Overheard at Table 4

Carlene Zickafoose: and then the principal comes on and tells us that because the parents were now so outraged that the whole thing was going to be called off.



Belen: So what were you gonna do instead?



Carlene: I dunno, maybe he'll just have them draw or something, but I swear, I saw the letter, and it never said anything that these little third grade boys were gonna be forced to dress up in a corset and petticoats - I mean, it's just for women's history, and they were just going to SEE what women had to put up with, and still do!



Belen: but you say it was one mother who stirred up the papers?



Carlene: no, she just blasted it to her Facebook friends, and you know everyone has ten THOUSAND friends and stink minds stink alike so finally it got to some hate monger with a media outlet and next thing you know they're skewering the entire school saying we're trying to "feminize" the boys to promote some sort of gay agenda!



Belen: That just sucks.



Carlene: I tell you, some people just don't deserve Internet access. All this instant technology just makes my stomach hurt!

Belen: Actually, y'know what's really funny is how all this mess shows how the world has both changed and has stayed the same . . . forty years ago if a teacher sent home a note about a project that talked about how women's clothes had changed over time, the same people would be throwing their torches and pitchforks against the school for promoting a "feminist" agenda . . . and now, the same thing happens and the ignorant villagers are fighting the ghosts of a "gay" agenda.

Carlene: Yeah, but back then we WERE promoting a feminist agenda . . . and to be honest, this project was supposed to just be a continuation of that. Honest to God there was nothing gay about it.

Belen: Never said the ignorant villagers were smart. Just that they find every reason to promote an "anti-gay" agenda.

Carlene: Striking out against ghosts . . . I like that. Shadows of their own hate.

Conversing with the Barista about Books

Henry Plume and John Steppenwolf at the counter, Barista keeping coffee mugs full and listening to them talking about books . . .

Plume: . . . .trying to catch up on my reading, couldn't get a handle on it, so I've got a new idea - I'm putting all the books in bags

Barista: Plastic or cloth?

Plume: Cloth, thankyouverymuch, my little earth-conscious neo-hippie, but anyway, I'm putting in about five at a time, and then just trying to plow through all five, in a month.

Steppenwolf: Consecutively, or all at the same time?

Plume: Turns out a little of both. Started out one at a time, but then I couldn't find one one night and started it. That one was What We Were Doing and Where We Were Going by Damion Searls.

Steppenwolf: How was it?

Plume: Ah, really, only when you're in your twenties is stories about the bohemian lifestyle any interesting. First story starts out about a guy who wants to be a writer but's really just a London slacker. Smooth text, but the idea doesn't catch me, now the one I started first, The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West, now that one started out promising: 1918, wife of a British soldier, he comes home with shell-shock.

Steppenwolf: What they used to call PTSD . . .

Plume: Right, same thing, different terms for different times. My favourite phrase for it always was "Soldier's Heart"

Barista: Oh, my daughter's reading that book for her sixth grade class. She made me read it too, wonderful book, really strong, especially for a kid's book.

Plume: Yeah, read that one too - it's tough, but solid, and I think it's fairly historically accurate. Granted, the author admits that one guy couldn't have been in all those conflicts, but all the stories were from real experiences . . . but the Rebecca West, eh . . . let's just say it seems to be a great story, but something about the writing is just leaving me off.

Steppenwolf: So you like the writing of one but not the story, and the story of the other but not the writing.

Plume: Something like that, yeah.

Barista: Maybe one should have written the other and the other just gets left alone.

Steppenwolf: A literary mash-up?

Plume: Actually I was thinking that, especially about The Return of the Soldier. I would have like to have seen Virginia Woolf write that one.

Steppenwolf: Woolf! Ach!

Plume: I know, I know.

Barista: Who's Virginia Woolf?

Steppenwolf: Someone you should never be afraid of.

Plume: Someone you should never be forced to read - terrible, stream of consciousness crap . . .

Steppenwolf: Wrote To the Outhouse . . .

Plume: To the Lighthouse.

Steppenwolf: I know what she called it. I'm telling you what we called it when we were forced to read it sophomore year.

Plume: - but I was thinking, if she had actually had a story like West's, then maybe her style would have been able to do something with the story. Look: this story we've got the soldier himself who's mind is stuck fifteen years in the past, he thinks he still in love with this other girl, she's written to the wife saying I'm here trying to take care of him, the wife seems a bit stuck up, wants to love him, but is caught all up in what will the neighbors think? and then there's his cousin, who just loves him pure familial love, I mean, it's fantastic! One guy out of his mind, three women from different vantage points . . . Woolf's slipping inandout of thoughts would have been perfect for this, much better than To the Outhouse . . .

Steppenwolf: Ah! See? Catchy, isn't it?

Plume: I meant To the LIGHThouse!

Barista: Looks like a Freudian slip into the Stream of Consciousness.

Steppenwolf: I KNEW there was a reason why I liked you!

Barista: But maybe you should try it.

Plume: Try what?

Barista: Go ahead, re-write it. Rewrite West's novel in Woolf's style.

Plume: Wouldn't that be plagiarism? Of a sort?

Barista: Every hit song these days samples some other song.

Steppenwolf: Even art. Every exhibit is just found object collage or paint splattered over renditions of previous art. I say let's take it into the field of literature.

Plume: Some might say literature beat them to the punch . . .. only like five basic plots, everything's variations on a theme . . . .

Steppenwolf: You're thinking like an English major, start thinking like a writer.

Barista: Just start, and see what happens.

Overheard at Table 2: May 16, 2008

found this article from May 16, 2008:

[please note that Verble overheard this comment, and had seen the slip of paper slid from one side of the table to the other, and although he tried to ascertain at least the title of article on the printout, he could not. Now, all he has left in memory is the date, and perhaps the date is important. Perhaps, one day, in the far distant future, Verble will be able to search the archives of all articles published (in either solid or virtual form) and determine what exactly was contained in the article that was so important so as to be printed and slid across a table at a diner to the woman in the man's employ. Until that time, however, he will continue not knowing.]

photo 442

If we knew each other's secrets, what purpose then would those secrets serve? - Giuseppe Salinghetti

Booth 3: Izalco

I thought it funny,

the foto,

I said there were tears shed,

she told me that she hadn't

cried since she day

her father left for a pack of cigarettes

and never returned.

Sent a postcard ten years later,

the front of it a picture of lighting

across the Tulsa skyline,

but the postal stamp was from St Louis MO.

Said he missed her.

Said he wanted to catch up.

Said he wanted to see how she was doing.

But didn't leave a return address.

Laptop at Table 1

John Steppenwolf, laptop open on the table in front of him, espresso to his lips, pulls down the latest AP wire, reads aloud:

"AP - The crash of an aging Russian airliner ravaged the top levels of Poland's military, political and church elite Saturday, killing the Polish president and dozens of other dignitaries as they traveled to a ceremony commemorating a slaughter that has divided the two nations for seven decades.

"The Polish . . . they never catch a freakin' break, now do they?"

Piece of Paper tacked on the inside of a stall in the Ladies Room

"Bitch"
Carolyn Kizer – 1984

Now, when he and I meet, after all these years,
I say to the bitch inside me, don't start growling.
He isn't a trespasser anymore,
Just an old acquaintance tipping his hat.
My voice says, "Nice to see you,"
As the bitch starts to bark hysterically.
He isn't my enemy now,
Where are your manners, I say, as I say,
"How are the children? They must be growing up."
At a kind word from him, a look like the old days,
The bitch changes her tone: she begins to whimper.
She wants to snuggle up to him, to cringe.
Down, girl! Keep your distance
Or I'll give you a taste of the choke-chain.
"Fine, I'm just fine," I tell him.
She slobbers and grovels.
After all, I am her mistress. She is basically loyal.
It's just that she remembers how she came running
Each evening, when she heard his step;
How she lay at his feet and looked up adoringly
Though he was absorbed in his paper;
Or, bored with her devotion, ordered her to the kitchen
Until he was ready to play.
But the small careless kindnesses
When he'd had a good day, or a couple of drinks,
Come back to her now, seem more important
Than the casual cruelties, the ultimate dismissal.
"It's nice to know you are doing so well," I say.
He couldn't have taken you with him;
You were too demonstrative, too clumsy,
Not like the well-groomed pets of his new friends.
"Give my regards to your wife," I say. You gag
As I drag you off by the scruff,
Saying, "Goodbye! Goodbye! Nice to have seen you again."





The Barista brings this sheet of paper containing this poem to Verble and tells him where she found it, and as he finishes reading it, she asks him, "Why would someone put that up in the women's stall?"

"To remind them of what men can do to them," he says, "What they can do to their hearts."
Verble pauses for a second, "But she did it wrong . . . she should have put it in the men's room. Women already know this."

With that, Verble opens a drawer under the counter, searching for a roll of Scotch tape, and then walks off toward the men's room.