On the way to a first birthday party, stop at a book store and find something that is not Winnie the Pooh or Beatrix Potter, of which ten copies will already likely be had. While Marty pays, my job is to grab two coffees. I order. The tables are full. Several pennies and a nickle and a quarter in the tip jar. I throw in a dollar and take my place at the other end of the counter, waiting, eyes soaking in the predominate muted red dulling the walls, the two male baristas, late twenties, dressed in their WE WORK HERE NOT THERE polos and undistinguished by individualizing ornamentation, hair short and the lighter side of medium brown with no sunny beach summertime highlights in the way that some of us more than others do live in smoggy midtown and don’t have an elevator to the Founders Son’s Club above the clouds of Metropolis.
I hear, “Do you…”
“No, we do not,” the first barista said.
And she who was ordering about four steps from me said something, probably finishing her order because by the time I glanced over the financial transaction was done.
And the first barista said then something to the effect of maybe you think we should have a comparison chart, that would make things easier.
“Maybe you should,” she said, a little too terse to be simply confused and wondering what was joking banter. Which is when I looked at her. Mid-forties. Manicured. Not blond. Eyelids and cheeks gleaming with cosmetics. Large light-weight dangling plates of gold earrings. I forget what she was wearing but it was more colorful than the walls yet fashionable enough to escape notice. I wouldn’t have looked at her twice had not the second of the baristas decided to spotlight her.
“Where do they think they are?” launched in the second barista, who was fixing my coffees. “Charbucks?” He took a beat, sized something up about her, and repeated, changing to, “Where does she think she is?” I was the only other person at the counter, just waiting for my coffees and he glanced at me, determining I guess if he had an audience and I suppose simultaneously measuring up what that audience was. I don’t know what his measurement of me was but I confess I flashed a wee grin and he decided he was ON. Loud. It was show time and he was stuck behind the counter when the Gay Pride Festival was in full swing a few blocks over. He was a little too over something to rise above variations on “Who do they think…?” and “Who does she think…?” and “Charbucks?” as he worked and harangued, glancing between me and his work and the other barista, and I looked a couple of times too hard at the woman to see what was going on there because she was waiting for her order as well and no she wasn’t smiling and she wasn’t going to look back at me. Not knowing what to do, she did nothing and stared into space. And finally the barista seemed to think he needed to excuse himself somehow and he made some loud murmurs to the effect that he was supposed to be off the clock now and he could say what he wanted on his time.
Should I empathize as someone who has worked on the service industry? Should I sympathize with the customer, being a fellow customer?
How about I just decided to take in the show? Which is what I did.
I glanced back behind me for the caps for my cups of coffee and there sat who I knew must be the woman’s husband, I could tell it by the brightly flowered large handbag on the floor near his chair, which had an obvious psychic connection with the woman at the counter. He was embarrassed, looking about as confused as she looked, perhaps even more so, staring at the newspaper on the table in front of him. He was torn on whether he should stand and rally to her defense.
Things wound down as I capped my coffees and left, the first barista remarking something about how he’d worked forty hours in three weeks. It was impossible to tell whether he was complaining it was too little or too much work but I imagined, having been in that situation before, it was a matter of him being handed just enough work to keep him on the payroll and not laid off and applying for unemployment.
Back to the book part of the store I walked where Marty was still in line with H.o.p. waiting to check out.
None of the four cashiers–two males, two females–had a smile in them. One female cashier returning from somewhere else, perhaps a break, taking her place, the female cashier next to her looked pointedly and said, “WELL,” loudly. The returning woman didn’t respond, just stared straight ahead into vacant air. The other female cashier did stare, then made moves to depart, perhaps for her break. The returning cashier, who was younger but how much younger was impossible to tell as her make-up was colorful as a parrot’s plumage and her physique and height that of an eleven-year-old boy, twisted harder away from the other female cashier as she passed. One of the male cashiers leaning in to her, she whispered something, then returned fully to her post, never looking at the customers. All the while one of the male cashiers argued with a customer that no they did not have his book on order, his name wasn’t in the system, then the customer producing a slip of paper he examined it then checked the computer again, found the needed info, and less confidently made a quiet point of saying it was because it was a USED book and he didn’t deal with the used books and he hadn’t been told, after all, it was a used book…
* * * * * * *
“BASH!” said the woman next to me, in my face, a couple inches from it. I knew who she was but didn’t know her. I looked and said, “Bash?” just to make sure. I was confused. Was she referring to the child’s birthday party we were at? Was she referring to my birthday party the night before, though I didn’t believe she would have known about it?
“BASH!” she said again.
“The birthday party?” I said. Which wasn’t so bright, but I was confused as this was all she would say.
“BASH!” she said, ever emphatic.
“Bash,” I said.
“BASH!” she said.
I stared.
“BASH!” she said.
I smiled. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Can you repeat it?”
“BASH! BASH!” she exclaimed, imagining I was deaf and witless.
She had come over saying she wanted to MEET ME which seemed to me to amount to a few curious challenges which soon had me back on my feet without excuse and wandering back across the lawn to take pics of anything elsewhere, including the dog which was very friendly and kept passing back by for some pats on the back and scratchings between the ears.
Leave a Reply