Please do not steal/plagerize. Share, but give credit where its due
I can spend a lot of time in this alley. My short attention span likes the fact that there’s a lot of character here. This roofless corridor is really the empty space between an old theater and old building. Actually the space isn’t really empty.
It has me, my thoughts, and a few memories. It also has walls with some great graffiti on them. Classic graffiti from the eighties. A man in a big white suit with a pair of shades that eclipse the top half of his face. That’s art.
There’s also some crappy spray painting on one of the theater exists. Someone paying homage to a local band. I actually know someone in the band, and I don’t think he looks at vandalism of local landmarks as a positive effect of his group. They have no plans to quit in hopes of preventing future desecrations though. I’m sure the spray paint vandal is sleeping well.
I like a sit on a small rise of concrete when I read. It has a nice railing behind it that I can lean against. The railing’s green paint has been chipping for years, but I don’t think that I’m causing any damage by leaning against it.
The rail is cold. The air is also cold. It’s warm inside. Very warm. There are lots of people, and lots of warm drinks. There’s coffee of course, tea, and hot chocolate. There are also a lot of drinks that are really coffee with different names, but it really doesn’t matter.
I don’t like coffee and I don’t like most of the people in there. I’ll eventually go inside, though, if the cold gets to me. Thank God for tea and hot chocolate, because coffee is something I really have no patience for. I don’t really get why society depends on it. I guess you could call it the fuel of the worker bee. I hate bees they’re always stinging me.
I heard footsteps echoing off the walls, and knew someone was coming from the coffee house. Sometimes I like to pretend the approaching steps belong to a mugger or a whino looking for trouble. I always fantasize that I kick his ass like Bruce Willis. I’m pretty cool in my fantasies. No one fucks with me.
Anyway, it’s a guy named Joe. Joe is hot chocolate.
“Hey Ray, what’s going on? You upset about something?” he asks.
“ No.”
“Well, what the hell are you doing out here? Everyone’s inside. It’s cold. Are you mad at somebody?”
“No, I’m perfectly happy.”
“Dude, I can’t believe you’re sitting there with that book again. We’ve all been apart for some time, and here you are walking out on us. Why don’t you come in and get some coffee or something?”
Oh great, now they’ve got Joe drinking coffee.
“I don’t like coffee. I like to read. I’m not preventing anyone from coming out here. I like it here, I’m happy here, anyone who wishes to join me can come here.”
“Look man, no one wants to stand out in the cold. Besides the food and coffee are inside. No one wants to come out. “ Again with the damn coffee. “ We’ll be inside when you finish reading.”
“Sure. When I finish you, Mike, and Matt will probably be ready to go elsewhere. If you have nothing more to offer then you’re damn liquefied beans, then I’ll hang out here until you come and get me. I have about forty pages left, and Hobbes can get pretty involved.”
“Okay, well whatever. What’s so bad about coffee anyway?”
“It just doesn’t agree with me, okay.”
Joe mumbled something unimportant and walked back into the coffee house, leaving me alone with my not so empty space. I returned to the page I was on, two strips left.
I could hear laughter and other assorted noises as the coffee house door opened, and someone left. The alley’s proximity to that hive of social interaction is one of the reasons I love to be there. I can be alone with my thoughts and still have my friends close by when my thoughts turn on me. There’s always an alternative.
So I sat back and ignored the laughter. I continued with my book, and the game of Calvin ball taking place on its pages. The night rolled on, and I stayed in the alley for a while. I avoided espresso, cappuccino, joe, Java, anything with French vanilla or hazelnut flavoring. Eventually Matt came out, and told me the others were ready to leave. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to finish my reading, but at the same time happy that I avoided that sordid little corner of the world.
So anyway, I took off with my pals, leaving the walls, the art, the vandalism, and the memories behind. I hope I won’t need the memories in the near future, the ones that live in the alley. I’ll be back to see them again, but until then, I hope I can make it without them. The good thing about leaving them here is that I won’t even know why I want to come here until I return, and until I know these memories again, I’ll just be trying to avoid that sugar sweetened blackness.
