The coffee shop I describe in the letter below to my friend Greg, who was also someone for whom I worked (his cousin was a drywall contractor who had his business located in Seattle, and is the reason I came to the Emerald City in the first place), was right across the street from Union Square. Googling it, it still appears to be there. But when I used to frequent it a quarter-century ago, it wasn't a hipster joint, as it now appears to be; it was an old-school working-class inner-city diner with waitresses who had thick ethnic accents. A detail I recall from my lunchtime cups of coffee sitting at the counter was that I used to read Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy (1912). One of my professors, Hans Sluga, had recommended it to me as one of Russell's best books. I was trying to keep up on my reading even as I wandered outside the walls of Academe.
Autumn 1988
Greg!! Goddamn, it's good to here from you. I was gonna write a bunch of different times, but I always balked out of the fear that it might seem like I was try to leverage a little reimbursement for the "Jim-Time," which was never my intention. I just wanted to stay in touch. Anyway, fuck all that; everything is fine and you wrote and my conscience is unencumbered and lily white. Right now, I'd like to swap my job at this pseudo-whitecollar shit house where I work for a few weeks back in CA in a kitchen with a pole sander. New York isn't so bad, it's just that it's not the West. It's a lot different out here, little things, everyday things . . . the way people drive; the way they eat and talk and treat other people. There is this coffee shop steak house around the corner from where I work . . . I go there to drink coffee during my lunch hour. I sit at the counter. Most of the time the waitress refills my cup, sometimes twice. I sit there and look at the people, to my right and to my my left -- a lot of women, middle-aged to ancient, smoking long cigarettes, skin the color of ash, looking stoned, dead; some younger ones, probably whores, puffy-eyed, ordering soft drinks . . . The second time I was there I sat down and ordered a cup of coffee. I looked down the counter and saw some guy, a guy about my age, eating a large platter of macaroni and cheese. On top of the macaroni and cheese was a huge slab of Wisconsin cheddar, the shape and color of a starfish. He kept spearing it and filling his mouth; then he'd wash it down with a gulp of milk from a big glass he squeezed in his left hand. I thought for sure it was a joke. Who would walk into a restaurant and order macaroni and cheese, with extra cheese, and sixteen ounces of milk? I couldn't stop looking at this guy. Maybe he was nursing a hangover. Maybe he was a drug addict trying to find home and mom. He had dirty hair that looked like rotten hay, and he wore a faded red sweat shirt, faded to a kind of pink. His eyes were dull, like a goldfish. Maybe he was a drummer just waking up after a kick-ass gig in SoHo the night before. Maybe he was an asshole -- a guy who kicked cats as a little kid -- working in the mailroom of some bullshit company in the neighborhood . . . He finished his glass of milk and had about a third left to go on his platter when he motioned to the waitress for the check. It wasn't an abrupt motion; it wasn't fast or nervous, but it caught me by surprise. I thought for sure he'd go on forever -- another glass, another platter, more cheese, until every udder in America's heartland was dry and they'd have to send jets to India to round up the sacred cows to grant his wish. His check came, and I craned my neck so I could see the total. $6.00! Jesus Christ! They did fly to India. But this guy was untouched. He looked at it, dug into his jeans pocket, drew out the bills, put them on top of the check, and pushed it all to the edge of the counter. I didn't even watch him leave . . . Somewhere off in the distance of the coffee shop, over the PA, a Dylan song began to play, "Just Like a Woman." I looked at my watch, it was time to go back to work. I looked at the women -- still smoking, still old and unhappy, Cleopatras without pyramids -- and I headed out into the street.
Well, anyway, I gave my two-weeks notice the other day. I should be off to California by the second week of December. I have work tentatively lined up in January with these Irish guys working on an apartment house in midtown Manhattan. I'll stop by and see you when I hit the Bay Area. We'll celebrate life with a little Adolph C. They've changed their bottles; it's no longer a "Banquet Beer." I saw Keith Richards do some of his new songs on TV and was surprised at how fucking real they were, just sloppy enough to make 'em tasty, not like that emasculated brain dead Jagger shit. Keith kept his dick and his brain; he's still alive. I'd be happy to work a few days for you in early January, if you have the need, before I travel back to NY. I'm driving my VW bus out to sell it in California (because of all the parking tickets we've accumulated here) and for the cross-country scenery. Ashley and I got married, and etc . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment