.i“ * ^ / . . . . . ` `~

Dedication: “To the customers”

Foreword: For about twenty years I worked at a small coffee shop in the D.C. metro area, and at some point started taking notes of the mundane things that would occur there. These are the notes I took during one of our weirder periods, from the start of Covid until somewhat after the events of January 6th. I call this installment –

COMMUNITY SPREAD

Customer loved geese, especially snow geese, which you didn’t see around here. Lot of personality. Had noticed one of the chicks of our resident birds (starlings now) had died unfortunately. It had fallen from the hole, their nest, and was on the concrete. That was nature, he said.

What was the customer’s response when I told her the customer who’d preceded her, a complete stranger, had paid for her lunch? (a) thought it was nice (b) glad she hadn’t gone after him for not wearing a mask.

What had attendant been reading lately? Roe v. Wade – the Majority opinion. Interesting elements include the hippocratic oath’s prohibition of abortion (which is considered an outlier among ancient views) and the origin of the embargo of regulation during the first trimester: during the first trimester, the opinion stated, the woman’s chances of surviving the abortion are greater than those of her surviving child birth.

Had customer ever dealt with an outbreak before? Yes, cholera and things like that around Juba during the Civil War.

Police officer wouldn’t go on long runs because of the lack of public restrooms — would plan route so he’d continually pass by his house. He’s told there are public restrooms along the bike paths which are open in the warm seasons.

Customer had actually been on a date with the instructor of his continuing learning program (drawing). Didn’t go particularly well. Drawing was like a lot of things for him: he did well, he plateaued, he didn’t get past the plateau.

Advertised on busses: local credit unions, zero down mortgages; universities; graduate level foreign service programs; plumbers; public service announcements; credit card offers; 24 hour gyms… Just now: “Ask about our in home hospice care.”

Customer had said “for here” but his body language (pacing, not sitting) indicated “to go,” so I second guessed myself and made it “to go,” and he didn’t say anything but had it for here. 

Of the five wall sconces, three have a warm yellow light while two have a harsh white light. A whistling, squeaking airconditioner. Customer with motor control issues seen for the first time in a while. New bank manager introducing himself to staff and management of local businesses, going from shop to shop with his business card. Customer had intended to walk home but, to his complete surprise, after two blocks a bus came to a stop right beside him and he got on. Customer said the Neaderthal population had been small but widely dispersed.

Attendant said for the longest time there was an idea that a Starbucks would move in across the street, and then one finally did, and so the idea that the building the shop is in will be torn down will also probably eventually happen. On the basis of the Starbucks situation, I would guess the lag between people talking about a thing happening and the thing actually happening is seven to twelve years.

Would be interesting if a respiratory illness could get in through one’s ears — but no, ears were not considered part of the face. You could still touch your ears.

Customer handing me half-n-half container — I’ve had enough but this is on the edge. Jacket outside: USS Samuel B. Roberts (a missile escort ship, wikipedia says). Apartment building issued only one key to residents and would not let them make copies on pain of expulsion, as a means to prevent the over-occupancy of the units. What you did with horses: spit on the back of your hand and put a little sugar on it. What you did when a horse charged you: don’t turn your back. Punch him has hard as you fucking can right behind the jaw. Customer ordered medium latte. Had I heard that shellfish had been found with corona? Customer was at that age, 40, when things start to malfunction: two uterine surgeries and a diagnosis of silicosis disease. Two customers discovered a coincidence they found extraordinary: they both had scars on their arms from punching their hands through a window when they were four — but one was on the left arm near the wrist and the other was on the right arm close to the elbow.

The Blue Angels event today reminded customer of when they’d flown the space shuttle overhead, ferrying it, what was that, ten years ago? He had just gotten out of his doctor’s appointment, checked his watch and rushed to Washington Circle where there were a bunch of others gathered too. 

Students today take their government for granted, customer said. They think it’s all going to be fine. This was the anniversary of Kent State.

Customer didn’t have a problem with the Blue Angels appearance as long as it came out of the defense budge. (What else would DOD be spending money on now?) In fact it was quite moving when they dipped over Arlington Cemetery.

Customer was East Asian gal from the nearby nail place, who I usually see walking by to get to the National Chain – it’s actually a part of my routine seeing her go buy. Medium coffee.

Customer’s sustained interest in the music of Chuck Berry arose from watching Back to the Future at an early age. Customer’s son had been stuck on a ski lift for an hour but handled it well.

An event from years ago. Colleague of attendant told him she was sick and was obviously not well. He suggested to her that he would do the food and the drinks that morning and she could do the register and bakery case, with the idea in mind that there was less chance of passing on her illness. The colleague had more education than him (in biology) but there was somewhat of a language barrier. She didn’t understand — why did I want this? “You’re sick — germs,” I said. She didn’t speak to me for six months, after which she left.

Customer said by the size of the fire and column of smoke he thought it was a mid-rise that was burning down but it was a single family home. Small Latte extra shot, extra hot, and a packet of sugar. Would think of her as Russian but was probably Turkish. In fact, she is a Georgian whom I’m always thinking is Serbian. The other customer who regularly orders a small latte, extra shot, extra hot, is Moroccan but he pours sugar, a fair amount, from the sugar dispenser, and wants foam.

Customer said the cost of arresting, processing, feeding and holding homeless people, who you’re not going to charge anyway, should be taken into account when thinking of solutions to homelessness.

Customer — intravenous ulcers on leg. They were closing it up, so but the pain kicked my ass for six months. Poor circulation in my work boots. Small coffee.

Young children laughed at the attendant: he forgot the milks! he forgot the milks!

Not just an ‘everything day’ but an ‘only everything day’ — streak of only everything bagels not broken till 11 AM.

Why did God do this for me, I recalled having heard Elijah Comings say earlier that day. (Could it have been during Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress?) People will ask, why did God do this to me? when really they should ask, why did he do this for me?

“There are only white people up there,” I said, speaking of New England. “I like white people,” customer said. “So do I,” I said, “but all the time?”

Last time attendant had seen this customer must’ve been over ten years ago under different management. He recalled a chaotic scene, even the simplest things totally off kilter, days when there was no coffee to sell, days when there were only cold cups for the coffee, which would melt their wax in the drink; even so, it could be very busy and he was alone to handle it. You realize they’ve ruined this place, had said this current customer to me that day, well over a decade ago.

Customer had met John Kennedy O’Toole. Customer had gone to Emily Wilson’s lecture and had my copy signed.  This was hard for customer — he had been working since he was a kid — didn’t know what else there was to do with himself.

Customer promoted to Admiral. Customer asked for leaf of our Pothos. Customer had encountered a suspicious character she’d like to report to me (pointing out one of our regular customers.) Customer was opposed to divorce out of religious conviction but, after a very long separation from his wife, he came to look on it differently. Customer health secret: had minced garlic clove with honey every morning. “No sick, no nothing.”

You want to make sure that a fish pond is lined so the limestone from the masonry doesn’t dissolve and kill the fish.

Customer said that the priest still performs the ceremony but the congregation can’t attend. The people always bring the priests groceries and things, and drop them off.

Ethiopian Orthodox priests passing by on the back of UHAUL pickups, waving smoking censors of incense, Ethiopian and U.S. flags streaming. Church member following behind catching this on his phone, steering with one hand, phone out the window in the other.

Customer didn’t think of her job as being essential and did think of her work environment as being unsafe. When will things get back to normal, customer was asked? “Never. Things will never be the same again.” The nursing wards she’d been working in were unrecognizable now, said customer — total chaos.

Weekends are kind of boring now, the customer said, looking forward to going back to work.

Customer had been reading about B-17s. Surprised how many had been lost in mid-air collisions owing to their close formations and the limited time they had to form up.

Customer owned a horse she stabled in Clifton. Big and blind, years since she’s ridden him.

Customer’s uncle, who wrote anthropological works and didn’t believe in religion, was friends with the Chraibi family. All the writers in Morocco knew each other. Driss was a prophet’s name — like Enoch.

Customer not interested in legacy, which was more a guy thing, but about what would help people in the here and now.

Customer ate with two hands what would have been easier to eat with one, a muffin or scone.

Customer, a lawyer, had appeared in the court of another customer, a judge. Did he remember her?

Customer said he had called out a public official for not wearing a mask. An official should set an example, he said.

Had boss seen Parasite? “Yes.” What did he think? “Very left.”

Customer’s sister and mother visiting from Istanbul. Customers were going to the Natural History Museum – Be sure to check out the gem and mineral exhibit, I advise, as I always do. Customer’s parents were both doctors — medium 2% latte. So young, said customer, reminded of the recent passing of a local official, and a wife and two kids… brain cancer.

It’s cheaper to die, said customer.

Attendant could keep the five but customer wanted the coins for panhandlers.

In 50 degree water you will freeze to death in thirty minutes.

Customer taking intensive first aid class. Customer played a traditional instrument from his native Kazakhstan but not other instruments – “Like a guitar but with two strings.” When I complimented a customer on the fashionableness of her attire today, she said she had thrown on every sweater she had to keep warm. Customer had joined the Army as an F-you to his father and because there was a three year waiting period to become a police officer. Signed up for the shortest contract (3 yrs) but liked it and stuck with it.

Customer said this is the last day you can contribute to Goodwill. Warehouses were full. Customer said that white people started racism – it was true, she would send me a link. Customer said he finally got his driver’s license back after 17 yrs — but directly after that, he lost the physical license. As he was signing a form at the DMV to get a replacement, he reached in his pocket for his glasses and there it was.

Blue jays had gotten the pepper from the pepper plant. Husband had drowned the tomatoes. Wife would plant the seeds that came from store-bought vegetables — and they actually grew.

What a revolting development this is, would say William Bendix, said customer.

Customer’s security business killed by this, 62 employees out of work, no access to government loans. (It’s going to mean war with China.) And when it comes back, with the clubs half full, how much security are they going to need?

What reason did attendant give himself for failing to process whether the customer had said “for here” or “to go”? It was because I had successfully predicted how the customer would answer that question, and so instead of processing her answer, I processed I’d been correct at guessing it, and now I could recall neither her answer nor what I had I guessed it to be.

Q: had the (black) woman not referred to the man she was speaking of as black because she didn’t want to identify someone by their race or because she suspected he was of “mixed race” and not “black” – that is, because race could be hard to properly identify?

Q: why had the (white) attendant known exactly who the “tall black guy” was but no idea who the “talkative tall guy” was? Was it because when he thought of a generic “guy,” the guy was white? 

The drivers don’t know how to drive busses these days, said customer. Drive em like Toyotas.

Customer had taken wrong step in public lot and broke foot, four screws in. Turned holidays to shit.

(Attendant paused to envision a vast network of attendants each making notes of this kind, resulting in a vast comprehensive interweaving web of such notes.)

Customer who always ate around the part of the bagel he held with his fingers, and never ate that part, ate that part on this occasion.

Customer was Billy, pastor down street. Customer was Mike who had moved from Falls Church. What was customer doing today? Canvassing for Elizabeth Warren.

You can tell I’m not American by my accent — I wasn’t born here. But this country was great and powerful once — and it can be again.

Father had been engineer for Shell all his life. Moved to Texas after his divorce.

Customer missed riding his bike in shorts with snow on the ground — from Denver.

First time he’d been without a church service in 30 years. The church itself was doing alright: congregation was large and the tithing automatic.

Customer had gotten one answer wrong on his written driving test. The speed limit in a residential area is 25; he had said 35.

Customer came up on ranching, more on the animal than the crop side. Goats, pigs, horses, cattle.

The first rock concert the customer had been to was Creed. Baseball stadium in Lubbock. Second was Matchbox 20.

Been a challenge, I would say, I said. Landlord not helping and government programs not tailored to a place as tiny as this where the main expense is not employment but rent. I personally got the checks but not the unemployment.

Hangin in, limpin along, said customer. Hate to say it but I’m scared.

Dislike for the starlings that have taken over our hole: the way it needs to shimmy into the hole, which is too small for it. The frequency of its visits. The mess beneath the hole in the brickwork, which the sparrows didn’t do.

Customer from Leesville, LA.

Customer named son for a white boy she fell in love with in elementary school.

A troika was a russian carriage with three horses but they never spelled it with a ‘y.’

Customer was fresh from Milan (hadn’t contracted the virus there.) Customer back from Buenos Aires and environs. Customer agreed, with reservations, the case for being in Vietnam was more plausible than that for being in Iraq. One of attendants “old music buddies” came in, John Troutman — peach mango smoothie. Hi, John!

In fit of candor, attendant explained that overthinking, and not craftsmanship, most characterized his sandwich making. “I would say I’m not careless but rather that the results of overthinking can sometimes resemble those of carelessness.”

Customer said you could have up to something like a hundred different things to vote on on the ballot of his native Washington state. “They vote on everything at once.” “First time in years I’ve been able to vote with my wife,” another customer says. “So why don’t I vote for Bloomberg and you vote for Biden, I says? No, she says,” another customer says, “she wants us all, the whole family, to vote for the same person.”

Customer’s son was very American. He was always like this to him: You see all these credit cards here in the wallet? Did you have cards like this in El Salvador?

Things looking up for customer: two exciting job opportunities, hard to choose between, and a paper accepted by a conference. Topic of his paper was parking lots, urban development.

Customer’s heavy accent makes it hard to understand his story but it seemed he was a mover and someone, thinking they were thieves, had called the cops on his crew.

Customer was doctor. Discouraging to walk down the hall and see case after case of Covid. No let up. Really respected the nurses who were on the front lines dealing with the secretions. Hadn’t been tested herself, only if symptomatic, even then.

