Reunion
A fictional short story by Scott Berchman
My computer, my coffee, my phone. The three wisemen are here with me. This is my place of peace and quiet. My Beats headphones cancel out everything else around me and shout the best indie sounds Spotify has to offer
Sorry, Beats, you’re the fourth wiseman.
I’m hard at work. Another article written, another photograph retouched and another hour has disappeared. Deadline approaches.
It’s 8:47AM and the Starbucks rush hour is at its height. Wet shirt sleeves and dripping umbrellas shed their tears on the tile floor. It’s summer and the air conditioning does its best to ward off the oppressive humidity that builds up from all the moisture in here. It’s probably doing too good of a job as a shiver runs down my neck.
I look up, like I always do, just to get a good few seconds of people watching in. It's my favorite pastime.
There’s another impatient person in line who thinks their time is more important than everyone else’s.
She stink-eyes the baristas.
Countless heads tilt down at 45-degree angles as they finger their devices. There are meetings, meet-ups and and melt downs everywhere around me this morning. It’s myself and the few other solo artists who keep the peace and bring balance to this place.
Everyone’s got drama but us.
My eyes drift towards the other side of the room and…
…wait, is that guy looking at me? Do I know him? Maybe?
I’m usually good with faces but something about his confuses me. He sits in a spacious corner seat all alone, maybe twenty feet away. Through the crowd I have a direct line of site to him. I quickly look back down.
Weird.
Isn’t it weird that you can feel someone looking at you? It’s like they’re gently pulling an invisible fishing line that’s attached to your skin. It’s a light tug, a small nuisance, a small something that you can tolerate but just can’t stop thinking about. Like a harmless buzzing fly around your head but you can’t think of anything else but the idea of murdering it.
Yup. Still looking at me. Ugh, WTF? I’m usually good with faces.
There’s nothing new or different about him, just a faded baseball cap on his head. It rests just above his brow like it doesn’t really fit. All he has to do is just pull it down to look like a normal human but that’s not in the cards this morning. It looks like there used to be a “P” or a “D” on it but now just a dusty outline of something that once was. The bill is beyond tattered. There’s stringy fingers of busted threads, just reaching out to the world for a place to go.
I’ve had those threads. You pull on one thinking it’ll just come right off but the more you grab at it, the more the seams bust. You’re just left with more loose ends begging to be pulled again. You fight the urge but you just keep going, all-the-while mangling whatever it is you’re trying to save.
Ok, now I’m staring. Stop it, look away. No, fuck that, why should I stop looking at him if he won’t? Let’s make this weirder.
I squint a little. There’s this small white paper cup in his hand that rests on the table.
It’s not even a Starbucks cup. Is he homeless? Wait. Nope. No one is reacting to him so he obviously doesn’t smell. That’s a telltale sign of a homeless person, right?
He raises the cup to his lips and lets an ice cube tumble out into his opened mouth. He chews down hard.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
I can’t hear the chomps but his cheek flab resonates with every bite from the corners of his mouth to his ear lobes.
It has got to take so much effort to break through ice cubes that size. What could he be thinking about? That chomping looks painful.
The only person I remember doing that was my father. He left when I was a kid. Overweight, big bearded and drunk. He’d finish his last glass of scotch and then he’d crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Then he’d pass out. Then mom kicked him out. That’s all they memory I’ve got.
Thanks for nothing, Dick. Yup, his name was Dick and it’s fitting.
I really should be working, deadline approaches.
I look down and type, time to focus and get past this episode.
And now he’s walking towards me. Oh boy. He looks so familiar. Is he really coming this way?
He walks cautiously. The crowds part just in time as he gracefully strides past them. He’s thin. Average height. Not muscular but definitely not frail. He wears old khakis with worn spots on his knees and a gray t-shirt that shows a faded white “Carribean” on it. He’s probably in his sixties.
He still holds the white cup and takes in a mother of a cube as he approaches.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
I can hear it this time. He stops in front of me and tries to smile.
“Hi,” he says through the broken ice chips in his mouth. A piece falls out of his mouth.
“Hi. Do I know you?” I ask reluctantly.
“I’m your father.”
….WTF?
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Check out all my writing at my personal: https://medium.com/scott-berchman
