very hollywood hollywood. [west of the moon, 4 august 2017]
You can't always reclaim your tiny piece of perfection. Day Two of Soccer Camp, I went back to the tiny vacant-lot coffeeshop. At first it was the same thing, I got a coffee, sat at a picnic table, enjoyed the sunshine and the music, tried to clear my head a little bit.
Fifteen-twenty minutes later, a guy sits down at the table next to me.
No, wait, let me be more precise--he sits down, next to me, at the picnic table. The little vacant lot seating area is small, but had other empty tables. Anyway. He's rocking a kind of Daisy Duke thing, cutoff shorts and a midriff plaid shirt, big straw hat.
"Do you know if they have wifi here?"
I look up from my book to say no, sorry, I have no idea.
He nods and stirs his coffee. A minute or so later he's joined by another guy, this one in bike shorts, no shirt.
I subscribe to the general theory of shared urban space, where you kind of stay out of other people's conversations, or at least pretend to. I have absolutely done my share of covert gawking at bad dates taking place at nearby restaurant tables, etc. In this case, though, I really genuinely wanted to ignore these dudes. One problem I have lately is feeling overstimulated--there's always something trying to claim my attention, either a task that needs attention or a television show, the internet, the news, my child, my job, my parents. Did I mention the news? And my child? And my to-do list, which weighs on me even in the summer?
Anyway, what I need, what I don't often get, is just a little bit of peace. I don't know why these two young men felt such an absolute need to sit at my effing table but once that's the world we're living in, I'm going to do my part to pretend we are living in a world where I am at my own goddamn table reading my own goddamn book in peace.
(It was a good book, by the way. "Let Us Dream" by Alyssa Cole, a novella set in Harlem in 1917, a romance between a Black nightclub owner and an Indian cook set against the backdrop of the woman suffrage movement. I think I would like to read everything Alyssa Cole has ever written.)
Despite my attempts at bubble-creation, bits of their conversation kept drifting in.
"Yeah, but we had to cancel the project, the feds froze all his assets. Something about he was sending money to some guy in Cuba, I guess."
"No, you remember Jordan? I DJed his birthday party last year. Anyway, he wants me to come to Athens for two weeks, he's got some Air BNB thing, I might do that. They leave next week."
At some point, Straw Hat launched into a long and very involved story about a product shoot down at the Navy Yard. "It was big, right, with the costumes and the models and double sets of lights, very Hollywood Hollywood, you know what I mean? And he's just sitting there in the middle of the set, like an old fucking man, just sobbing. And it's my fucking problem now." Shirtless is laughing, and he's also drawing something, a big chisel-tip sharpie with what look like torn off sheets of butcher paper, just sketching while Straw Hat talks.
I tried to stick it out until I finished my coffee but after a while I gave up. As I'm packing up my bag I glance over at what Shirtless is sketching, and it's penises. Lots of them, very hairy and anatomical.
Williamsburg, ladies and gentlemen.