Walking to work I’d seen an infrequent sight: one of our to-go cups on the ground, litter. This type of cup is so generic it could be from most any place but it has one of our generic sleeves too.

Visiting his mom, a nurse, at work, he had watched her resuscitate someone.

Customer said his brother would have bled out in the middle of the street (motorcycle accident) if it hadn’t been for a hematoma.

Customers who ask where to bus their used dishes, customers who put their used dishes wherever seems best to them without asking, customers who don’t bus plates and don’t ask if they should.

Boss: we’re no longer serving salad. Customer: turns out that despite the antisemitic policies in Russia, a large number of its oligarchs are Jewish. Customer: work slow and boring, missed chocolate. Customer lived down by the stream and trail and loved it but you had to be watchful for falling trees. Customer had used to drive one of those baggage carts at Dulles — good benis — but was glad he moved over to construction, where he had learned so much, not just about his own trade, all the trades.

Infected tooth had become cancerous but survived.

Question for customer. Sanders supporters think politicians who oppose their policies, such as universal healthcare, do so because they’re corrupt and corporate hacks. Do they realize that there exist people — we usually call them Republicans — whose sincere belief it is that government run healthcare or health insurance would be bad?

Customer was a mason, now working on the marble flooring at the State Department. A couple times the job had been shut down for a week because of workers coming down with cases. One was a delivery guy. Another got it from his wife.

Customer said girlfriend had accused him of not crying over her, which “caused a switch to go off.” He realized that through none of his family’s tragedies had he cried but that didn’t mean he didn’t care.

The local news crew must have gone to the same CVS to shoot footage of the empty sanitizer shelves as the customer had gone to to get sanitizer because there was that same off-brand hand soap on the shelf beside where the sanitizer shelf was in the news report as there had been at the store she had gone to.

When customer had worked at Burger King they accused her of pocketing money from the register and fired her for it. They later found the money and asked her back but she’d moved on.

Customer said he was from cow country, around Utica New York…. Customer from Jeffersonton.

Spoke of our mothers on mother’s day. “She was a strong woman, raised seven of us kids.” “Artist and homemaker, young when she died. Actually I dreamed of her last night being in the old garage, which, whenever that happens, I try to speak to her. I said Mommy? mommy? I was 24 when she passed.”

When the customer was 45 or even 65 the work of cutting granite slabs with a diamond saw for a patio, which he was helping a friend with, would have been doable. But now his back was hurting and he wasn’t looking forward to finishing the job.

I’m so upset at the tone of debate in this country, said customer. Makes me want to cry.

Customer still recalled the name of her nursing instructor from the 1950’s and she remembered her calling us a “nation of face feelers.”

Customer had just finished a painting of El Capitaine he was pleased with and which had taken him eight weeks. Tomorrow: a tooth extraction.

Customer would use olive oil for moisturizing her hands.

The reason the customer didn’t appreciate that his opinion was self-contradictory, I thought, was that his thinking traveled along two parallel tracks, and when his thought encountered a difficulty along one track it simply switched to the other to move forward. The sound of his laughter was the sound of him switching tracks.

Customer’s son hated that he didn’t know Spanish as well as his parents, and would deny it, but he didn’t.

What’s the dog’s name? Brie, like the cheese. 

First thing to do when you’re going to be cooking with hot peppers — take a leak.

Customer was retired local highschool chemistry/biology teacher. Loved it so much. Never any discipline problems in his class. No, salt didn’t “melt” in water and it didn’t “dissolve” – it ionized.

King wrote The Shining at the height of his cocaine addiction, customer said. Customer pointed up while keeping hand at level of abdomen — don’t forget to pray. Customer could name four of the six space shuttles, having forgotten Endeavor and Discovery. I don’t know if that was the golden age or not but I don’t think we’ll ever produce anything so cool as the space shuttles, I said. Will work for about 20 minutes but is better than nothing, said customer of my disinfectant wiping.

Customer was shot through with pain as he attempted to extract change from his trouser pocket. “I’m 90.”

Young customer about to go out on her skateboard, so pretty in her floral top. “I never seen you lookin like that, girl!” she’s told. So pretty, fresh and young.

The dietary supplement one customer earnestly endorses the other customer ironically mocks.

Customer was Tsegai. Customer liked scrappers in the movies. Customer was Adam, Arab from Israel.

.36: weight in lbs. of attendant’s dish rag, steeped in Clorox, inadvertently left on the coffee bean scale.

Customer in all the vigor of his youthful prime, in mask and gloves, wondering why no one was as freaked out as he was.

Senior in at risk group — I’m stir crazy and it’s only begun. School teacher — needed break from computer time. Customer was contract worker and accustomed to prolonged bouts of downtime. Customer did web development for Freddie Mac. So much has happened in the last three weeks, customer said. I was supposed to have gone to Alabama today.

Attendant for second time in career here attempted to quit when the lockdown was declared and the place remained open. Talked out of it. Lockdown.

Customer was Daniel. Public spirited, he made an extravagant purchase to help keep the place alive. (A lot of customers were like Daniel, making extravagant purchases and leaving extravagant tips to support private businesses during the pandemic, ours included.)

Customer thought the difference between this and H1N1 is that they don’t have a vaccine for this one. Customer thought the difference between this and H1N1 is the media frankly, who are after the president – “Know I’ll get in trouble for saying it.” Customer strongly opposed to virus emergency legislation. Had read it, “a corporate give away with no oversight.” Customer said no one knows what’s going to happen. There is no light at all at the end of the tunnel.

Customer said his family’s expenses were 6000/ month. They were giving him 3400 — and he hadn’t worked in a month.

Where the register had been placed (because of the carry-out only order) in view of the street, reminded customer of when she had been a salesgirl at a small shop and someone reached over and grabbed money from the register.

Customer had recently learned that his grandfather had come very close to being one of the american hostages in Iran. Customer had thought he’d planted squash but it was actually cantaloupe, which he didn’t realize until he cut it open to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner.

It is the responsibility of the journal publishing the paper to conduct the peer review. A paper that had not been peer reviewed would of course be of lower stature. (I had struggled to find peer-reviewed papers that supported the use of mask-wearing.)

Customer’s truck was parked at the back of a restaurant. Now the restaurant was shut down and he can’t get to it.

Customer wasn’t sure how this was different from H1N1 — it wasn’t that they had had a vaccine. 12,000 people had died.

Yes, I think it’s an overreaction. China a a long way away. California is a long way away.

You seem to be of the President’s view about this, I said. — Oh? And what does Mr. Trump have to say? — That it’ll all blow over. — Precisely, said the customer.

Customer thought that what had health professionals so freaked out about this was how contagious it was. Customer: the more seriously we take this the more quickly we get through it. Customer said that none of the laborers by the Weenie Beenie were getting any work.

Customer said in Eritrea the ports were open and there was only a human virus — their President. Proud of this country for its generous aid package to The People.

These are interesting times, said customer. Fortunately, I’m a skilled navigator.

Customer having brought fresh sprig of rosemary for attendant from her community garden plot.

The couple had it orchestrated so that the man handled all the doors and possibly contaminated items and made the credit transactions, while the woman carried the beverages and food.

Customer saw the hand of Nature in this. The Economy was shut down and nature was reclaiming some part of its own. Skies were clearing. Balance was being restored.

Customer said he had caddied for Obama, Boehner and other celebs.

Customer said she hadn’t come out of the house in ten days and now was feeling guilty about doing it.

Customer apologized for not having put on her makeup yet — you could see all her blemishes.

Customer story: how his mom and his aunt had been stalked by a cougar as children.

Pretty much the only thing interesting about the customer’s small town was that it flooded a lot, particularly in ’69 with Camille. All the stories were about waking up and finding water where the town was.

Keep your head up! said customer. In a couple years I feel this will be like flu season. (Customer had just moved to a more expensive apartment when this struck, a good idea before, but now a source of anxiety.) What was the situation in Islamabad, I asked customer? – Total lockdown.

Customer’s surgical mask as exactly ill fitting as the rest of his clothing.

Customer was with U.S. Marshals. Back in January a bunch of the guys were knocked out for about 2 weeks and suspected corona. It was bad. He was a pretty fit guy and it knocked him out for two weeks. Explained that most people who have a court date don’t actually stay in jail but wear an ankle bracelet or whatever.

Customer worked as child therapist, out of work now. Customer reading book on Webster, Calhoun, and Clay. Customer said he’d be getting 5000 through unemployment insurance — that’s not bad.

Essential? I think they mean ‘disposable.’ Yeah, if anything they’re accelerating things in construction. One of our projects is at the NIH, which I can understand. But the rest of them…

All we can do is pray and keep movin, said customer. I want the strongest coffee you got, the one that walks with you. 

Customer was nurse (Georgetown). Not dealing with Covid patients but were making room for them in her wing.

Customer was Economics grad student at Mason, who, given a choice between Tyler Cowen and Paul Krugman who would he choose? Cowen.

Customer had just cycled forty miles with Homer, stopping at Great Harvest in Fairlington where they had the best gluten free cinnamon bread. Would later work as food deliverer, 3 to 9, his hours having been reduced.

Customer had worked legally in country for 16 years and paid taxes, but had not yet received green card. Didn’t qualify for aid under CARES Act. Had gotten some help with rent from Mosque. Restaurant industry.

Did customer think this was an overreaction? Of course. All of the world shut down over a little virus?

Customer didn’t like Biden — sneaky.

Home Depot was busy today, Costco was not so busy when she went. So glad to have a day off to do shopping.

Customer had actually a very productive call with Comcast which ended with them saying they would send a new modem. Who knows.

Customer pronounced Papillon like it was an English word. Was that how they pronounced it at the store?

Customer had spent morning walking around North side of County, “interesting to see how the other half lived.”

It seemed the person strode with purpose toward our door, and was a customer, but she strode in fact toward some point just to the side of it, and was a pedestrian.

Customer called to say he was still alive – in a nursing home in Maryland now.

Bartender where she worked was also a certified personal trainer and helped her with her workout.

It is observed that our “resident tree,” the honey locust, has been chopped down — the stump appears fresh and white.

Customers remarking on how untidy the latest occupants of the bird hole are — stray grass, wattling and plastic wrappers always hanging down from the hole. Never mind the droppings. These are the starlings.

Customer hovered over attendant while he worked. This guy always makes my drink wrong, he’s thinking, what is he doing?

Nurse: things actually seem to be going down a bit without having really gotten bad. Keep pushing back the peak. Supposed to have been last week now it’s the end of this week.

Police officer. No not a busy weekend. Some juveniles stole a car, were driving it.

Never a dull moment at the Library says the librarian. (How’s that?) The characters.

Lot of bad shit is about to go down here, says local official. All these businesses…

Boss offered attendant a face shield to wear: “you young man” (i.e, have reason to live), “I don’t need, old man” (i.e, nearing the end.) No, thanks.

Customer was friends with all the guys from the towing company and was helping them with something today. He speaks of a dog named Classy who enjoys watching the Animal Channel. Customer speculated that what I call the “resident bird hole” was in fact a type of bird apartment complex with many different types of bird occupying the different units. “You gave me a wheat penny,” said customer. “I’m old enough to know what that is.” “My wonderful life continues,” said customer, “funny as hell.”

Customer: I’ve never experienced anything like this. When you’re a blue collar worker you experience all the shocks, and I’ve experienced a lot, and nothing has ever been like this.

Customer was alarmed when he first came to this country — why did no one talk on the train, the bus? In his country if you didn’t talk on the bus, people would ask if you were sick. If you didn’t hug they would think — is this person not my friend?

Q: When they said to see the world through another person’s eyes, did they mean that literally, so that in stead of being me looking at her I would be her looking at me; or did they mean to try and see what fears and interests made her behave as she did? 

No sense of there being a greater good anymore, said customer. When you vaccinate your child you are maybe taking a small risk, but you are doing that for other people’s children, just as other parents have vaccinated their child for yours.

Hear that? Knee cracks then hips cracks! Telling ya boy.

At that time in the United States, if you were Chinese, you either had a laundromat or a restaurant. We had a laundromat and we worked hard. My son has a condo here and in San Francisco, two of the most expensive areas in the country, and he has no idea about these people with three families living in a three bedroom apartment. He complains he has no money, that life isn’t fair. Why were we born here, where there is such plenty, such opportunity, while someone else…? Can you believe that nearly 100,000 people have died from this virus, a hundred thousand people in this country? I cannot believe that. 

Hispanics hit hard by this. I’ve been studying for the bar anyway, customer said. May wind up working for a judge in Atlanta. When I grew up it was an incredible time for having sex, customer said, now you need months of surveillance. Customer getting antibody test tomorrow, really thinks he got it in February.

Customer didn’t know anyone who’d gotten sick. Someone at the office of the nextdoor neighbor had got it and died from it at 40. Customer said there had been a number of tragic incidents in the past of the Overlook Hotel but none of them were identified in the book as being the central or originating event.

Customer’s non-profit had distributed a thousand bottles of cold water last County Fair, but someone had got on his case about the plastic. Customer berated customer for not wearing mask. “Don’t you care about yourself? Don’t you want to live?” “Those masks don’t do no good.”

Customer hated beans growing up because his mother didn’t fully reconstitute them, half mushy, half crunchy. Customer named his pets after his friends and loved ones. Cat was Edward, Rabbit was Peter, who they’d take out for walks, but he had too many loaches to name.

What did customers think was going through Derek Chauvin’s head? “Pissed.” “Sick of this shit.” 

The ‘tramps’ in Tramps Abroad refer to ‘walks’ or ‘ambles’ not ‘hoboes’, said customer.

Guy from Fire Department: it got slow at first because everyone was home then the Covid calls started coming in (lot of nursing homes) and they were busy and now your usual type calls were coming in. They didn’t get hit too bad with covid themselves, maybe ten cases in a department of 300 and they brought it in from outside. Wasn’t concerned about rioting here, too yuppie.

Customer: why doesn’t absolutely anybody like me? funny as hell. 

Customer reassigned from cemetery detail to special ops stuff at Fort Brag. Dad was the only one he knew to have got it — worked at Fed Ex distribution center. Customers I had known as being in a Latin musical group had kids now, they said, worked construction, no music. Customer, after quickly brushing her inner thighs twice, stood to better get at the crumbs in her short’s creases. Customer not going to protests on account of his asthma. Yes the customer had noticed the heat but not what I had called the “redeeming breeze” – there was nothing redeeming out there today. Eyes of the black woman over her mask, searching and intense — what did it mean? “Try to make that expression yourself and see what feeling it calls forth.” Reverse engineer her expression until you find her thought.

Customer’s sign said BLACK PARENTS MATTER because “it all begins with good parenting,” she said. What was Wakefield Highschool named after? (Wakefield Plantation). Customer had triggered road rage incident while on a day trip by telling off a guy who hadn’t let him merge. Guy had been waiting for him in front of the off-ramp to see if he’d take it. He did and the enraged person followed after him, but he managed to shake him on side streets. Customer had friend who’d use creme de menthe for bong water. Bird had gotten in the store and injured itself trying to fly out. Nancy with a paper and attendant with a cardboard box top eventually shepherded it out. 

Customer repaid the ten dollar loan I extended him, which was interesting since that had been probably three years ago. Woman amused at how her dog will strain to sniff at fallen branches: small iced coffee with heavy cream. Customer thought he might try kayaking. “It would be a miracle, and yet it is a possible miracle, to be oneself in the world,” I thought. “They talk about stupid tv advertisements as being protected speech,” I perhaps petulantly thought, – my protest – “but the only truly free speech that exists is to be found in literature, which is universally ignored.” Customer was Ivanna. Didn’t go to school to learn English – had just read the Washington Post. Customer didn’t want to live surrounded by people of his own ethnicity, wanted to experience the culture. Customer alternated between the red and black iced tea — had she ever read “The Red and The Black?” Remembering customer Jackson who had loved Stendahl, though he’d favored La Chartreuse. Q: why was customer angry and loud as he told me about the incident? Was he reliving the emotions of the incident? 

Customer liked about Bogart’s character in Casa Blanca that he’s not perfect: he’s angry and sad, but he grows and finds something to care about. Customer let his tenants out of a lease they’d just signed: they had lost their jobs because of Covid and were moving back to FLA — “what are you gonna do?” A friend of the customer had cured himself of colitis and written a book about it, genius guy. Customer hoped the righteousness of the cause would defend the protestors from corona. Attendant, bewildered by the array of words of farewell available to him, for a moment stood speechless, then said — “bye now.” Long time ago customer had been a monk, he said. Was there much rivalry between the various service bands, I asked? “Yes — always.” 

“I think this country would be a lot better if there were no alcohol,” said customer. “If there had never been such a thing as intoxication,” I asked, “would you miss it?” Customer didn’t have to work and was still getting paid, so what was there not to like? Customer hadn’t gotten PPP loan on second attempt (lawyer), summer not looking good for money. Customer worked for construction company that operated over several states and what was challenging was that they were reopening their economies on different schedules and with different requirements. Mulberries: they’re to hard to get to, then once they’re on the ground they’re nasty. Customer from Hamburg. Came to U.S. in 2004. He wants to know why Obama just can’t be President again. Wife tells him “it doesn’t work like that here.”

Question the customer was asked was: what were the news sources he trusted? Question the customer answered was: what news programs didn’t he like and what didn’t he like about them?

I had forgotten the customer was a music teacher but had never known she had studied Charles Ives. “Defund the police — I’d like to see the [yuppies] in this area get along without the police.” Customer accused of grandstanding as she films police officers apprehending a black woman. France killed 1.5 million Algerians, customer said. There was a supreme court case in the 1920’s that said you couldn’t teach German in school, which was overturned, customer said. Sanders supporter was not too into the protests: “with this kind of energy you’d like to see more of an economic agenda attached.” Customer interpreted the phrase “the skies will be opening up” to mean there would be sunshine soon.

 Sage was essential to Irish cooking but as a plant it was very water sensitive.

 I started a sketch of a customer, with his back turned to me, at the very moment — the very moment — he rose to leave, resulting in a deformed parabola: a pencil stroke that started at his shoulder then tried to follow him out the door.

 Don’t tell me about your ‘black friend,’ said customer, tell me about your friend! Customer had lost his best buddy at work — to retirement. “He ain’t never been married and he ain’t go no kids, I say damn!” says customer. Way to win at a hotdog eating contest: swallow don’t chew.

Customer had canvassed for governor in last election. They tell you not to engage in disputes with people of the opposite political persuasion and she had been disciplined about that. 

Customer left 10 dollar tip, then, within an hour,, asked attendant for 20 dollar loan. Customer: Egypt was acting selfishly in the matter of the Renaissance Dam.

Customer moving to Beaverton Oregon. Customer praised Baern Munich’s professional soccer club. Customer used to run to Vienna and back, 20 miles. Would wake up at 4 and run to the Ritz where he waited tables, biked to Mount Vernon and back 32 miles, now he’s had a hip replacement and only walks for exercise. Drives a limo.

Customer pissed off that a local elected official was not wearing a mask — didn’t he get it? Customer said he couldn’t hear a word that other customer was saying, he spoke so softly. No one can, I said. Africans were very hard workers, said customer, a former small business owner. Senegal, Morocco, anywhere, never a problem. How could attendant have forgotten the customer’s name when you know it’s the name of a Hitchcock movie? (Because I had forgotten the name of the Hitchcock movie – Marnie.)

How’s Tim doing, said customer — which Tim? — Pentagon Tim — Haven’t seen him since this hit, I said. Keep forgetting this customer likes a few napkins with her cold drink. Customer driving to Wisconsin to pick up custom bike. Customer had not said “hot” but “hard”: life was very hard now. Customer liked pickles when she exercised: there was potassium but also hydration.

Customer’s loaches make clicking sound when he feeds them frozen worms — do that when it’s something they like. Customer had just moved from Pittsburg, nurse. Customer was Ashley. Loved Phoenix for its neighboring wilderness areas. What was the tree with the big heart-shaped leaves around here? “Sycamore.”  Hidase dam to become operational within the week. Elections coming up within next few months. That confluence of events may prove tricky. Houston was great because people actually enjoyed having time off from work there, opposite of here. Customer had been airplane mechanic for Air Force. “Lot of responsibility,” I said. “It certainly was.” 

How, at this distance, could the attendant be sure that the customer’s cup was nearly empty? You wouldn’t hold a cup that casually if it could possibly spill. You look at these African dictators who for some reason have to rule beyond their elected term and you really appreciate the foresight and principles of George Washington. As difficult a figure as he was, Thomas Jefferson wrote those words all men are created equal and we don’t live up to it and we’ve never lived up to it but that right there is American Exceptionalism, that’s what all this is about, all people are created equal, deserve equal protection under the law, happy fourth of July.

To what era in U.S. History would the customer compare our present one and why? 1860 because people really hate each other. Customer couldn’t give blood since he may have been exposed to mad cow disease. Customer called BS on Felda Gap: no way in hell the Russians were ever going to go through there when all of North Germany was a wide open plain. (And don’t try to tell him about rivers when half their damn army was amphibious.) Lot of unhappy people this fourth of July, man. It made customer wish Kate Smith were alive again. (Who’s Kate Smith?) Singer for troops during WWII with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. A big woman with big vocals, when she sang God Bless America you wanted to stand up and salute. Customer: had over three thousand Wonder Woman comics. (Loved Wonder Woman because she never gave up no matter the adversity.) Customer going to Dick’s to investigate kayaks. What happened to George Floyd was horrible but customer still didn’t like the protests. Q: on the basis of what phonetic indicator did the attendant suspect that Mongolian was being spoken by the customers? A: repeated ‘ts’ sound.

Customer’s favorite military aircraft (despite having served in the Navy) was the warthog, which were slow but turned on a dime. You would see them in training in the mountains around Lexington. Being from Richmond, did customer have view on the controversy surrounding the statues of Confederate leaders? “About time, they were traitors, right?” (Customer was familiar with the place?) “Very much so.”  (Was “traitors” the right language to use?) “After the war is over, you stop calling them traitors in order to heal the nation. But then if you make statues of them and start calling them heroes that once again begs the question.’”

What kind of planes had customer worked on as a mechanic for the military? Cargo planes. Customer angered by the constant jaywalking across the busy four lane road, Columbia Pike — often people with mobility issues doing it — with a cross walk not ten yards away. “People don’t care for their lives. Look at this!”

“People don’t care at all, it’s crazy. Bartender works for us 2 and a half years, excellent bartender, then one day she doesn’t show up. Where is she? Moving to Ohio. Doesn’t say nothing.”

Customer said she was scrupulously honest in filling out medical-financial forms (in being asked for example if she smoked) even though she knew that it made her pay more than other people.

It had been some while since he’d lost a bagel to the ground like this. This was the classic “bagel spinoff” where the spreading knife, adhering to the cheese, supplied sufficient centrifugal force to wrest it from my positioning hand. Instinctively I pushed my belly toward the counter but it was already tumbling toward my shoes.

Customer was highschool math teacher who worked on the county’s school budget as volunteer. Were Confederate generals traitors? So bored by the whole civil war, said customer, but no they weren’t. Were George Washington and the founding fathers ‘traitors’? Just because you’re a part of a thing doesn’t obligate you forever to stay a part of that thing. You indicate your loyalty to this place by doing a good job here. You don’t indicate it by guaranteeing you’ll never work anywhere else.

Customer had lived all over and that community on the big hill was just a good place to live. Video: Eritrean President burned in effigy by refugees in Ethiopia. Video: the customer – the same one now holding out her phone – is moving with strength and balletic grace along a thick rope hanging from a circus tent top. Customer: mom was getting worse. Customer: depressed about masks. Customer: there are no statues to Hitler in Germany and race slavery was a form of genocide. Customer: you can get away with playing soccer in the heat like this until you’re about forty. Customer: A lot of people just don’t know that world exists, where you have a person who can’t hold a job but manages to support a 300/ day drug habit.

Did the German customer, who worked in hospitality, think that Angela Merkel should have admitted as many Syrian refugees into the country as she did? “That’s a tough one, as Germans are very sensitive to those issues.” What was the first thing they had taught the customer as a carpenter? “Cleanliness of your work area.” At 34, customer was youngest in his condo association and appreciated his building’s quiet.

Astrologist’s verdict is in: negative energies will continue to increase and result in a massive destabilization.

Customer: Oromo and Asmara demonstrating against each other yesterday.

Customer: I am so sick of this virus.

Customer, passing by, had stopped in to take a picture of her brother’s favorite coffee shop — her brother having moved from the area — only to find him actually sitting out front. Question he was researching today: what were some good spots around here to propose?

Customer’s favorite jazz album: Pharoh Sanders, The Creator Has a Master Plan. Customer had been to three different dentists trying to fix an abscessed tooth. Customer liked his heart doctor, who told it to him straight, and the results of the angioplasty had been extremely positive. Customer had had back surgery in March; had hoped to have been better recovered by now. Customer questioned the total on the register, which seemed low but was correct. Customer thought the management rude; management shocked at the customer’s disrespect. Customer was painting the rental to prep for new tenants. Seems like there’s a new tenant every two years, almost always a young couple who’ve just started their careers and don’t have children and want to be near things. “Different times man,” said customer. “The mailman in my town would let himself into our kitchen for a drink. We all knew each other.” ”O how the mighty have fallen,” and “the love of money is the root of all evils” — customer loved the former, but very much doubted the latter. Money solved a lot of problems.

Romantic customers: first time we’ve lived together for a prolonged time and it had been very good for their relationship. (Man can’t return to Toronto.) Instead of his usual tennis match the customer had spent the morning trying to figure out what was wrong with his car — lower control arm. (These tend to wear out every five years with Minis.) For Muslims, customer said, Ishmael was the first son of Abraham and Sara and it was Ishmael whom God had ordered Abraham to sacrifice.

Customer’s great grandfather captured in first day of Battle of Gettysburg, a confederate from Alabama. Survived gangrenous shoulder wound and didn’t die until 1928 (and he hadn’t been a young man during the war.) Catching a crab, said customer, was when you’re rowing and dig too deep and can’t pull your oar up and it’s pushing against you so you may get ejected. Acrobatic customer, graceful in the air, was a total klutz on the ground, she said, often stumbling, which might be attributable to the many injuries she’d suffered in athletics over the years — broken toes, limbs, knee surgery…. “It’s because guys were beating their bodies to shit when they were young” that they died younger than women, customer said – “thanks for reminding me,” customer said. Customer worked for AARP magazine. Customer enthusiastic about County’s electronic waste disposal program. Had customer’s work been affected by the Beirut explosion? No one on the team was hurt but the office got pretty dinged up. Nurse: one thing about her job, she felt she helped people a lot and was doing something good for them. After fishing on the Rapidan the customer had run into two girls on the trail on the way back to his car then later read of two girls having been murdered that day around there — but the pictures in the paper didn’t look the two girls he’d met. Diapers come in a 30 pack, said customer, I’ve already used 22 today. Customer was helping buddy move today (had served together at Fort Brag) — 3 large coffees. Customer’s cooking specialty was carmelized onions. Had I heard the draft house had reopened? Back to the Future for five dollars. Customer had run 17 miles, perfect weather for it, feet hurt. There’s violence in everything, customer remarks.

