Everything in me slammed shut when he approached me at Farley’s, the Potrero Hill coffeehouse I favored when in the city. I froze my ass off there, but I liked their brownies.
I was considering reading The Bell Jar – though not actually holding it – when he materialized at tableside, mumbling about “Sylvia” as if he and Plath had always been on a first-name basis. He was a dark hulk stumbling slowly toward me, and all I wanted to do was flee.
Given the power of hindsight, I would have realized that he was nervous, that he longed to build some sort of conversation but lacked the tools. He just came over and bumbled his way through. I could have had empathy, but then again, maybe I couldn’t. I just wanted him to leave like yesterday.
It was nothing I could name, nothing I could place. Sometimes you just know – but what do you know? Can you trust what’s in your head? Can you relate to what’s in your heart?
“I’ve been a writer for 10 years,” he said. “I’ve written two hundred poems.”
It’s like he’s reading me his resume.
It wasn’t that, though. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was coming out of his mouth. He didn’t seem proud; he didn’t act as though he was trying to impress me. He said it as a fact of his life, as if he updated the figures every time they changed.
“I write too,” I said.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.” I twiddled a piece of hair between two outstretched fingers. “Forever.”
He didn’t meet my eyes. He just glanced around the café, down at the table, up at the ceiling. When lost in thought he would close his lids and purse his lips. At some point he had taken a seat. Something told him I wanted company – and not just any company, but his. Something said to him take a seat at her table. He found something about me inviting. That made me like him, if only for a moment.
