Factual | Coffee | Observation | Writing |
Nina’s Coffee Shop
Observing a man wearing a very expensive suit
Nina’s coffee shop is the sort of place I go to chill out around mid-morning. Have a piece of cake with my coffee, read some Medium stories, respond, generally drop out of the rat race for an hour.
It’s one of those old establishments one finds on a quirky street in the Midwest, a sort of musty ambience that you only get in old cafés. Not one of the chain types, designed for graduates. Nina’s has that character a place gets when it evolves over 60 or so years.
The only out of place character is a guy wearing a suit, obviously not one off the peg. The suit fits him like a glove. He catches me looking at him, smiles, and returns to reading his newspaper. I feel like I should speak to him, not loudly, just a friendly word.
Whenever this kind of thing happens to me, you know, observing people because there is just something about the way that person sits, or reads his paper, or how a woman keeps her knees together, or maybe I’m looking for a certain trait, how the coffee cup is held, will he take one sip at a time, or take a couple of sips and put the cup down? Then watch to see if he repeats that same process.
This guy, and I can only assume he is successful. The suit he’s wearing is, and trust me, I know my suits, is a Georgio Armani, and there is no change out of five grand if I’m right and it was tailored to fit him.
When he lowered his broadsheet, I made a slight gesture with my hand indicating my interest in his attire. The guy immediately raised his broadsheet.
Maybe I look like a weirdo, and admittedly I'm wearing a t shirt with a Harley Davis imprinted on the front, but I’m not dirty, jeans are clean, and have a decent pair of loafers on, untied, I just noticed.
So then, I stop halfway through reading Jack’s story about his Icelandic Cruise, and looking at the great photos, and started to imagine what this guy is doing in this place, sitting across from me. Doing it on trains is best.
He’s clearly a private guy, has no interest in making eye contact with anyone, not just me. He’s a single sipper, and puts the cup down, but real careful.
He’s pretty exact, the broadsheet is opened the same width every time he turns a page, making the exact same movement. I checked the time between sips, thinking it will be exactly the same. It wasn’t.
His life seemed to restart on the same morning each time he
awoke, and how it grates on him that I’m looking at him. I’m not even hiding the fact anymore. So now, he’s feeling a little uncomfortable. He looked a little unbalanced, if you follow. And he didn’t like it.
As he turned his broadsheet one more time, I must have looked like a warning beacon to him. I was almost wearing sirens on my head.
Anyway, I finish Jack’s story, send a little joke response, as is my way, and finish my coffee.
On the way out, I paused at the man’s side and lowered my head.
“You do know your flies are undone!”
More from Harry:
Adrienne Beaumont, The Sturg, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Trisha Faye, Karen Schwartz, Nancy Oglesby, Katie Michaelson, Bernie Pullen, Michelle Jimerson Morris, Amy, Julia A. Keirns, Pamela Oglesby, Tina, Pat Romito LaPointe, Brandon Ellrich, Misty Rae, Karen Hoffman, Susie Winfield, Vincent Pisano, Marlene Samuels, Ray Day, Randy Pulley, Michael Rhodes, Lu Skerdoo, Pluto Wolnosci 🟣, Paula Shablo, Bruce Coulter, Ellen Baker, Kelley Murphy, Leigh-Anne Dennison, Patricia Timmermans, Keeley Schroder, Jan Sebastian 🖐👩🦰, | James Michael Wilkinson, | Whye Waite, John Hansen, Trudy Van Buskirk, | Dixie Dodd
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Thanks for reading.