Attendant said that wikipedia said that the name of the river Rapidan is not native american but derived from Queen Anne’s Rapids. A “Drawing room,” moreover, was a room one withdraws to.  Someday attendant will write book about the crazy people who came to see him, customer said. Attendant should write novel about all the characters who come in here, customer said. Customers who want the novelized version of this should read Sweet Thursday, I said. Customer’s shirt: Zora, Eudora, Flannery. — “because I’m a nerd,” she said. Customer had come here ten years ago from Poland, customer had own record label, customer could do the side-stroke but only on one side. Customer had really gotten sick of this, customer thought this might drag on forever, customer was getting sick of the online experience (had gotten sick of the online experience months ago.) Customer didn’t own a house to do home-improvement on but did have some closets he hadn’t cleaned in forever – so maybe that’s what he’d do. Bored customer had driven to Toledo and back — “nice historic district.” Attendant was like his own customers, customer said: not stretching or icing his sports injuries appropriately. Gals from L.A.: had gotten full body massages and were now going to whoop it up. “Restroom is very bad,” the customer said. 

Airconditioner whistling and squawking from the vents, the violin from the speakers sometimes hitting the same notes, music meeting sound. Customer didn’t know Spanish word for bird but the Russian word was ptitsa. To find the appropriate length of a jump rope, stand on it in the middle and the ends should reach up to your arm pits. (If it’s too long you can wrap it around your wrists.) The U.S. is worse than Africa now, I tell you, the laughing stock of the whole world.  Nickolas (blond Nick and not Greek Nick) is moving: gives the gift of Wolf Hall. (Oh, says customer Laurie, almost the moment after he’s left. You’re reading Wolf Hall.) I randomly jumped on a customer for asserting that “nothing was perfect”: then on what basis could he say things were imperfect? How could he know of the existence of imperfection without having previous knowledge of the existence of perfection? “Sorry, man.… I…. didn’t…”

When the customer complimented the owner on his fine coffee, his face lit up. When the customer complimented the attendant on the fine work he did, there was no response at all.

Customer’s son was sous chef in LA. Customer questioned why the price for half a small coffee was the same as the price for a whole small coffee. Steramine tablet hopping in the water bucket by force of its own effervescence.

Customer had just been painting trim, pandemic “ideal for chores of that type.” Customer spent long weekend on Jersey shore. Mask: was standard surgical mask, light blue. Mask: featured kitten heads. Mask: varicolored soccer balls. Where did we get that idea that all men are created equal? “Well, Thomas Jefferson got it from John Locke but where John Locke got it from I’ll have to figure out in this seminar. Christianity probably.”

MEMOREMEE 

Customer: of course, colonization was not “for free” but Eritrea had an advantage over Ethiopia because it had been colonized.

Customer was private school teacher, school safety concerns were “all about the money.” Customer was parent, kids went to catholic private school, had no problem with his kids going back, had no concern especially with the kids getting sick. Like flu.

Customer hadn’t even known you could do this but her new kitten had somehow transferred all the emails from her inbox into the trash folder.

Customer profoundly shocked to have been laid off and it occurs at a very bad time. (Some of the difficult stories you hear told through masks so there can be gaps you miss.)

Customer: “misery beats loneliness” — wants to get married.

If the customer’s girlfriend had been proposing to him, rather than the other way, he would love for it to be at a rocket launch.

Attendant always wore neutral colors, observed customer.

Suddenly here is that customer Craig from years ago, who would go sailing with his girlfriend Nicky, Vicky, was it? “The Man in Irons” they knew me as. Profound.

Here it comes: coffee pushing up the cup’s sides, a solid black column, the cup’s sides holding it in, pushing it up. Another full cup of coffee is produced.

The smell of chemicals could bring on the customer’s severe headaches, sanitizer too, but what could he do? He applied more sanitizer.

I ain’t gonna rat, said customer, but there are way too many people livin at the place I’m at now and it ain’t safe. 

Thought I would get out of here early tonight then in the last twenty minutes — here comes everybody.

Customer worked at Giant when the power went out. Registers weren’t hooked up to the generators. Cab driving customer: “I might be the slowest driver in the fleet.” Customer didn’t have job and car had failed inspection, 700 dollar repair — could they bring it down a little? — 699. Taking it to the dealership, control arm issue.

Customer pointing out that the inside of the Utz bag was aluminum foil, and that the printing on the outside could not be washed away, which wasn’t the case with some of these other bags. Processes had to be developed for that. Those processes could be patented.

Customer had been reading in the paper about Marine generals passed over for promotion, generals who were black, and she was sick of it and wanted it stopped, the bitching and whining in public which was conduct unbecoming of an officer and conduct unbecoming of a marine. Customer’s car badly scratched within a month of buying it, no note. Customer still felt badly for immigrating from Pittsburg, with its poverty and depressed economy, for D.C., center of wealth and power. Customer had seen documentary on the events that inspired the Charles Bronson/ Lee Marvin movie Death Hunt. Customer chided teens for not wearing masks in the store: “sorry bro, didn’t know we’d be going to a store when we left the house.” Customer said that something that would do a surprising amount of good for the environment is if everyone crushed their cups, bottles and cans before throwing them away/ recycling. You wouldn’t believe the carbon that would be saved. Customer had just gotten out of surgery, fighting breast cancer, the gal with a little boy who I’d run into at the Harris Teeter that time. Customer had just received school issued IPAD and was trying it out. Customer said Maltese is the only semitic European language. Arch conservative monarchist military man, a customer from years ago, on his matutinal walk with his heavy pack, pausing to talk to a neighbor on our porch.

Dream that the grill had broken and that in its place was a small very hot iron block, like an anvil, on which I was trying to balance three sandwiches, 2 chicken, 1 mushroom. That has a motion sensor,  I tell the customer, referring to the sanitizer dispenser – the top can’t be pressed. Customer, looking intently at a line in her arabic text book – was that the word for radish? Customer moving to Front Royal last night: he’d thought he was bullet proof working in the service industry, a waiter, now he’ll be learning java script. Customer didn’t believe lead-crime hypothesis as I described it, sounded like a conspiracy theory to him. The graying of the population was itself an explanation for the reduction in crime, another customer said. You are awesome, said customer, no you are awesome, I said, no you are more awesome, the customer said. 

Customers were police officers, crime at the the telephone repair shop a few doors down, nobody harmed, suspect wasn’t harmed. Girl with Pearl Earing reproduction staring out at me from the coffee cup sleeve. Dislodging with broom smushed chocolate chips from the top of the green speckled stairs. Shirt: Rhode Island. Shirt: “Discover, Explore.” What would the customer be doing this afternoon? Sewing with a friend…. Reminded of the customer who would knit here, a talented painter who worked in a museum I think: he “wasn’t a numismatist but worked with one,” I’d noted.

Customer had gone to socially distanced funeral. Customer had “really mispent his twenties and thirties.” Having just visited her brother-n-law, the customer was now going for a walk around the city. “Working with special needs kids requires a lot of energy, being positive and cheerful all the time — and fortunately I’ve got that,” said customer Ashley. “Signal Hill in L.A. and the bar Curly’s. Everyone knew me on Signal Hill.”

As customer studied papers she distractedly grabbed and pulled at the flesh on her arm. Customer had foot on the cushion of the opposing chair so that her heel was the same height as her bottom. Customer’s military career had taken him to Salem, Virginia, North Carolina, Alaska, Louisiana, now here and next to the Middle East. Customer indented his emails. Customer had finally decided on his proposal spot — a gazebo at the end of a pier in Old Town.

Customer worried the election wouldn’t go the right way; she’d done some traveling and it was a different world outside the metro area. Up was down.

Q: Customer needed to treat some friends, who were old people like the attendant, to dinner. What places for old people could the attendant recommend? A: Quiet places.

When leading team meetings on Zoom, customer dispensed with the niceties, maybe briskly asking how everyone was, then got right down to it, which, from the feedback she’d received, the team really appreciated.

Pedestrian weeping by black trash barrel, looking down street. Glasses, overweight, tall, a gray t-shirt, black pants. A passerby asks if she’s alright; she waves her off. Now she’s limping to a car that has pulled up on the other side of the block.

Whatchoo reading? — good book — “That’s what it’s called ‘The Good Book”? — no, it’s called The Bible but some people do refer to it as “the good book,” I say tersely.

Idea that faith in quack medicines arises from people not wanting to believe that all you need for life saving treatment is access to affordable quality care. Life couldn’t be so cruel and simple as that.

Customer referred to what the attendant would have called the pavement or asphalt of the parking lot as the tarmac of the parking lot — a car had backed into him, he said — into him, not his car. It had pushed him forward but he struggled with his arms and kept his face from hitting the tarmac. He had some back trouble now.

This customer had appeared in the attendant’s dream: he had wanted help writing something in English and I was writing it for him but in caramel on a napkin — illegible. Kind of a burly dude pedestrian whom you’d expect to see with a giant dog at the end of his leash when in fact it is a tiny cheerful dog, straining to keep pace with his owner’s giant strides.

Customer reflected that he had been my age in 1982. Ethiopia update: Abe has postponed elections for a year, owing to Covid, and the Tigri, objecting to this as unconstitutional, have staged their own elections. (This is to prove the start of a serious civil conflict in that country.) Customer had had surgery on his eyes and couldn’t make out the bottled iced tea selection. “Is the world actually ending?” asked customer. “You ultimately need a woman in power to make the tough decisions,” said customer. “Politicians could always find enough money for war, never for healthcare,” said customer. Customer was to take son to the new New Mutants movie, had he seen the trailer for the new Dune? Did the chicken salad have berries? Did the chicken salad have nuts?

Customer had never taken medication in all their life but now they had prescribed for her a blood pressure pill, which was making her despondent and anxious. Did attendant watch football? No. Did attendant watch baseball? No. I volunteered that if I were ever to try and up my game as a coffee shop conversationalist I would get to know sports a little: amazing how that starts a conversation among guys. 

Asked what she was looking for, the non-native English speaker used two fingers to draw a square in the air.

Were we the problem then? I asked. People were certainly very unfriendly around here, customer said. I’ve never been anywhere else where people will just walk away from you in the middle of a conversation.

Stupid chant of customer’s college suite mates recalled by customer: “I must, I must, I must increase my bust.” Stupid!

Nina from Georgia having left for Czech Republic.

Customer was “livid” — door knob to apartment door had come off in his hand. Customer had fresh basil and rosemary to share. Had I heard that the building this store was in had been sold? Chinese developer taking it over from the landlord across the street, who will still be managing the property, according to the retired barber and neighborhood fixture for decades, who knows everything, but spends most of the year in Florida now. Customer said there had been a yellow jacket in his wine, stung him four times on the tongue. EMT was there in five minutes, his tongue having alarmingly swelled, then to the hospital where he was kept under observation for five hours. They said four was a lot of times to be stung.

Customer’s name was Ferahay. Not Senegalese, as attendant guessed from her Dakar touting tote, but Swahili from her DRC dad.

Age changed your perspective customer said — funny how little he cared about things like his collectibles and how much he cared about how good that sandwich just was.

Customer was Homer bringing in some mugs (with his initials H.A) he had made as a gift for me. His orange curly hair grown long. You said you liked them small, he said.

American Pest truck you see passing, the name so evocative. One person coming so clearly to mind. Man, running past for exercise, runs as if running to the bathroom. Woman, running past for exercise, runs as if running to escape a situation.

Pushing the spilled sugar on the counter, making cloud shapes. During a birthday getaway to Annapolis, customer couple were astonished by repeated encounters with a recently deceased grandfather’s first name – Buddy.

Management: sales down 25 percent, what can we do? Management had voted by mail but neglected to have it signed by a witness. There may be a way of correcting that, said customer. Take a tylenol when you get home, customer told me, you’’ll need it after listening to all of our  complaints. 

Customer telling her gentleman companion granular details about her work. Gentleman really interested to hear it and asks good questions.

That level of a cookie’s staleness when microwaving it actually makes it harder. Sparrows in formation now around the old man with his bread. Customer’s forty meter length of blue rope for “circus”  had at last arrived from England.

Curiosity: what percentage of customers who don’t specify a size for their beverage will wind up choosing medium? Today, a hundred percent. Small bird feather among my chance sweepings tonight. Also, among the usual crumbs and leaf detritus, a very small square ripped-off end of a paper straw wrapper. Thumb touched the superhot grill earlier but I removed it before feeling any sensation of heat, and now visually confirm there’s been no injury.

Customer was Thomas. Customer’s husband was Corsican. Interesting crew tonight: American Jew, Palestinian Israeli, African American, Turkish American and myself though I just listened  — subject, Israel. Customer, Jewish, had formally joined five different religions but had never seen Hannah and Her Sisters in which the Jewish protagonist similarly experiments with religion…. Religion of Culture he had yet, perhaps, to try.

When management came in this morning there was someone sleeping behind the dumpster. “Anyone we know?” I said. He made some noise and the person left before he could see who, but I had an idea. I had seen him washing up another time, early, at a public fountain. “World is crazy,”  boss said.

Customer had been volunteering as a poll worker since the last primary. It was a long day but he liked the extra money. He had only had to turn a few people away, mostly they either hadn’t brought the proper I.D. or were at the wrong polling station.

Customer recalled that the rival of Spacely’s Sprockets was Cogwell’s Cogs. Customer’s hearing had been notably impaired over just the last few months, Covid related — saddening. Customer would be moving again, Fairfax to Falls Church.

