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Pulling out my phone, I fully expect the text to be coming from Jennifer. She wants to tell me she’s running late. Maybe she’ll tell me she loves me yet again. She’ll ask me if I brought my laptop along to work on my new book that I’ll be dedicating to her. It will be a text filled with the same craziness she’s been displaying all morning long.
But much to my surprise, the text is not from Jennifer. It’s from my new friend Jenny, the would-be novelist. This takes me by surprise because I never gave them my cell number to begin with. But then it once more dawns on me that my cell phone number and my address are available to the public via my website and the internet. My life is no secret. I’m no JD Sallinger. I’m not on the run from the public eye, and nor have I ever wanted to be. I wanted to be a famous writer with hordes of adoring fans. Not an anonymous writer with hardly any readers who can barely pay his bills on time, or at all for that matter.
I thumb the text open.
Hi Martin, it reads. Matthew and I were wondering if you’d like to come for dinner Friday night (tomorrow). Bring your sig other if you have one. The weather will be cooperating so we’ll cook out. No need to bring anything since we have plenty of beer and wine. Maybe come around six and we can have a couple drinks on the back deck. Hope you’re feeling better and hope even more that you can make it. We’ve never had a famous writer for dinner before, errrr, you know what I mean. LOL 😊
Naturally, the chipper young lady adds a smiley face emoji at the end of her invitation. I’m sure she’s the type to add an emoji to every email and text she sends. It’s what the younger generation does instead of speaking to someone directly which would be unheard of for them. If only they knew what it was like to have to answer a phone and actually speak to a real live human being. If only they knew what it was like to have no clue who’s calling. If only they knew what it was like not to always have a smartphone in their hand.
The world has changed in unfathomable ways since I was a kid. I’m not so sure I want to change along with it. But then, what choice do I have? What choice does anyone who’s my age have?
I sip my coffee. It takes like rust with milk in it. Five bucks for rust. But I will say this, the caffeine is like rocket fuel. If only I had thought to bring my hip flask with me, I could add a little Jameson Irish Whiskey to it and make it a coffee royal.
My grandfather used to visit a priest friend of his who was a pastor at Saint Joseph’s church on Green Street in downtown Albany. Green Street had been the Red Light District of the city all throughout the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries.
It was full of brothels and bars that were filled mostly with sea merchants who sailed up the Hudson River on their way to the Great Lakes, plus construction workers, and steel mill employees. They were all big brawny men who were no strangers to fist fights on a nightly basis. My grandfather and the priest would meet in the mornings when things were quiet after the early mass and drink coffee royals. Then they’d visit their favorite brothel for blowjobs. It was a simpler time back then.
I give tomorrow evening some thought. Mary will be with her family and husband for the weekend and I’ll be alone.
“What the hell?” I whisper to myself. “They seem like nice kids.”
Sure, I type into the phone. What’s your address?
I wait, one eye on the phone, the other on the entry door to Starbucks. I also catch another glance at the young man typing on his laptop, and the two tennis MILFs chatting away. I wonder what they’re going on about. Maybe their separate affairs. What most husbands who let themselves get soft in their middle age are oblivious of is that their wives get bored. Even if they’re rich, the women want excitement in their lives. The country club, the new Mercedes, the big mansion, and the summer home on Lake George just isn’t doing it for them anymore. They need something else in their lives now that menopause has set in. In a word, they need new cock. I'm kind of surprised they don't recognize me as a famous writer.
A text comes back. It’s not from Jennifer. Again, it’s from Jenny.
She gives me her address. Matthew wasn’t lying when he said they lived only a little ways up the road from me.
Great, I text back, I’ll be there.
It’s going to be a beautiful night, Jenny says in an immediate response. So looking forward to tomorrow. See you later gater. 😊
There it is again, the smiley-faced emoji. I guess I’d better put aside one of my novels for them and remember to sign it. It will make a nice gift for them. I’ll also bring some beer and maybe even a bottle of Jameson. I’m sure I’ll be needing a few belts by then. I’m not the type to socialize much. Like I said, people make me nervous in general. It’s why I choose to be alone most of the time, other than the time I’m allotted with the cop.
Setting the phone down, I picture the cop. She’ll be at the house in just a couple of hours. She’ll be dressed not in her state trooper plainclothes, but her more fashionable street clothes. It’s possible we’ll make love on the couch in my studio (her favorite place to do it), and then we’ll head out for a beer at the local roadhouse and maybe some chicken wings.
It dawns on me that it’s possible I neglected to tell Mary about my having passed out while jogging. Or did I neglect to tell her? But if I did indeed not mention it, then it’s possible I did it on purpose—subconsciously on purpose, that is. She would have demanded that I go to the emergency room right away. She wouldn’t have taken no for an answer. Mary is like that. Very persuasive. I will, however, tell her about my new young friends. I’ll tell her I wish she could accompany me. My fucking brain...I wish it wasn’t spinning all the time.
Another glance at my watch and I glance at the Starbuck’s front entry. Jennifer is more than a half hour late. Am I being stood up?
I grab my phone and text her, You coming?
I wait and get no answer. That’s very unusual for the woman who has been texting me nonstop all day. Or so it seems.
“I am being stood up,” I whisper. “It’s probably for the better.”
Despite my whispering, the two MILFs shoot me a look like I just farted out loud. I offer them a grin. But they turn back to one another and continue their conversation like I don’t exist. Maybe I don’t. I guess it’s possible I didn’t just pass out on the road today, but instead, got run over, crushed, and died on the spot. I just don’t know it yet.
Standing, I give the kids working behind the counter one last look. They’re gabbing away about something. Climate change maybe. Or how much white people suck. Pocketing my cell phone, I just happen to knock over my coffee. It spills all over the floor.
“Oopsies,” I say aloud.
The two MILFs once again glance at me. Their Botox-filled faces bear horrified expressions. What kind of civilized man spills his Starbucks Grande? Me, that’s who. The young man working at his laptop doesn’t skip a beat with his writing. It’s quite possible he’s Millbrook’s next bestseller. Lord knows my time is coming to a swift and decisive end.
“What the fuck?” Manbun barks.
“You have a nice day, son,” I say. “By the way, your overpriced corporate coffee tastes like ass after a really bad night.”
I exit the overpriced Starbucks as fast as humanly possible, knowing I’m never to return.