate. He asked about her students. She snorted in disgust. They chatted sporadically for a few minutes while the old man cleaned his machines. Then the woman glanced at her watch and nearly spewed coffee. She dug a crumpled ten out of her backpack, pressed it into the old man’s hand, gulped her coffee, and made for the door. He called her back, by name, gesturing softly at the thermos. She rushed back, grabbed the thermos with a thank-you that sounded more like an apology, and was gone.
The old man looked at me then, for what I was pretty sure was the first time since 2:30. I had paused while sliding my laptop into its sleeve and was standing in a pretty awkward position, bent just a bit too low for comfort over my backpack, which was resting on the arm of the Lay-Z-Boy. “She forgets her thermos every time,” he said.
I laughed awkwardly.
“You seemed a bit distracted today,” he said. “I hope you got your work done.”
I felt pretty embarrassed, but I tried to smile for him. “Yeah,” I said.
“See you on Thursday,” he said.
“See you on Thursday,” I said.
I still go there every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, my work-from-home days. It used to be, whenever people asked me why I prefer that out-of-the-way coffee shop on Maple and Carter, that I’d say it was because it was empty most of the time, and quiet. Now I say, “The clientele.”