Customer had lucked into nice couple who’d given him yard work. Trying to do something unique with her backyard and needed to try and place the flowers precisely where she said she wanted them.

The morning’s gentle misting rain evoked the Spanish customer and his (Brazilian?) partner — “chiri miri,” he’d called rain of this sort – and I cannot not think of that when it is this kind of rain, a nice word for it. Nice rain.

Att: May I ask what the meaning of your shirt is? Customer: It’s from Harry Potter.

Had played a round of frisbee golf to start the day.

Customer displayed the new Ethiopian currency: tractor on one side, factory on the other, a pale red. 50 bir.

(This new currency, as it was explained to me, was a way for the government to appropriate funds from the Tigri: the old currency, which the Tigri had, had to be exchanged with the government to retain it’s value.)  

Customer, having been in emergency ward for something unrelated, had listened to the coughs of Covid patients, which had made it something real to him. Now he’d come from North Carolina where no one was wearing masks.

Customer had been to prayer gathering on mall — Billy Graham’s son.

Senior with mobility issues trying to flag down bus. Customer arrested for solicitation. “If I go home now I can walk Rocky before the rain starts.” Customer felt like she was always waiting for her husband. Customer lurching across street: held up heavy bags with his grocery purchases and his sagging pants in one hand, the other hand free.

Customer sick as a dog yesterday — bad collards. Did we have pumpkin flavor (no) did we have oat milk (no) 

Smelling bleach on my hand, realizing I no longer have an olfactory memory of that evocative nursery home smell that I used to smell so often when I touched my face.

“Fun day” tomorrow for customer as half her colleagues will be told they’re laid off, herself next up on the block.

When they go low we get high – as hell –, was customer’s version of Michelle Obama’s remark — and they’d gone very low last night.

Customer, homeless as of Thursday but had an SUV and an air matress.

Could customer have a croissant new? (fresh.)

Customer lobbyist for trade organization (confectioners): got hammered during Easter but thinks they’ll turn the corner at Halloween. Always pushing to make the holidays sooner.

Police officer: hadn’t gotten sick nor had his colleagues despite being in people’s houses all the time. Had been concerned about the civil unrest this past summer but it turned out not to be bad. 

Customer looking for an English word for when you knew something was true but couldn’t publicly say it…? Making a seafood pasta tonight. 

Customer reading memoir of the woman raped by a Stanford swimming star — “Know My Name.” Conversation: was the President “all about the money” or was he “all about” something else? 

People think it’s easy being the boss but the higher you go the harder the decisions. Some people will love you, some people will hate you, because of these decisions. That’s unavoidable. This is why working in government is a service. You do this for not very much money.

Pedestrian waiting for the bus, what was she thinking this morning when she put on that coat?  Was it “I look good in this coat, I’ll wear this coat,” or was it “oh this coat, I really need a new coat.” And she put it on and she buttoned it up and she started thinking of the next thing.

Idea that you don’t need to “drill down upon” people to know people but to be “drilled down upon by people” to know people: to be almost tortured by them –  opposite of data collection. 

Customer had voted yes on amendment 1 but hadn’t looked at it: wife had felt strongly about it. Customer strongly approved of amendment 1: Republicans were cut throat so Democrats had to be too. (Sick of Democrats being “nice guy.”) Customer just voted how his party said, he said, which I said was wise. Unreasonable to force employees back into the office for even one day a week with this still going on, was customer’s view. Customer said amendment 1 wouldn’t change much, wasn’t worth the trouble, “still in hands of the politicians.” Customer said Dems said NO but Post said YES on Prop One and he hadn’t sorted it out yet. (Prop. 1 had been about gerrymandering. Dems were against it because it essentially gave power to a Republican dominated Supreme court to redraw the boundaries of voting districts, but the ultimate result was more even-handed than had been anticipated.) Customer a little confused by what she had read of it so far. Would research it more nearer the date. One more day of work then she’d get the weekend all for herself.

Dragons said the customer’s baseball cap, not in English — the mascot of their daughter’s school in Shanghai.

Customer studying for GRE (mainly math portion needed review.) Customer said cup shape was a frustum. Regular customer hadn’t been coming in because he’d had a stroke. 

Customer was constitutionalist and libertarian, former special forces, retired…. These people agitating for physical conflict – he had seen it and, believe me, they don’t want it. In favor of talking. (What did he think was the source of political division in the country?) Wasn’t sure. Wasn’t Trump, Trump was a symptom. 

Customer said that green tea needs to be steeped at a lower temperature than black tea; boiling makes it bitter.

Customer who disliked Government and Communism yet thought Marx was right that Capital stole from Labor. Attendant who liked government yet liked being contrarian even more said: on the other hand, capital gave labor meaning, through providing it with an idea and organization. “Without an idea, labor is just a hundred people doing pushups.” 

“To be in America is a waste of life. Come to Africa,” said customer. “Here you come for money, that’s it.” Then, feeling badly for having said that, he adds, “It is so important that this country be here, a free country. We feel so grateful, you know that. We must all fight to keep this place free.”

Customer thought he would “open a small window on to himself” and share with me that today was his birthday, October 24th, 2020.

That’s the deal, said customer, we’re only in this world a little while, who can understand those who make such trouble in it?

Jetez un peu — “throw out a little.” (I can still see myself still throwing out that little bit, long ago, for that dear person, Rashida.) Customer’s 8 month bout of unemployment finally over. Can sleep again. Customer loved this area and would only move if she was thinking of buying. Customer was a fighter, thinks quick on her feet. They’ll need to put a plaque on this building, the customer said, when I told of him of this “history of the mundane.” Very little that was new ever happened, he thought, and real change was almost always bad.

Customer explained distinction between crever and mourir — mourir was to die, crever to be in the process of dying. Je creve. Customer was curious what system of economy would replace Capitalism as Capitalism had replaced feudalism? Marx had said it would be socialism, but that hadn’t panned out or had not panned out yet, could it be something else? (Maybe socialism would “pan out” when robot workers came to predominate and there was a clear necessity for U.B.I?) One possibility was a country like China with a capitalist economy and authoritarian government; another possibility was a high-tax high service Democratic state like Denmark – capitalism light. Customer broke finger falling from bicycle, compound fracture, “no pickleball.” Plastic fork or spoon requested by customer. Customer alerting attendant he was leaving but would shortly be back at the moment I noticed a dime balanced on two edges of a dollar bill in the tip jar. How had the former waiter customer fared so far in his “hand-to-hand” combat with Java Script? It was coming, believe it or not! He had been making definite progress. (Large iced coffee with two shots.) Never seen fog like that before and I’m from the Pacific NW.

What did the customer think was responsible for the partisan division in our country? “Trump.” But it preceded Trump, didn’t it? “I still blame Trump.” Q: was it the customer’s understanding that there were two unrelated supernatural forces at work in the movie The Shining: the ability to “shine” and sense auras on the one hand, and then whatever evil entity inhabited the Overlook Hotel on the other? — Yes. There was no explanation for how the ability to “shine” related to the Hotel’s haunting. Customer had “turned over” a pacman game when she was younger, a huge crowd having gathered around her at the arcade.

Customer wasn’t from Duluth, Minnesota but from Superior, Wisconsin. Customer had wanted his dissertation to have been on American Pragmatism but in that department there was no one to form the committee. Customer on being shown a page of Finnegans Wake asked if the author gone mad by that point? Customer explained The Isker flows through Sophia, while the Danube forms the border between us and Romania. We’re far too sensitive as a people, complained American customer. It’s like why can’t you tell me, what do you want? Customer said his favorite amendment to the U.S. Constitution was the ninth and indeed knew it word for word: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  Customer, disgusted about something else, flicked a bee that had been buzzing near him — not angered by the bee, just lashing out at anything. The battered bee was itself uninjured and didn’t return to sting this Frenchman. Just went along as before, somewhat farther off.

In the balcony over the family dentistry, there are suddenly signs of an occupant: flowers, ferns, a draped mountain bike.

Customer, an excellent writer, viewed himself as deeply conventional: he saw things occurring in a script and disliked any departure from that script. He moved in a well articulated world, I imagined, a world of law, in which you didn’t do wrong or stupid things because you had that light on, of being able to verbally identify what you were doing and what was happening. If you could properly identify something, you could make a mistake but not be stupid. The light was on.

Having grown up in Belfast customer was not particularly concerned about political violence in the States — car jacking, car bombs, riots, hearing bombs go off in the street, you name it.

“When you spend your life driving a cab your brain deteriorates very quickly.”

Attendant to customers: you say that if we don’t win this election we don’t deserve our democracy, which is probably right, but what I’m saying is that the other side is really thinking that same thing.

Customer, ever since she was a girl, always got sick when her head got wet.

Customer had had a lot of “spots” and hangouts over the years and this wasn’t one of the best but he would still hate to see it go.

Customer: you can keep the quarter. Customer: can I have the key? The big red X on a white background of a parked FedEx truck. – Beautiful day out. – Yes you’d never guess at all that madness across the bridge. (Customer having actually telephoned in to our otherwise media free establishment to let us know they were storming The Capitol.) Customer’s unusual habit of paying back the money he’d been lent only to immediately ask if he could borrow it again. Laundromat people are the best people. If you go into a laundromat and tell people you can’t afford to wash your clothes they’ll pony up for you. Customer: “Half the country votes for an evil guy, who doesn’t hide what he does. Can it really be that half the people in the country are bad people? How do you explain it?” Customer needed something to clean off her credit card before handing it over. I sighed heavily to go back to our Webster’s Collegiate dictionary (1947) in the bookshelf in back — how many times in my life had I had to look up ‘rebarbative’?

Attendant thought that looking older than he was might be the result or punishment of having only seemed to be wise. People our age, had said the customer, born 1956.

Customer interested in criminal justice reform. Gal had black eye — tripped while running after her boys. Gal had black eye — slipped on ice. Gal had black eye — soccer game. Guy with black and bloody eye — had been jumped. 

Customer who was first time home buyer was also first time house inhabitant and had never mowed a lawn before just recently. Customer’s sister’s poverty was probably overstated if she could afford a pack of cigarettes a day.

Had customer already left? a customer asked. Customer had not yet come, she was told. Attendant needed to revert to the Webster’s collegiate: the customer had never heard of Brussels sprouts before – would he write it down for her?

Customer signed credit card receipt from right to left.  When customer got together with her sisters they played SORRY! or Uno. The problem with SORRY! was you could only have four players. Best defense of Trump voters the customer could give was that they were voting for a cultural outcome not policy goals – wearing long pants to church – Baseball and apple pie. Maybe when there was no “baseball and mom’s apple pie” there was “Q-anon, Seth Rich and Pizzagate.” They tried to have a team named The Colts in the Canadian League but the NFL wouldn’t allow it, so they called them The Stallions, said customer. (Name “Colts” had been nod to the state horse breed.) “I feel as if a giant weight has been taken off my shoulders,” customers after the election would say. Customer diagnosed with something I couldn’t make out — lot of pain and lifestyle changes. “I’m willing to listen but I’m not going to apologize for living,” said customer about calls for reparations.

Customer had been enjoying Brussels Sprouts for years but couldn’t spell them until recently. Q: Does ‘corolla’ mean something, as in the Toyota corolla? A: “A diminutive of something,” customer said. “I’m going to look that up.” [Pedals of a flower.] Attendant feeling unexpectedly relieved and happy: even the most challenging customers were behaving rather nicely. Customer: I should have gotten an education like everyone else in my family. Attendant: Grass is always greener. Could you really have worked in an office? 

Customer: could attendant explain American life? What sort of life was it? Big house, everything is nice, but alone and afraid to leave the house: no family, no kids, no visitors, no laughter, what is this? That is life? Customer from Western Virginia was the only liberal in the family. They were not coal miners but factory workers (rubber, metal) and entrepreneurs.  “Why are people so hung up on power? always looking behind your back needing to know what people are saying, why? Give me my balcony and my cigars.” Customer had been laying wreathes at National Cemetery, had dressed for much worse weather, the norm in the past when she came. Trump had really shaken his faith in America, the customer said. 

Don’t you know what it’s like, I said, to have your heart set on something and feel that you can’t live without it? I feel like that all the time, replied customer, that’s human! You need to move on! Mongolian Buddhist to Ethiopian Christian: you really believe Jesus rose from the dead? you really believe you go somewhere when you die? “People have no idea how bad they have it in America,” said customer, “it’s amazing.” Impoverment of the boobly by the bauble for the bubble, laughed the customer, he guessed that’s about what we had right now. “Rather put my hand through a buzz saw than be President, the way these guys get criticism,” customer says. 

You’re more American than I am, customer says. I am an American but you were born here, have always been here. Customer’s kids loved Italian, spaghetti, pizza… could cook them spaghetti every night if she wanted. Could customer who was a software whizz get a job in the space industry if he wanted? “Very competitive.” Customer — where can you get freshly butchered meat? Needs to see the animal actually butchered like back home. (If there’s blood that means they’re mixing heart and liver in with it — not good.) Usually took three rakings to get all the leaves from the customer’s lawn (cat was scared by rustling leaves), a rain next week should bring the rest down. 

Attendant to self: what the hell is about to come out of that bus and into this store? (This time, nothing.)

Customer putting tin foil around the stove to keep the kittens off. Customer would like hot chicken sandwich — “I need a good one today.” Regular customers having just rolled into view in their reflective vests. They will have a coffee then ride in the neighborhood behind the Giant, and sometimes I will go with them, running. We will stop at the middle school to talk and rest and maybe I will do a few pushups. Need to get out of this area as soon as some medical crises are taken care of, customer said – too crowded and expensive. I don’t know how regular people afford this. 

