He has about him the look of the endless gunning Lone Ranger, the sort of faraway gaze that knows to a pin-drop every silent thing that moves around him, as he sits with his hat tilted back, sole guard of an ill-reputed mousehole. He makes no song and dance about being here, and yet you can't help but notice him. You might, in equal measure, find him in the back of beyond, or watching the gate to the heavens. The same easy gray jacket around him, same posture. Long legs quiet in their seat, content, seemingly unaware how awkward men his height sometimes are. His limbs long and thin, like a spider's in a story, except this is no spider.
Though it might be a story.
Drink it in, the reflection of his full weight, taste of bitter and nicotine between his fingers. Behind them, a playful, self-assured grin.
And should I ask his permission? And why should he give it, still?
Tiptoe past his long, languorous feet, and he looks up at me, meets my measure, while I hold his gaze demure, both of us perfectly content knowing this place in time and space is precisely where he is supposed to be. I hesitate a moment, as if to say hello, then bite my tongue, and save it for another man... who turns out to be a keyboard ghost, nothing much special.
And just as I come in, I feel already my mistake engulf me. The emptiness behind the counter, the misplaced hello I should've been less stingy with. Reckon I'll make the most of it, still, inside the dragon's layer while I still have fingers. Lap at them greedy, picking up names at random, running up my tab. I'd devour them all if I had a roomy stomach, but as I am, I've come paltry and thinly-dressed, better for a night out than for serious looting.
And still, for a brief moment, manage to enjoy myself still, to revel in the absence of him, the emptiness of the house, seemingly open to any name now.
'They ain't for sale,' I hear him rasp behind me, though I've already by seconds heard the door, and even before that, I think, the narrowing of his eye, as he spots a fellow slip-fingered shooter. And me, just about to make off with a gorgeous Bowie record.
Make as if I knew. What a shame, though. Tells me they can be mine, still, for a pot of gold, except I'm dressed in rags and my feet balloon with hunger below my raging belly. If I ran now, he might not catch me yet, but sometime in the future, would find me when I expect it least. My past has always had firm-rooted secrets for catching up with me.
Still, the gunslinger won't bear a grudge, and I, hard-pressed and feel my face all flushed, ask him humbly for some coffee, missing humility by a mile. So in the end, I just ask. Chat about what an amazing treasure he's got - that's the case of dragons, always in gold but scant in company.
There's some kind of devil's magic in sitting together and listening to music, and I think, as I linger, I've begun unraveling his secret somewhere. I think I understand the quiet satisfaction of having a smoke outside, knowing there's folk inside, not stealing, but not entirely indifferent to your treasure, either. Sipping good coffee, making conversation.
Admiring. Because how could you not? The fingers that decorated the place, finding themselves familiar in the way I arrange my life, also, and think how brilliant and how strange to find myself in another's taste so randomly. To find, hidden between two walls, a place that used to be something else entirely, that you could remain in, suddenly, endlessly.
Sitting, sipping at will. Kicking back and putting up your feet.
Sometimes you just gotta sit back and let play the music.
I couldn't help myself. We found this place quite randomly, and I fell in love on the spot with the vibe of both the coffeehouse and its owner, whose cowboy hat and glinting in the dark cigarette, I've christened this post for. Obviously, if you know, you know. ;)
