Carl
On my first day of work in the city, I got off my train at King and 4th street 51 minutes before I was supposed to. That accounts for a fifteen minute walk from the train station to the office, which is more time than it would’ve actually taken me, but it was my first day, so I calculated for spare. I was so scared something would go wrong that I didn’t even think about what I would do with the 51 minutes I had to myself, and took a breath of relief when I realized I had packed Slaughterhouse-Five in my backpack. It’s a book I have to read for school, but I think I would’ve eventually read it anyway even if it wasn’t. I don’t know why though, because it hasn’t gotten good yet and I’m worried that it won’t ever get good and then I’ll feel guilty for not admiring a book that so many people say is life-changing. I don’t even know why I picked a war story. They sort of anger me. But I’d like to think they anger me in a Mary O’Hare kind of way, so I decided I’d let Kurt Vonnegut go and just read the fucking book.
So anyway, I remembered there was a Philz nearby. I never really go to Philz, but it feels like I’m supposed to like it because everyone does, and I didn’t know where else to go, and I needed a place to sit down to read Slaughterhouse-Five. For some reason I also thought I could handle my coffee without milk that day, which was clearly false, and this is all to say that the whole thing was pretty much unplanned. So I sat down in this deserted corner of the coffee shop, not drinking my coffee, and I opened Slaughterhouse-Five. I took out a pink pen, I think. I’m really particular about my pens, and I’m almost certain it was pink. I think it would be unsettling if the pen was actually purple, or blue, because I characterized that whole morning by a pink pen and I’m not really sure how I would feel if I was wrong about the color. It probably wouldn’t change anything. I feel like it would.
I wasn’t really focusing on the book, because it wasn’t that interesting at that point, and also I was still distracted by my black coffee because I didn’t even think about the fact that it was black when I ordered it, I just sort of didn’t think, so I was sitting in this corner and completely not thinking about anything but thinking about a lot of unnecessary things at the same time. Then this super old disheveled black guy comes in and sits a few feet away from me and he had a walker that was right beside him that I guess he was using before. By the way, I didn’t know it was called a walker. I had to look up “what are the things that old people wheel around” on Google images to figure that out. Well now I know.
So he’s sitting there, and then he just starts mumbling a lot of words I can’t really make out. And he was also facing me, so I thought maybe he was trying to talk to me but I didn’t want to have a conversation with a person I couldn’t understand because it was 7:35am and I didn’t want to do something difficult or be a respectful fucking human being, I guess, so I just kept staring down at this page of Slaugherhouse-Five that I wasn’t retaining. Actually, I wasn’t even reading it. I was just looking at it so that I didn’t have to figure out if this guy was talking to me. I kept thinking, Should I ask him if he’s trying to say something to me? But then I realized that then I would have to talk to him, so I just stayed there, fiddling with what I think was a pink pen, and flipping a page every now and then so that it wouldn’t look suspicious. Not that he probably even noticed.
Then this barista comes up to him, and she tells him that she threw his coffee away because he didn’t come to collect it and it had been so long so it was cold. I thought this was really odd, because it hadn’t been that long at all. And then I realized that if he wasn’t in Philz when I got there, which he wasn’t, he must’ve ordered a coffee much earlier and then went on a walk or something… a walk. There I was, in the city an hour early because I was so worried about being late to work, and this guy who I couldn’t understand wasn’t even worried about picking up his coffee on time. I think the barista was kind of annoyed, but the guy did some more mumbling so she told him she’d make it again for him, and she did, and he thanked her, I think, and that was sort of the end of that.
But it wasn’t. Because the coffee didn’t shut him up. The guy was still mumbling. And still facing me. And it wasn’t even a big deal, but I kept building it up in my head like it mattered or something. I got mad at myself because I didn’t turn to him and ask him if he was talking to me, and I got mad that I was so annoyed that this guy wasn’t letting me read my book even though I was in a public place that he deserved to be in, and I got mad that I was getting so stressed about not understanding a guy that had taken a walk after ordering coffee. That’s the exact kind of person that I should be able to understand. It’s probably the best type of person.
My head got so loud and it felt like one of those dinners where my dad accidentally scrapes his cutlery on a ceramic plate and then apologizes to me because I always react so badly to that noise. It wasn’t even a big deal. I don’t know why I remember it so well.
I was so uncomfortable that I got up. He was still mumbling and (maybe) talking to me as I packed up my things. I tried to be slow and calm, like a normal person leaving a coffee shop. Maybe he noticed. He probably didn’t. I put the book in my bag and the pink pen back in its place and my fingers shook as they closed the buckle of my backpack and then I looked at him and stopped. He was moving his walker aside so that I could pass by him and walk to the door.
I wanted to cry. I hated that I got so stressed out about everything before then. This was just an old guy who took walks after ordering coffee and who moved his walker for me and I didn’t even try to have a conversation with him earlier when I know I probably should’ve.
Gratefully and ashamed, I said, “Thank you, sir,” and his eyes went big and he looked at me and said, “Sir?,” and I was confused by that.
He was mumbling a lot of things and I think what he was saying was that nobody ever calls him sir or he hadn’t been called that in a long time or something like that. I don’t know. I didn’t say anything, because he was still mumbling. Then he said, “What’s your name?”
I understood that. I told him my name and he sort of looked at me accusingly but in a good way and said, “No, really, what’s your name?” and I understood him again. So I told him that was actually my name, it was just a Hebrew name and when he heard that he said “Well, damn, are you Jewish?”
“Yes, yeah, I am,” I said.
More mumbling.
“Well, god, I would’ve never guessed that. I would’ve never guessed you were Jewish!” and he laughed to himself for a little bit.
I started walking away through the space he cleared up by moving his walker and I told him that I hope he’d have a nice day, and he yelled after me, unrelatedly, “Carl! My name’s Carl,” and then kept mumbling. I don’t remember if I said anything after that. Maybe I said it was nice meeting him. Maybe I just kept walking. Either way, he was still mumbling when I left the coffee shop, and I walked out a little bit confused but somehow a lot more calm than I was before.
I wondered why he was in Philz of all places, because his clothes were sort of torn up and he didn’t look too wealthy and Philz sells the most expensive coffee in the Bay Area. And honestly, it’s not even good if you don’t get milk. So then maybe he just really cared about quality coffee.
I started liking Carl more for that. He probably gets black coffee even if it’s not as good, because he seems like the kind of guy who could take it. Maybe that’s why he was mumbling the entire time, because all he drinks is Philz coffee without milk so his veins are filled with solely caffeine. Brewed blood. Pink ink. Or maybe he’s going crazy from having to use a walker and move it for judgemental teenage girls who shouldn’t be getting black coffee or reading Slaughterhouse-Five or not talking to him.
I don’t know why I think about Carl so often now. I’ve started to think that maybe he was talking to me the entire time, and just didn’t care that I wasn’t saying anything, and I like that about him, too. I always stop talking if I don’t think someone’s listening to what I’m saying, I don’t want to bother them. Maybe they’re concentrated on a line of a Kurt Vonnegut book they’ve read seventy-two times because they’re trying to avoid me, for example. But even if I was ignoring Carl, I couldn’t really ignore him, and somehow I ended up finding out that he doesn’t think I look Jewish and he thinks my name is sort of weird and he doesn’t get called sir a lot. So something came out of it, I guess.
To be honest, I still feel sort of bad about the whole thing, but I’m glad that it happened. Mostly, I’m just glad that I called him sir. I’d do it again.