Noting that people who resist masks seem especially zealous about applying sanitizer.

What were the topics of interest to the customer? Popular culture, basketball, said she didn’t follow politics but had strong opinions, Christianity…

Were there bugs where the customer lived? Yes there were bugs.

Customer living in building across street, did it seem like it was nearing full occupancy? Quite the opposite. Feels empty.

Looking between the opened halves of the panini grill: the cheese of the grilled cheese had become molten but had not yet stretched to the lower half. Looking between the grill’s halves: a chicken sliver has half-fallen from the edge of the bread of the hot chicken sandwich.

Customer’s mother induced labor when she was pregnant with her, customer said, because her insurance was running out. Customer had urinary tract infections after taking a course of antibiotics. Customer’s broken English: “everybody’s fighting” (about masks.) Customer surprised that attendant could identify provenance of his t-shirt (“Of Montreal”) — from Park Slope. Spider descending by a thread directly in front of my eyes, hanging from a dry branch of the dwarf palm.

You’ll notice, the attendant said, that the interior of this store somewhat resembles the interior of a railway car, the cafe car even, with a large portion blocked off for food and beverage preparation, not quite built to scale of course, a little larger, a broader gauge. Dominant color yellow, the back wall a pale green, and a white and black backsplash behind the food service area, the upper reaches of that wall being dominated by four rectangular placards, deep brown, dark green, deep brown, dark green — on which the menu has been printed. (Customer: it might be a good game to guess which letter occurs most frequently on the menu.) Customer’s mom was literary type who did the equivalent of rolling her eyes when I’d mentioned Finnegans Wake. Hadn’t much tolerance for those idolized male author types, she said.

The Derg, according to customer, were not for Democracy, and did not want to share power, but loved Ethiopia. Customer on way to Youtube funeral. 50 years old had died of massive heart attack while eating bagels. You never know.

Customer meltdown: had bad hearing, wasn’t good with technology, girlfriend wasn’t helping him pay a bill by phone, though he had bought her the phone and was paying for her plan. Why did the screen keep going dark he asked her? Arms folded and gaze straight ahead, she wouldn’t say. 

Customer’s name occupying mental space where another customer’s name should be: when I try to think of her name I can only think of her name.

Customer said that in his country when you were doing what the attendant was doing they called it being like a bug on the wall — standing while asleep.

What, was attendant’s dad like in his 90’s? 100? Attendant’s dad must be ridiculously old if he was still alive. 

Customer’s CT scan had turned up nothing, so now it’s time for a colonoscopy and endoscopy. Has to find out what this pain was.

This is where people come to sin, said customer, referring to the people she would see smoking only here.

If customer wasn’t a doctor or nurse what role did she have in the E.R.? A tech. We’re actually running out of Covid tests, is how crazy it’s got. But then, we give them to every patient.

Customer: didn’t necessarily see why you’d want a civilian as secretary of Defense. Customer: a strictly merit-based system will result in less diversity. Diversity will result in lower quality but is still worth it. Customer: greatest predictor of life success is not hard work but I.Q. Honestly, what did attendant really think, asked customer, was diversity really worth lowering standards? Shouldn’t the most qualified person get the job whoever they were? Attendant: I don’t agree with the person who was speaking before. I think the idea with affirmative action isn’t that diversity is good in itself (although it may be good in itself) but that, without it, qualified applicants are being passed over out of bigotry. If that isn’t true, I’m not sure I’d see the point, not if the job’s really important. Young man trying to restore a bike he’d got for free. Rust is gone but can’t find right ball bearings. Found a high quality chain from REI for 25 dollars.

Customer wants the movie he’s making to have the same production values as a back to school special from the 90’s. Customer had drunken too much aromatic Japanese gin. Technical question: had the attendant, by completing the customer’s ‘good bye’ for him (“Have a great, a great, uh–” struggled the customer – “rest of your day,” I completed) himself offered a parting good bye in so doing — or did he now need to say on top of that — “yeah you too”?  A: He ought to have completed the customer phrase and responded to it in the same breath. “Have a great uh uh–” “rest of your day, yeah, you too,” I should have said.

Looked up word “parlous” in the Webster’s. Word after it — parmesian. Word before it, parlor maid. “Perilous, fraught with danger or risk,” parlous means. Perilous. Customer from Bethlehem (“yes,” he says, “that Bethlehem.”) Customer had had a stroke last night. What would attendant be doing on his day off? Obamacare enrollment. Comment: The way people say “democrat” for “democratic” is like how people say “Jew” for “Jewish.” In a quiet mood unloading the dishwasher so that the dishes made no sound. Thrusting violently the pitcher of the blender forward, as if about to hurl it underhand, so as to get any water drops from the bottom to fly out. Boss: old Ethiopian guy comes in here everyday. He asks, where are the sugars, where are the stirrers, what kind of cookies? Everyday he does. In ten years, I him. No, I did not forget to look up whether English “mayday!” came from French “m’aidez,” I told the customer, but I didn’t look it up, because I was afraid it wasn’t true.

Holiday Inn uptown being demolished. Customer said she had stayed at that Holiday Inn (good when government wasn’t in session) – had rundown rooms. Customer hadn’t had any experience with it, just part of the landscape. Customer didn’t have any experience with it, maybe a wedding reception once. Customer thought he had been involved in building that one but actually it was the one next to it — in ’75. Lumber yards and serious alcoholics were there then, along the river. “Liked the revolving restaurant.” “Spent New Year’s there in ’85. Shame they were tearing it down.” “Never been to that holiday inn. Been waiting for decades for them to tear it down.” “Fond memories of the antique book festival.” “Attended a few luncheons there for people’s retirements. One stop on the metro from the office.” Customer remembered when it was being built. Had worked at the lumber yards as summer job during college. (What did he do there?) “Whatever they told me to – driving.”

First and last time roller-blading had broken the customer’s tibia and fibula. Customer had taken an interest in gender studies during her first semester, where race, gender and class intersect with respect to how families and individuals in society are treated. Second absolute worst mask wearer happens also to be absolute best loud talker, hollerer and laugher on the phone for hours in the back. Here comes customer without a mask, having been told multiple times to wear mask in accordance with the policy clearly stated on the front door. Out of curiosity, why not? (This is probably at that point in the pandemic where people don’t have to wear a mask at their table, so you have this absurd situation where it’s only the corridor between the front door and the register, and the register and the customer’s table, where customers are required to wear masks.) Two different customers asking me about “the bird man” today — the old guy outside who’s always feeding the birds — but they were talking about different men. Birds looking in the window for their “bread men” but they are still having coffee and aren’t ready to go out just yet. “You see,” says one, “they have sentinels posted. They are watching the bus stops for me from their porches in the traffic lights. When I come out of the CVS there one is and he flies off to tell the others.”

What were the best qualities of America, customer was asked? “Diversity and worker productivity.” What was wrong with the Chinese system of government in his view? Why not just have China run everything? “Corruption.”

Resident at building across the way saw what looked like an altercation at the bus stop and called to ask if we’d look into it. “Woman does not look scared to me,” I reported, after peering around the bushes. Black couple.

I’m remembering how many of these you used to have, I said, bringing him his sandwich. Wow that was a while ago, he said. I used to order these every weekend at least.

Another customer I’ve known since the beginning, him and his wife — and still advocating for people with disabilities. Charlie the Care Cat was his promotion way back when. 

Frederico dubbed by local magazine best community artist: mas paz.

Hate these things, said customer holding up his coffee cup. The poly-coating keeps it around for 50,000 years. We know we shouldn’t do it but we can’t do anything to stop it. It’s a contradiction, a paradox.

Customer Jessica now suddenly strangely recalled — affordable housing advocate. Hadn’t seen her in ages.

Customer said he had “never noticed this soffit before.” This what, this soffit did you say? He said he was probably misusing the word (he was software engineer) but it seemed like a good word for it. He was referring to a built-out part of the ceiling that followed the bar and looked as if it might conceal an air duct. (I went back to the Webster’s.) Did the young man who worked on huge generators and walked everywhere have an idea of what electricity is? “I don’t know what electricity is and anyone who tells you they do is lying. It’s crazy and it powers everything.” ‘47 Webster’s Collegiate: had been given to attendant from a favorite college professor who was either trying to clear out his office or gently suggesting to the future attendant he should learn what words meant and how to spell them someday. Retiring from military after 28 years, prefers his coffee in mug. Customer didn’t want to get eye test at DMV — germs on the testing console. Customer said he thought of the soffit as concealing the joists of the underside of the eaves of the roof, and so the customer could have been correct in calling our architectural feature a soffit if it is concealing a girder or shaft. “Soffit” seems to be a word all the homeowning customers have an idea about although the ideas don’t always coincide.

Q: what sort of things does the customer who is always talking to himself actually say? “Okay, and we’re good.” “That’s better: I feel much much better.” “There it is, I found it!” “Perfect.”

Attendant, according to customer, was a “born restauranteur” and “knew his work in his sleep.”

Customer hadn’t renewed his parking sticker for the housing association and got towed: 200 dollars to get it out and a cab ride to Merrifield.

In Mexico City customer slipped on an orange peel and it took the heel off his shoe. To him a tacoreia was a cobbler, not a place where you sell tacos.

Asian gal: spending xmas eve cleaning her home. Latin dude: invited to his uncle’s house but he was all the way out in Sterling. Writer of libertarian political screeds: going to his family where you couldn’t get away with saying something even mildly neutral about Trump. Customer’s son had really liked his “play classroom set”: had chalk and chalk board and a whistle so he could pretend he was the gym teacher. 

Did attendant do any writing outside of his “boring history”? (Not really.) No short stories or anything? (No.) Never wrote for fun? (No.) Customer: the Japanese attacked hawaii because it was formerly Japanese territory. Customer: playing Sam Cook on his phone. Customer ordered small coffee with “5 cream, 7 sugars” left a dollar by the milk station. Customer’s favorite Christmas movies: The Thin Man, Die Hard, Lady in the Lake…. Don’t tell me you’re a Christian, said customer, show me you’re a Christian! The customer who checks out all the store’s reading material while she waits for her bagel to be toasted — the books in back (she selects one), the free periodicals by the milks, the community bulletin board by the front door. Watching myself make a bad drawing: what was my thought process exactly as for example I made this attempt at an arm? Here was where I struggled to make a three dimensional box, drawing an angle that is the opposite of what it should be to suggest depth… Customer yelling at the top of his voice…. Xmas of Bobs: every customer ever known by the name of Bob showing up and every time you ask what a new customer’s name is the answer is Bob. In a previous era of the store that was true of customers named Tim: there were over four regular customers named Tim.

Now what again was the name of the supersmart congenial intellectual afro-am dude from years ago who always put so much cream in his coffee it needed to be microwaved to warm it up again and was so paranoid about what might be dripping from the roof of the microwave he built a special shelter or roof out of napkin for his cup to shield its contents while it heated? Only recall as I’m staring into the back of the microwave with my cleaning towel then up to the ceiling of it, which looks fine to me — Nathan.

Customer closing his eyes and lifting his face up as he digs deep in his pants’ pockets with both hands for change.One could almost imagine him falling asleep in this position.

Giant worker did work on xmas day, which was busier than she expected, which was fine, and she got to have her christmas dinner with her friends and loved ones.

What was the name of the blind-deaf 13 year old dog who was losing his sense of smell? Chester.

“You must have been here for thirty years,” said the customer to me.

To what does the attendant attribute the most lavish tips of the most lavish tippers — his extraordinary quality of service? his almost preternatural deservingness…? (Their religious faith or civic practice.)

Customer never talked politics around people from his own part of the world, why not? “Because I don’t trust him and he doesn’t trust me.”

Couple visiting daughter from Washington State. Customer had taken Latin courses from papal Latinist Foster in ’89.

Another Bird Man has been detected, this time it’s the management himself, carefully culling seeds and crumbs from the cutting board into a small box which he takes out to his “friends.”

Our pet, our totem, our mascot, our masters, these sparrows.

“So,” says regular customer encountering me for the first time, “The boss does take some time off.”

Had customer seen anything of Virgina outside the metro area? Colonial Williamsburg once on a tour, and Middleburg, to see the mansions…. Had stables nicer than her apartment, driveways long as roads. These places way way up on a hill.

Things had really worked out for the customer. She’d gotten four rejections in one week (which how could you not feel bad about that) but this week she’d gotten two offers and was going to accept one. A different sort of position than she was accustomed to but with better pay than the job she’d been laid off from.

Pedestrian came in asking for napkins. Alright. When he was gone, I took a couple coins from the tip jar, put it in the register for the boss, ringing it up as the cheapest thing, because everything costs something. Pedestrian returned into the store and put five dollars into the tip jar. “Thanks for the neighborliness.” 

“So I’m not the worst one who comes in here,” observed customer on having witnessed another customer’s behavior.

Saw couple of the “portly sparrows” people have been talking of.

Got a real estate license and never sold a house; took the H&R Block Course and never filed a return; his stock picks have been very bad (remember CVS?) ; now he was taking courses in data analysis but not everyone can do that.

WEAR A MASK

AND KEEP YOUR SOCIAL DISTANCE

WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE

FOR COVID-19 DISEASE

(sign)

“One of these days those birds are going to fly off with you.” “I’m not sure I would mind it.”

Happy New Year to you — no? not until September?

PUT ON

YOUR MASK

PLEASE

NO MASK

NO ENTER

(sign)

How did that term “frog march” enter the national consciousness? Oh right — it was Valery Plame’s husband saying he’d like to see Karl Rove “frogmarched” out of the White House.

