Titration

I know exactly when I feel like a loser, exactly when I become socially broke. I can recognize the precise moment in time as easily as a newspaper headline. It is when I check Craigslist on my MacBook at the neighborhood coffee shop. The neighborhood coffee shop has other patrons that have reached similar levels of self-awareness. For instance the overweight dude on the couch with an outsized graphic novel splayed across his lap. And all the other people on laptops. As well the other people not drinking coffee. Likewise the people taking too long to drink their coffee. And the barista, if he’s in a shitty band. I haven’t seen the cook but I reserve my right to judge him.

Here’s the game. You have to hit on a girl, for the sake of someone else, and with the understanding that someone else is doing the same for you. Only you don’t know who, and obviously you don’t know who your bro is going to approach. But you have to go home with whoever. Whatever pockets of opportunity you create will be consumed by someone else, and in this manner you will be motivated to do something you don’t normally do, like go out on the porch and talk to the smokers. The smokers are losers, too.

The dude with the graphic novel is closing his graphic novel. He crosses his leg and greets someone taking a seat beside him on the couch. His friend is tall, fit and blond with high cheeks and a Mediterranean nose, with designer jeans, leather jacket, and sunglasses pinning back her blond hair.

There’s this guy who looks like a roadie for Van Halen. He’s outside smoking, with the others, with me. He used to be a camera man in L.A., now he remodels homes on the east side. We’re laughing at a modern condo building across the street. It’s decked out with a bunch of squares, all of them a different size. I think it’s finished but he thinks it’s not finished. Someone else laughs, a girl about his age, also a smoker.

She says it’s European, except she says it like this, “It’s You’re a Peon.”

Roadie tilts his head back when he laughs, and I glance inside the coffeehouse when someone opens the door to join us. I want to see how chubby and the model are doing. They’re getting along pretty well. For the half moment I see them they’re giggling and playing charades.

The girl is over six feet, two inches and a half. My gift is the ability to ascertain the height of an individual to the nearest half-inch, but it’s not because I’m constantly thinking about it. I can do it from thirty feet away.

I am five foot, two inches and three-quarters, but you know, so what? Roadie over here isn’t much taller, and neither is Peon Lady, who’s asking me if I want a cigarette. Everyone looks at me.

“Nah. I’m good.”

Now everyone outside is beginning to wonder about me because I don’t smoke. I have them exactly where I want them.

Roadie takes a final pull of his Heineken, a drop hanging on the soul patch under his lip. He disposes of the bottle noisily and coughs. I notice the barista now, outside talking to someone I had a math class with when I was twenty. I had nothing to say to that character when I was twenty and obviously I have nothing to say to him now. Then I’m meditating on what it would be like to be a barista and think I’m so cool because I get to slide someone’s Discover card through the reader and wait for the card reader to say it’s okay. Then I realize how much power is in that card reader. I have no idea how it works, yet I’m frequently at its mercy.

“So what do you do?” Peon Lady asks me.

I sit in coffeehouses and check Craigslist. “I’m in consulting.”

“Oh,” she says, her eyes going grey.

“Like, I can consult you right now.”

“You can?”

“Yeah, you should stand on a chair. If you do you’ll get a raise.”

Roadie bares his teeth. He laughs too much, he’s a loser. The wind draws some of his smoke in my face and the barista walks by and opens the door to go inside. I look inside again and chubby is making out with that blond on the couch. She’s leaning back. The door closes.

To what extent do platitudes become a reality? If dreams could be substituted for platitudes, then they would be coming true all over the place. If one could learn to dream in platitudes, then that – that would be real power. I remember the last time I was as tall as everyone else: November 2, 1989. I was eight years old and we were learning to make paper cut-out figures at school. I was one of the last ones to understand the procedure, and my cut-outs suffered. They looked like letters reflected in a broken mirror rather than a string of grown men wearing pants and jackets. I do not remember caring, but if I had to do the exercise today I would work passionately. I would work with determination, with care, because I’ve discovered the taste of showing everyone up. The cut-out figures of the smokers on the porch would be a facile prey to my work, and I would remember to point out that they are the ones who must constantly be doing something with their hands. Like this character in the corner I destroyed in Calculus when we were twenty. I think we both got a B for the class, but I scored twenty points higher than him on one of the tests, I remember. And now look where he is – in the corner. Talking to one other person whereas I am talking to two people.

