We no longer have a mayor at my local coffeehouse. There used to be a guy—a genial Hal Holbrook type—who filled that unofficial position. But I hear he left in a huff when management changed the seating plan while redecorating. I don’t know who might become mayor next. Maybe the retired translator who chats up college students. Or the doughnut-eating Bernie supporter. Or the lean, fastidious man who reads poetry while breakfasting on zucchini bread swimming in honey, sprinkling wheat germ from the Ziploc bag he carries with him. My own candidate would be the film professor, Bill, who’s always at his favorite table when I arrive, no matter how early. I’ve never actually seen Bill enter the coffeehouse. He’s just there, in situ, a fixture.
But I’ve sunk a ways into the place by now. I’ve got people I talk to, a drink I order, baristas who recognize me—or my glasses or my hat, maybe—and sometimes get me my drink even as I approach the counter. Spend enough time there and you find yourself privy to all kinds of strange and fascinating phenomena. Two twentysomething couples have broken up in my presence and a third had a catastrophic first meeting, all at the same unlucky table. When a friend and fellow regular died, he was memorialized with a display at the counter.