He’s callin you a liar man. No, he wasn’t calling me a liar, customer said, he was challenging where I got my information from, which is actually a good thing.

Customer up to anything today? Getting dog food. Had a good New Year’s? We got dressed up like we were going somewhere then just stayed home.

Woman had never worn pajamas in public before but her jeans had been in the drier since last night and still weren’t dry. (From Chapel Hill, visiting daughter who’d just purchased new home, hanging curtains and such.) “Well, no one’ll see me around here again.”

Seventeen thirty seven, said customer. I like saying numbers.

Did all size lids fit all size cups?

Customer with limp, customer hearing impaired, blind, with hand or arm missing, deaf, paraplegic, with issues they didn’t want to go into, headaches (unending head aches), horrible stomach acid whenever they eat, aneurysm, silicosis, COPD, nerve damage, stroke victim, liver cancer, hip replacement, breast cancer, kidney cancer, thyroid issue, colon cancer, diabetes, alcoholism, anxiety, rosacea, depression, polyps need removal, Tourett, broken limbs, minor contusions, third degree burns, bruises in inconvenient spots…. (and then on top of all those things the tests and treatments for all those things, before and after and a series of follow-ups.)

Customer told girlfriend that it wasn’t because she was a Muslim the management didn’t like her it was because she never spent money when she was in here. Girlfriend said she found that hard to believe.

The Jerk, Steve Martin: The Jerk wasn’t a Jerk because he wasn’t smart or because he was a gas station attendant and loved his job and tried hard at it, I reflected. The jerk was a jerk because he let money change him and because he thought he was somebody once he had money.

Customer who always ordered doubled espresso ordered single espresso. Customer who always ordered single espresso ordered small latte. No one in the store but middle-aged Giant worker, ex-Army, head in hands. He looks despairing but is actually just insanely tired.

Taxonomy of customers talking to themselves …. (Type I) smiling to self, eyes glazed, not actually speaking but obviously day dreaming. (Type II) single words (alright, good, no) or short phrases (time to go, it’ll be fine). (Type III) compound sentences, or questions with answers, or multiple independent clauses. (“so what are you saying the problem is here? Uh huh…. And what else?”)(IV) using inappropriate language, definitely not on the phone, topic is politics, race, religion.

Don’t ask but would you mind holding out the quiche so I can take a picture of it? (Don’t ask.)

Customer spent stimulus check on surgery for the family cat (urinary blockage). Cat so happy now.

Customer liked the flavor of Steel Reserve beer.

Customer wiping off with napkin whatever it was, probably cream cheese, I’d gotten on the side of his cup.

“The Kennedy assassination was where the 50’s became the 60’s,” customer said.

Yesterday came across ten dollars in a residential parking lot and put a stone on top of it so it wouldn’t blow away. Today I’m on my hands and knees in front of the cash register where sometimes customers drop their coins and a strange greed is awoken for a single penny.

At computer and phone repair shop no help from government (applied through two different banks) or landlord (it was okay if he missed rent, they said, just pay it back at the end of the year with 16% interest.) On the other hand business was good: unless they were reading a book, people were on their phones or laptops all day.

“Today was really slow,” the small businessman said. “I made 75 dollars today honestly.”

Pedestrian: reaching across her body without breaking stride to toss a crumpled napkin in the blue public bin.

Customer having served two tours in Afghanistan. Protests didn’t work, I said. He said protests did work to undermine foreign deployed troops.

Every man starts out the hero of his own story, said customer, then he finds that he’d got holes in his heels. There was some job he just wasn’t up to, then he discovers he’s just kind of, well, average. When you’re about twenty you think the world can stand some change, and you’re right, but by the time you’ve lived enough to know what the world is, and all its forces under whose influence you are, you realize you’re not up to the job.

— how are things? — Bad. — Bad? — The worst. — The worst.

Local official reports requiring partial police protection. Death threats.

Customer: People tell other people to wear masks because they like to control others and manipulate others. I’ve said what I have to say…. I’m not concerned with what others are doing, why are others concerned with what I am doing?…. (Objected to the way people told him to ‘wear a mask.’ ‘Wear a mask,’ what is that? he says.)

What was customer doing today? Painting a house. Interior or exterior? Interior. What color? Everyone’s doing grays these days. Another customer was working on a staircase, his favorite kind of job and what had gotten him into carpentry.

Customer hadn’t understood word one of the Hegel he’d been assigned. Moths in the closet was the customer’s project. Customer’s truck needed to be moved by 3 o’clock, anyone know a spot?

What was the source of our political division? “Rightwing extremists who’d been permitted to pollute the national discourse.” What was customer’s new dog’s name? Arnie. I predicted that when I asked the customer if he’d like a bag he’d sardonically reply that “it’s already in a bag,” but he instead replied enthusiastically that he would like one, thank you. “If I could make her my next ex…” had said customer thinking of other customer. Customer: how can that customer work when he can barely even walk? Customer: everytime I come in here I see that customer here. Every time.

“It’s hot in here both literally and physically,” said customer. “Here is your St. John’s wort,” said customer. “Did you take yours today?”

How much did it cost to get a P.O Box? What blood pressure reading was considered normal? What had they said about the bridge closures? Do you think Memorial will remain open? Were among the customers’ questions today.

Yesterday two lady lawyers, one getting the advice of the other on a matter; today in the same chairs two still younger lady engineers, studying for civics engineering test together.

Trying to set an item down with the care the management’s wife does — like setting something down you intend to glue there or have stick. Do it as if you would permanently do it.

The moment the phone stopped ringing (robocall) the electric door chime sounded — as if the phone (its sound) had been answered by a sound.

Been a long time since that happened: half the bagel slid off the plate in the process of handing it over. (Last time I lost a half had been in the process of halving itself: the blade, pulled toward me, caught on something and sent the newly severed half hurtling shoeward.)

Ethnically Armenian customer, making white power symbol with her fingers, asks – what is this supposed to mean?

Customer having played that morning at Andrews Airforce Base — President’s departure, Airforce Band. Was cool to be in the presence of celebrity, Airforce 1 coming down.

Customer leaves twenty dollars for attendant for stupid minor favor performed; shortly afterwards, another customer needs twenty dollars from attendant “I’m totally out of money.”

“Ever since WWII we ain’t been the same people.” “Worst performance of the William Tell Overture I ever heard. This is horrible.”

Last customer of the night, Liz. Liz wants me to be the Ancient Greek Democracy expert for her new podcast — but Liz I don’t know anything about that. But you’ve got to do it, you’d really be great. But Liz —

Say the customer found a driver’s license on the bike path while they were jogging or walking, what would they do? Wipe it down and give it to a park ranger.

Customer had overheard what other customer had been saying to the attendant and hoped I wasn’t bothered by it. You have a little bit of education and people think you should be making a hundred thousand dollars.

Why wasn’t customer wearing a mask? He “didn’t think he had the corona virus.” If you think you have it you’re not even suppose to be in public, I said. “Correct.”

Customer infrequently if ever noticed the name of the author of what he was reading, focused on content.

I be laughin at you for buyin that man a hamburger. Girl just because he’s in the street don’t mean he don’t got money. He’s got money in his pocket. Why you buyin him a hamburger?

Making an incident report — crew had gone to repair a main break but in the process of performing the excavation cut a gas line that hadn’t been marked.

Customer good at math and liked math. Thought he might enjoy becoming an engineer – “enjoy.”

Customer having to go through the new Executive Orders to see which applied to her office.

By the way the customer had spoken to her companion on leaving the restroom I suspected we were out of paper towels — confirmed.

Licensing video is not cheap, customer said. We wanted to use a 3-4 second clip from CBS News and we were told it was 75 dollars per second and a three thousand dollar minimum. It starts to add up.

Coldest moment in his life? Cycling in Death Valley in March. Any news about when they’re tearing down this place? Customer was unemployed now, what did he do with his free time? Read religious books. February 4th: customer couple having first met here on that date some years ago.

Anyone can get the vaccine any time they want. All you gotta tell em is that it makes you mentally disturbed without it and they got to give it to you. Yeah, but then it goes on your record, is the only thing. 

Still another customer upset the Colts were taken from Baltimore: “stolen.”

Customer’s husband had suddenly died, prime of life, heart attack while biking, three kids. Had stopped to rest on the bench by the caboose at Bluemont Park.

Customer’s roommate had been talking word salad – stroke.

Customer was under serious quarantine he said. The only reason he wasn’t wearing a mask was that there was no one here but you.

If customer’s knee surgeon told her they needed to go in again she’d say to hell with it, I’ll live with the pain. Wasn’t on painkillers now and didn’t have high blood pressure.

Beginning one’s dismount from the bicycle before forward motion has stopped, lifting one leg over the seat. Customer: there are bugs in the couch that have been biting me. Can’t figure out what the customer is saying, he is speaking so softly behind his mask, but it gradually emerges he is speaking in favor of Texas becoming a separate nation.

Pay so dam much in taxes in this country and they won’t fix your goddamn sidewalk. I want the vaccine.

Customer convulsing with laughter over a person he saw in BLM plaza this week. Holding up a sign, 77, praying that people would NOT take the vaccine. “I hugged her! The vaccine is the only hope we have and she is praying that we not take it!”

Customer impressed by the organization at his local vaccine dissemination point. Right on time. Lots of volunteers.

Customer and attendant peering over Atlas together, heads almost touching, still not really understanding the International Dateline.

Man standing in the road in front of bus, not letting it go, screaming vile insults at the driver, racial slurs. Screwed up resemblance to China’s “tank man.” Had been told to wear mask. 

Behind me as I walked to work — ”when you’re facing death nothing else matters.”

Was customer familiar with The Shinelles, Tonight’s the Night? Yep. Listened to all kinds of things from Motown to Chick Corea, she said.

Customer’s virtual trade show had been a disaster — “heads will roll.” Phone repair entrepreneur had taught himself the job by fixing his own stuff. Attendant found himself leaning against the espresso machine as if waiting for something and wondered if he was in fact waiting for something or just hanging out? (Yes, he recalled, there was soup in the microwave.)

Customer enjoying his sandwich: “I’m happy.”

Had customer heard record Tapestry? Who hadn’t heard Tapestry? Tapestry put Carol King on the map. Another one my mom always listened to was Helen Reddy — ‘I am Woman’ was the song by her she always played. Customer in Grad school: looking at industrial and corporate applications of psychology. Contents of Lincoln’s pockets when he died, according to the customer’s reading material: 5 dollar confederate note, elaborately folded newspaper clipping, a handkerchief, a pocket knife. Thankful they got her computer working again and it was only a 200 hundred dollar repair. What was meant by ‘Title 7’? “That was anti-discrimination stuff.” Did insurance agent ever notice a lot of people using the word ‘ensure’ for ‘insure’ or the opposite? No, it didn’t come up much, he said…. Not at all actually.

As I was returning the sugar container I’d just filled to the milk bar at the end of the night, it slipped from my hand and rolled half the length of the store, creating eight almost equally long dashes of white, granular sugar across it.

Customer from Colorado yet had never been skiing nor gone to Great Sand Dunes. No one smiled here, which was a shock but understandable. People are busy here.

Customer had met wife editing her doctoral thesis in psychology. (U. of Albany.) They’d divorced. One thing about him that annoyed his wife was his associative thinking. One thing kept reminding him of something else and that thing of another, of another.

Customer had had a feeling attendant was a good writer — on what basis? — typing speed.

One of the tricks the chef customer had learned was using the head of the pig, very flavorful.

Customer didn’t know why he’d gotten his unusual name. Every time someone asked his father why, he would laugh and walk away. 

Customer said he drove in an Acura about 40 yrs ago and it was like being on a magic carpet, it was like walking in bedroom slippers, the smoothest ride he had been on at the time. Customer’s mother lived near Brownsville, was actually THE cheapest place to live. Great produce. Customer making fresh pasta today, just egg and flour. Customer’s hair really hard to perm: used to have to do the full-on orphan annie curls to get it to take at all.This is the best picture ever taken of me, said customer pushing it forward, ignore the cleavage. I was just thinking, customer said, we’re just about coming up on a couple years of this. This place has got character, customer said.

Customer had got ‘it,’ he whispered. He didn’t think he’d caught it here but in the apartment’s elevator. Customer explained that a white night was like a day so a nuit blanche was a sleepless night. “People need to care for each other when they’re alive. Help them, call them. They don’t need coffins and big spreads at the funeral. Dead then.” Judging by the time between seeing her run one way and seeing her run back, I would guess she turned around at the Airforce Memorial, I mused. How to describe that face looking out from the bus, after all those years of looking at faces, as they slow down, as they start off, only from his stare do I get the distinct impression he’s casing the place. Working produce at the Whole Foods at Pentagon. Nice people. Picking out the bad apples literally and throwing them in composting. They throw away a lot. I’m lucky.

Was 22, hurt real bad in Vietnam, pain pills weren’t working so I tried yoga and it worked.

Now is when the green party leftist customers and the well right of center libertarian customers gang up on Democrats but can’t decide whether they’ve moved way to the right or to the left since the 60s. 

Customers and attendant still struggling with the international dateline. Another customer’s interesting remarks about Longitude and Latitude have not alleviated the central confusion.

Customer has something to say and if you remind him that he already told you about it a week ago or an hour ago, he pays no attention. He wants to tell you the whole story from beginning to end.

Familiar story: gal just bought house/ moved into the area, mother has come to help her get settled. Curtains.

What were customers up to this morning? Attending online church service. Need to dress any particular way for that? (Bubbly laughter) No they can’t see us.

Customer, recovering from stroke, struggled to recall the word bagel.

