That Big Table at Starbucks

There's something about the big table at Starbucks.  The one with the power outlets, where you sit with strangers.  It's like a magnet for sketchy people.

The best story is still the guy that sat down across from me without ordering coffee and ate a chicken sandwich from Arby's.  He then stared at me for twenty minutes.  I kept typing.  Then he reached out, ever so gently, and stroked the back of my laptop.

And I kept typing.  Because what can I say to that?  I could smile and ask with endless compassion, "I'm sorry, could you not touch my computer, please?" I could flip the table and scream, "What the hell, dude!?"  I could run away and be shaky and afraid for the next hour.

Or I could sit there.  Because I have as much right as him to sit at that table (I actually had more right, because I was a paying customer.)  So I sat there for another 20 minutes, not letting anything show, and finished off the scene I was writing before hookin' it.

Probably not the best way to handle it, but I convinced myself at the time that I'd won.
The other day I had a student in Evanston, and I figured I could go early, miss the traffic, and then spend a couple hours in a Starbucks up there.  For the first hour, it was fine.  I sat next to a guy with a latte and an iPad he propped up with his wallet, who minded his own business. I got a chapter written, even though it needed some pretty serious editing.

I was going to take a break and read a short story a friend sent me, before I went to work on edits for my chapter.  The guy with the latte packed up and left, and then a woman sat down at the table.

And for a while I thought she was on the phone, maybe one of those ear piece/blu tooth things, and I kept surreptitiously leaning to the side to see if she had one just out of sight.

She didn't.  She was just talking to herself.  Which is completely fine with me.  I talk to myself all the time, and I have a certain level of respect for people who will do it in public.  Like the guy at New Wave who sings.  (Thank you for sharing your song with us, Guy at New Wave.  You have a lovely singing voice.)

But this was not something that could be tuned out, something that faded into the background, and added to the white noise I surround myself with at coffee shops.  Even though the tone was the same, the content snagged like burrs.  She talked about slicing.  And snapping.  And his blood would drip.  And she would make a feast of a man's heart. 

Her words were violence and menace and the sneaking suspicion she was describing the other patrons. 

I packed up, ducked out, and read a novel for a half hour in my car.  I don't think I won that one, but I don't really know what winning would look like.