The mid-morning crowd was sparse, a handful of suits sipping espresso absently over newspapers and the occasional college kid with a wan hangover smile. Ivy must have seen him out there in a sea of blank white tables. It wasn’t long before she appeared with a cup of coffee on a tray, sloshed brown stains crawling down the side of the ceramic. She was accompanied by a gangling guy in a green smock.
“Thank you, how did you know?” Kevin said.
“You develop a nose for these things,” Ivy replied with a smile that would make angels renounce their vow. “This is Andrew. He’s from Dublin.”
“Ireland?”
“Ohio. Like Wendy’s,” Andrew said.
Ivy explained, “I’m training him.”
She was thin, petite, face blessed with a cowl of dark hair and green cat eyes. Kevin was in love with her in ways that only the wholly lonely can know, “the deep, unutterable woe which none save exiles feel,” as Aytoun put it. Something he was also unable to express; it wasn’t a language he felt comfortable with, and he was never able to dispel the feeling of undeserving to be around her. Somewhere, he knew that she loved him too. He wasn’t brave enough to probe the how.
“I’ve a break in about fifteen,” Ivy said. “Have you had breakfast?”
Kevin gave a look that indicated he wasn’t familiar with the word.
“That’s what I thought. You look like you could use a beignet.”
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Concerning the Cafe
Café du Monde, but not THAT Café du Monde. The place tried to style itself after the best parts of New Orleans gothic nostalgia, but the point where they truly succeeded was in the vitriolic coffee and immortal atmosphere.
Kevin went here as frequently as he was able, partly for the coffee, beignet and ambience, but mostly because he knew a waitress. He would never frame it to her in these words, but Ivy remained his haven, lighthouse, the thread that kept him from plummeting absolutely. He was afraid that even this hold was too tenuous, despite her consistent attempts at reassurance. He had few other friends. Mostly his father disapproved of everyone.
Poorly clad against the wet spring chill this morning, a black pea-coat he’d grabbed on his way from the house over a t-shirt, he stepped over the iron rail and helped himself to an empty table. It was beyond his routine, it had become a sort of intimacy, birthed ideally amid the nostalgia the café attempted to appropriate. They had first met as he had seated himself in her section.
Mirrored pools of rainwater lingered in low spots in the concrete, floating leaves blown in over the wall before dawn. Kevin emptied a puddle from the peeling metal chair beneath a green awning, clearing as much of the water as he could before he sat.
Kevin went here as frequently as he was able, partly for the coffee, beignet and ambience, but mostly because he knew a waitress. He would never frame it to her in these words, but Ivy remained his haven, lighthouse, the thread that kept him from plummeting absolutely. He was afraid that even this hold was too tenuous, despite her consistent attempts at reassurance. He had few other friends. Mostly his father disapproved of everyone.
Poorly clad against the wet spring chill this morning, a black pea-coat he’d grabbed on his way from the house over a t-shirt, he stepped over the iron rail and helped himself to an empty table. It was beyond his routine, it had become a sort of intimacy, birthed ideally amid the nostalgia the café attempted to appropriate. They had first met as he had seated himself in her section.
Mirrored pools of rainwater lingered in low spots in the concrete, floating leaves blown in over the wall before dawn. Kevin emptied a puddle from the peeling metal chair beneath a green awning, clearing as much of the water as he could before he sat.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Concerning Christmas, pt 3
Snapshot. The eyes of the Ghost boring into his, at once empty and intense, withering and weary. It was a day that had not come. If age brings anything, it’s the asphalt of reality, destroying the simplicity the child presumes of the world, slowly bleeding that intense creative spark into apathy.
Snapshot. And suddenly he’s aware that he’s awake, conscious, writhed in a scarecrow heap on the bed. He jerked spasmodically upright, hearing the dull glass sound of a tumbler bouncing on the carpet. He rolls off the bed, pulls himself up on the age-worn oaken desk. Fingers brush the pocked surface, coming to a deep furrow, a gash gouged deeply into the wood. He lingers but a moment, then propels himself to the window, now open and breathing in cool fresh air and urban white noise.
“They were all pretty much the same,” he intones softly. “They were all. . . . pretty much the same . . . . .”
Snapshot. And suddenly he’s aware that he’s awake, conscious, writhed in a scarecrow heap on the bed. He jerked spasmodically upright, hearing the dull glass sound of a tumbler bouncing on the carpet. He rolls off the bed, pulls himself up on the age-worn oaken desk. Fingers brush the pocked surface, coming to a deep furrow, a gash gouged deeply into the wood. He lingers but a moment, then propels himself to the window, now open and breathing in cool fresh air and urban white noise.
“They were all pretty much the same,” he intones softly. “They were all. . . . pretty much the same . . . . .”
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Concerning Christmas, pt2
" Pirouetting, face wet with tears and sweat, he collides with a little oaken desk, the impact scattering crayons, markers, hallowed implements of a child’s embryonic creativity. In one swift moment he grasps the little black scissors, sets his palm flat against the desktop and with all his juvenile strength slams the scissors through into the wood.
Blood spits up like a tiny volcano, and the electric pain is a key in a lock. Now something on the outside matches the ravaging within, and it’s indistinguishable from which the shrieks generate.
The Spirit reminds him of an epiphany that night. It poured into his mind as though the blood on the desk had left a vacuum that immediately began to fill, and he realized that one day, he would kill his father."
Blood spits up like a tiny volcano, and the electric pain is a key in a lock. Now something on the outside matches the ravaging within, and it’s indistinguishable from which the shrieks generate.
The Spirit reminds him of an epiphany that night. It poured into his mind as though the blood on the desk had left a vacuum that immediately began to fill, and he realized that one day, he would kill his father."
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Concerning a Christmas
Snapshot. The Ghost of Christmas Past, floating ephemerally like a dandelion on the breeze, hovers beside a smaller version of himself struggling to open a bedroom window warped with age and painted closed. The muffled sounds of Elvis having a blue-hoo-hoo Christmas creep underneath the door, but he’s not alone. Mingled is the incoherent but distinct chorus of violent argument somewhere below. It is from this the child is trying to escape, casting furtive glances at the door as though a creature of horror would be upon him at any moment.
He whirls away from the window, ears ringing with an acrid slap rising through the carpeted floor and a sharp wail of pain. He spins tight circles, hands on ears, mouth open in a scream but nothing comes, nothing but the cries beginning below.
He whirls away from the window, ears ringing with an acrid slap rising through the carpeted floor and a sharp wail of pain. He spins tight circles, hands on ears, mouth open in a scream but nothing comes, nothing but the cries beginning below.
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