Mr. Mcallister, no reason why I should remember the name really. Remember the strength of his voice and him singing in the early morning at the bus stop a decade ago at least. At least.

Where was Columbus, Georgia? On the western side of the state by Fort Benning.

A boiler maker was when you actually dropped the shot of whiskey into the bottom of your full mug of beer then chugged it so the whiskey was the last thing you drink. The whiskey pretty much stayed in there.

Young parents out for walk with stroller. Iced americano for dad, hot chocolate with almond milk for mom.

No one wants to talk about the things they are ashamed of. Those times I wasn’t a hero, god no. I wanted to save myself. I didn’t care about anything else.

Could customer who worked at car dealership explain all the temporary tags I was seeing? Was it people were buying new cars or did it have to do with DMV covid policies? ” Probably both. Sales have been way up but our service section is bad — no one’s driving.”

Customer’s relative was one of those girls that hand out samples at liquor and vaping stores. Paid 20/ hour.

Wish the weather would settle down a little bit. It’s ridiculous. Eh, what can you do.

Big machines outside that seem to be taking core samples for soil tests.

“The experience of Ethiopia, which wasn’t colonized, is a proof that factionalism is endemic to Africa.”

“You’re unlikely to find anyone on race as controversial as I am. I believe that the problem of black people, all across the world, is theirs to solve.”

Don’t want to freak out attendant but it was when customer gave his heart to Christ that he believed his asthma was healed.

Attendant: closing cash register drawer with his stomach, a thrust of the hips. Top of molding was an ogee, he was told.

Customer did supply chain work for Nestle, specifically Buber Baby foods. Decline of birth rate during pandemic had impacted sales significantly. Customer sauteed some thinly sliced chicken breasts for her kids last night. Quick, easy, and they love it. Customer’s 1400 going straight to the rainy day fund. Nasa’s budget was one half of one percent of the total budget, so it was about 1/30th of what goes to Defense. Has attendant read about this incredible drug that increases memory and overall brain function regardless of your age? — I haven’t. Has it been approved by the F.D.A? – (laughter) “Let’s see.” When we, a government agency, experience a failure, said customer, it’s always “how could this have possibly happened?” When it happens in private industry, under government contract, it’s always “live and learn, part of the process.”

Asian gal, got J&J two months ago, essential worker. Customer telling customer to cover mouth when he coughed, evoking The Staples Singers Song – “That’ll help the solution.” Customer, a teacher’s assistant, was bored with his reading classes: nothing for him to do but “model good behavior.” However, he was having lunch these days with 6th grade history teachers who besides knowing a ton about history were hilarious. 

Man asked me if I had a dollar, customer said. I told him, yes I do – My dollar, for me. Man said to me, Fuck you! I said, you say that to me again I’ll call the police!

Sorting out order of events: Kobar Towers, Cole, Pan Am Lockerbie, 1st world trade…

Sparks fly, flares from out of the toaster’s socket….”I would probably unplug and stop using that one,” says an electrician customer (actually HVAC) who happens to be present and is enjoying a bagel and latte. “I know it’s insulated but is it insulated enough?” I ask, hesitant to touch the plug. “To go through rubber would take more voltage than comes into this whole store,” the man says. “With electricity you only get one chance but I’ve been around it my whole life. To relax, I will fix up old radios like that Emmerson on the shelf in back.”

Pedestrians brushing their teeth outside, spitting in the curb, throwing their toothbrushes in the trash. Feels like a long time since I’ve heard Bolero: first Sunday morning in March, not yet 9:30 am, 2021.

Customer’s former cat had a wonderful personality. When you took her to the vet they’d say “here she comes!” Died of cancer. Was eight years before she could get another cat.

Customer sanitizes hands after having handed over his card, not after having been returned his card.

Being a tool was not the same as being a member of a cult but is like an early stage form of it — and I was a tool, the customer said. My friends were jerks, I was taken advantage of, I’d wanted to belong.

“This place doesn’t seem like it’s in immediate jeopardy because the Chinese developer doesn’t have the money to build. Major sewer line in the back which county needs open access to. Old building, old utilities.” “I promised my mom on her death bed I’d have maid service for life.” “If there’s one thing kick boxing has taught me, I’ve got absolutely no business fighting.” “If you’re counting your money you’ve got too much of it.” “Bank of Japan so good at reigning in inflation that when they actually wanted it to run a little higher people weren’t convinced they would sustain it.” Painting instructor had told him he “couldn’t draw worth shit.” Of course, it really hurts to be told something like this. Industry was pet care. Business picking up. They work with a lot of service animals and police dogs and that was probably what had pulled them through. Customer t-shirt was a tie-dye that says Lithuania. Customer says that after the fall of the Soviet Block Lithuania fielded a basketball team in the Olympics but didn’t have enough money for shirts so The Grateful Dead stepped in and paid for some. This would have been 1993.

1993 came up in separate conversation with another customer later in connection with a cruise missile strike ordered by President Clinton against Iraq that year. Apparently one of the justifications for this strike was a failed assassination attempt of HW Bush while he was in Kuwait, but CIA intelligence later disputed that claim.

Customer smelling the aroma of burnt espresso which had lingered for days, asking if someone were smoking downstairs, which reminded of a time when there was actually someone smoking downstairs, and people, incredulous, would say is somebody smoking downstairs?

Rear bus doors open, revealing two blue unoccupied seats and bright yellow flooring. The anticipation to see if anyone might appear in the doorway, a friend, antagonist or nuisance, who will step from the elevated flooring to the square and octangle pattern of brickwork below. None does and the doors undramatically close. (Good.)

CIRCUS FIRE WAS IN TENTS, I make clear to customer. (Customer makes pained expression, laughs.) Sadness: when the mind went from a greater to a lesser perfection, wrote Spinoza.

“I hate kids,” said customer. “Don’t say that,” said customer. “I like cats, I hate kids,” the customer said. “My daughter means the world to me, the only thing that matters. The best thing about the pandemic has been being able to spend time with her.”

When customer’s neighbor started digging out a basement he discovered an underground river and had to spend all this money filling it in with rock. (Why didn’t he just give up on the basement?) Wanted to sell the house for a million 5, which you need a 9′ basement to do. Otherwise it’s worth a half of that.

Businesses at the shopping center a half mile down (Westmont) have received notices that demolition  is imminent. They will be fined if they don’t get their equipment out. Trying to think of the last time I saw that: someone willingly sitting at the central stool rather than at either corner.

When a sparrow gets a piece of suet lodged in its throat, it coughs it out, just like people do (cough cough cough). They’re putting too much seed in the suet at the store, which makes it hard. These little sparrows won’t touch it.

Seeing the reflection of a runner on the street go out of the range of the mirror, I get the idea of trying to “bring him back into the mirror,” and so start walking toward it, and I take one and I take two steps toward it and still can’t see the runner, but on the third step he comes back into view, blond guy in a black track suit, who then for a final time runs out of the range.

Having developed an annoying tic — tapping customer credit card by the edge twice as we await for the transaction to process and the slip to rise up — on this occasion having held myself to one tap.

Why attendant had yelped in pain, startling customers — one of those odd “kinks” that will arise — this one in the hip.

B-17 crew members used to cool their beer in high octane aircraft fuel, that’s how volatile it was. At the meeting they said the new building would be 2 1/2 years from now but didn’t know if that meant literally from now or after breaking ground.

Customer at first alarmed to hear another customer had been asking about him but then figured out who it must have been, an old drinking buddy he’d told about this place. Customer returning to Japan after 14 years here. (Jay, Korean born and raised in Japan.) “Heh!… Heh…!” Regular customer wanted me to see he was putting something in the tip jar (which, granted, you’d have to see to believe.) Nice man at Eye See have screwed in the loose bolt from my glasses. Key-shaped shadow of the syrup pump dispenser, L-shaped shadow of the soup ladel’s scoop. Attendant was member of the family. He would be coming to his son’s wedding if it were held here, okay? “To work here you must have the patience of Job,” said customer. “No, you’ve surpassed Job.” They say they’re going to change the design, which will probably effect the permitting and may require a new county board vote, so it doesn’t sound like the redevelopment will be occurring next month, customer said. Customer ate everything on his plate but for the potato chip with the green tinge. Customer was one of those customers who actually check to see if you’re going to look them in the eye, glad I did.

Customer had ended her boycott of this place but had started it again — had been accused of never buying anything when a friend was treating her. What did he care about who was paying?

Coffee looks pretty light the way you bring it to your mouth like that but hauling and heaving up a 70 kg bag of green beans is another story. For his summer job customer had managed a snack bar on the ninth hole of the golf course, six days a week. Customer said he worked as a server in a bar a while back and they had an old school register like this that they kept in a store room that he would sometimes go back and play with — very cool. And look at these old gift certificates! said the girlfriend, noticing our display. Wow, so old!

Customer’s “the weak must perish” Darwinist attitudes rattling to Christian customer – “My mind is just no, No,” she said. Customer who never called in sick called in sick today — zero sleep last night. How was delivery man today? (They’re working me today.) How many deliveries did he have left? (Three.) He’s been delivering here for as long as I’ve been working here, but I’m usually not here when he comes. So what do you know about when this place is going to get the ax? says customer. I saw them drilling holes last week. Returning the umbrella you lent the other day, thanks so much. — Taxes, ready? — Yes, thank God. Every Easter Channel 7 had the 10 commandments with Charleton Heston on, a great actor, and every year he watched. Yule Brenner was Ramses. Gentle chirp of airconditioner as it activates, dwarf palm fronds indicating the difference in air flow. Customer in Weird Al concert t-shirt: three bagels.

Going to pick up boyfriend at airport. Going to watch FIA at a friends: first Grand Prix of the year in Abu Dhabi. The drivers are amazing but you really think of it in terms of the teams. The teams design the cars and the cars are everything. How would customer spend her 1400? Student loans, closet reorganization. Customer was young person, why was he so eager to receive the vaccine? Wanted to travel internationally. Customer’s mortgage was 2.7%. Even with the condo association fee she was spending less than she was on rent and now she was going to look at driers.

Pedestrian putting item into public trashcan with the same careful motion, reversed, as he might retrieve something from it.

That oft recognized gesture of the pedestrian looking back and over their left or right shoulder — what was the name of that shop they’d just passed?

Customer had just returned from Durham and had to decide right now whether or not he wanted to make an offer on a house, the housing market was so hot.

Customer’s speech sounded pretty good to me. Yeah, he said, but he couldn’t keep it up for very long.

Attendant got to make use of his exceptionally limited Spanish: llaves, unas llaves! 

Customer often thought of doing the things that conceptual and performance artists do, she just never thought you could call it something worthwhile. It has its place.

Customer raised his closed fist in the air to indicate a satisfying sandwich — good job today.

Problem: while two people can meaningfully call each other “sir” two people cannot meaningfully call each other “boss.”

You come in here and immediately you feel calm, no matter what you got going on, customer said. Keys had been stolen from the management at a nearby building, customer said — keys to the whole building. Remember me? Customer said. I used to work at the donut place that closed. Teaching now. Amanda. How was customer today? Trying to figure out what season it was — because the weather wasn’t providing a clue – but otherwise well. How was customer today? The cat’s sleeping pattern had been disrupted — she can’t sleep when there’s wind. Customer remarked that it was much less frightening to get the vaccine here than it had been in Africa back in the day: long scary needles.

Slumped over the espresso machine awaiting a deliberative customer’s order.

I can’t help noticing, the emergency room doctor had told the customer, that every time you show up here you’ve been drinking heavily.

Customer in her bright yellow top for Easter. What are you guys up to today? Taxes.

Plessy vs. Ferguson established separate but equal, Brown vs. Board of Education overturned it, Tawney was the Chief Justice who authored the Dred Scott opinion, which dates from the 1840’s, I believe. Good to review these things, customer said. Customer said the city blocks in Salt Lake City were huge: he had wanted to see something just two blocks away and it had wound up taking 15 minutes. Customer was from farm country in South Jersey, his friend was a New Yorker. Customer had jestingly told father over the phone that he saw someone rummaging around in his car, and his father came tearing around the corner with his gun. Customer had bought a condo and wanted to share pictures of her recent crafting projects — yarn creations, repurposed or “upcycled” items from her home. You need a new hat, she said. Customer had observed instance of shoplifting in a local store: middle-aged woman stuffing small items in the purse of an elderly woman to her side. Notified a clerk who didn’t want to get involved.

If the customer who was a police officer came across a lost driver’s license she would probably try to take it directly to the person’s home address if she could, so as to avoid the paper work.

When we’re not on active duty, we should have our head in a book, is about how much we need to keep on top of, with respect to law and paperwork, she said.

Customer, having scratched beneath right knee, returned fingers to hem of shorts. Pre-med customer studying chemistry. Customer wearing shorts for first time this year. 

Customer reported having yelled at person yanking at and hurting her small dog. It’s like a baby! he’d said. Mind your own fucking business, she’d said. I’m going to break your fucking neck, she said. If you don’t stop I’m going to call the police, he said. You’re a good person, I said. No it’s common sense, he said. No, I said, you are a good person.

Whoever’s leaving those bread crumbs doesn’t know you just can’t leave it there. It’s a like a sport or game to them. You’ve got to toss the crumbs to them. They’ve got to be looking at you. You shouldn’t get a deep massage if you have cancer. It can cause the cancer to spread, even if the area being massaged is not the cancerous area. Customer: trip to Atlanta then two days in Seattle. Pedestrian: bobbing frizzy hair piling up against her vizor. Russian, former colleague in with his wife and daughter: Biden and Trump was still “Coke and Pepsi” just as Gore and Bush had been.