The Clumsy Interloper

STARBUCKS (INT EARLY MORNING) The six-person green apron crew chitter and gossip through their early morning shift at the 5^th Street Charlottesville Starbucks, stacking beverages on the takeout counter with compulsory precision. Sunbeams catch the east facing storefront windows and prism light against the neutral color palate of the interior corporate coffee aesthetic. There is a lone patron, seated at a round tobacco-colored wood table flanked by unused chairs. His body tilts forward at the waist, hovering above his phone.

He is in his early 60’s, handsome for his age, like a distinguished southern politician or character actor who is eighth billed in a neo noir thriller set in the Florida Everglades. His attempts to cover his balding crown with thinning white and grey hair, hand-combed back with sculpting paste, are thwarted by the overhead Starbucks canned spotlights. His neatly tucked scarlet tee shirt emits a thin sheen from the synthetic moisture wicking material. He wears clear framed glasses slung low on the bridge of his nose. A wad of keys sprouts from his khaki shorts, hanging on by a car key fob that clings to his pocket. His navy belt, displaying orange and white nautical anchor prints, is cinched tight.

During the span of several minutes his eyes never leave his phone, meticulously double-thumbing his way through an inefficient email. Splayed out in front of him are a Grande Latte, a dixie cup sized espresso shot and a bacon, gouda and egg sandwich in a paper pouch. After his email concludes, he switches over to his Messanger App. He dealt with his email at a plodding, but steady, pace letting the words come to him while he pecked them out but he hovers over a certain text reply with a discerning delay.

This message is meant for his adult son, now grown and living with his family in Alexandria but might as well be the Pacific Northwest for as often as they see each other. The emotional distance happened gradually and then all at once. When his wife passed away from breast cancer when his son was in high school, he was so absorbed in his own sorrow that he stopped being present. He simply wasn’t equipped to have the big conversations. That was always her department. He abided by the old school approach to navigating loss. Head down. Alone.

After 18 months of walking on eggshells in that empty house, his son graduated and left for college, then for grad school, then for the rest of his life. Now he sits at this Starbuck with a familiar posture. Head down. Alone.

After much deliberation he scraps the text reply, collecting his empty breakfast vessels, and rises deliberately to move toward the trash cans – halfway there his keys finally tumble to the ground. He pauses, hands full, and stares at them. Resigned. Inert. Unsure what to do next.