I’m drinking a Guinness I got from the bar. Roadie has delusions of grandeur. He thinks the next craze will be coffee shops with TV’s that have surveillance videos feeding live from people’s living rooms. Whose living rooms, we beg. The kind of people who like Twitter and dress like Hollywood movie stars. This is their chance for actual fame, he explains. They wouldn’t be edited or have bits of their performance cut away for the remaining parts to fit into a larger whole, their lives would be the larger whole. People who were bored in these coffee shops — the coffee shops of the future — would have to turn to the denizens of twenty-first century attention seekers, watching them water their plants or watch TV, or make out with someone or whatever they could have happen in their living room. The people in the coffee shop would have no choice. But why would anyone want to have their privacy invaded, asks Peon Lady. She is obviously naive. Everyone knows lack of privacy is the new currency. Because, explains, Roadie, they will have paid to have themselves put on surveillance.

Roadie asks if this can be done, and it can be done, so I admit that it can. Then he says we can do it. Peon Lady and I pretend not to hear anything, we start talking about the World Cup. But he says it again.

“You and me, we could be millionaires. It could start right here. You sure you don’t want a smoke?”

I start to get nervous. “Okay,” I say to the cigarette. It is the first time in my life I have put a cigarette in my mouth.

He has a building in mind he’d like to buy. He can even save on remodeling since he’s knows how to do that sort of thing.

“What you have here is not only the big picture, but also the know-how that could save on startup.”

And he has estimates. Operating costs, capital outlay, risk analysis, environmental benefits. He shows us some charts and data on his Smartphone, meanwhile I’m drinking and still trying to get the hang of smoking. My face is a little drawn as it is after so many beers, and I begin to make accusations about the guy in the corner I took Calculus with. He keeps looking at us. And why is he still here anyway? Obviously there is some unfinished business between us, but I have no idea what is about, nor do I have time to care. I’m trying to do business. I’m trying to get something off the ground.

Peon Lady starts playing twenty questions with me. Between formaldehyde coughs and my watery eyes I explain everything. Where I went to school, where I live, how many pets I have, the things I eat, my favorite period of American history. Peon Lady has yellowed teeth and legs that are small for her hips, but she dresses smartly and has warm eyes.

Roadie is becoming taciturn. He puts his smart phone back in his coat pocket and looks up at us like he’s adding something up in his head. I get mixed feelings and look across the street at someone filling their car up with gas. Then I remember the game we’re playing at the coffee shop. I’m winning Peon Lady over for Roadie. He’s the man with the plan, which I’m content to acknowledge with the understanding that chubby on the couch is sending his blond friend home with me. With my balance restored I start responding to Peon Lady, our heads close together. Roadie is done lighting up cigarettes and leans back in his chair, with his forearms buckled across his hips and his fingers locked together. The last time I sat like that I was bored and wanted someone to notice. I want to explain to him the game we’re in, but it seems inappropriate at the time.

Then all at once the only appropriate thing is to find a bathroom. I go inside and kick a graffitied metal door back. In several moments I’m walking away with my hands in my pockets. I pass the counter, and the unfortunate gentleman I burned in Calculus (who will one day have to come to terms) is leaning over the counter, his wallet chain hanging down to the back of his knee. He and the barista on the other side of the counter stop cackling when I walk by.

It does not take long for me to realize what I did, because I’ve done it before at this very coffee shop. I used the ladies’ room.

The clock on the wall says a quarter to eleven. It’s the same to me whether it says quarter to eleven or quarter to anything else. The same people that were here two hours ago are still here, so they must not care either. Then I’m downtrodden, because when I gander at the vintage denim couch where chubby and his loser beautiful friend were, there is only an imprint. They’ve left.

When I return to the smoker’s porch Peon Lady is sitting by herself at our table. “Where’s Ron?” I quiz.

“He had to go home. He has to wake up early tomorrow.”

“Did he say goodbye to me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” So he left. The fool inside will probably leave not long after he and the barista stop laughing at me. Very well, the only one left is Peon Lady. The zinc light from a street lamp pours down our table. She looks up brightly and rests her chin in her hand.

Peon Lady’s name isn’t that. In fact I would never call her that if I were you. Her name is Elizabeth Gerrain, and we have been smoking together every morning for the last two years. Next spring, when the pear trees bloom and plane tickets to Aruba go on sale, her name will be Elizabeth Caliver, when we wed.

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Thomas Wauhob lives and works in Austin, TX. His stories have appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review, SNReview, and Pindeldyboz.