More Starbucks Sightings

I’m hitting a rough patch with the stuff I’m working on right now, so I find myself spending a great deal of time sitting back in my chair at Starbucks, staring off into space, pretending to ruminate. This on the theory that faux-rumination will lead eventually to real rumination which will lead, inexorably and inevitably, to the Breakthrough. This theory is not at all like the theory of nuclear fission, except in the fact that it has proven to be completely worthless, despite years and years of study, research, and effort. I’m just about ready to demote it to hypothesis, or maybe bump it all the way down to superstition.

But it has afforded me the opportunity to stare obtrusively at many Starbucks patrons, which is usually a diverting and sometimes fascinating pastime. Take, for example, the Asian gentleman who comes into my morning Starbucks at around 6:30, every day, gets his drink, finds a table, sits, takes off his cap, and spends a good half hour muttering silently to himself. Not lackadaisical scattered insane person muttering, but forceful, focused, and apparently extremely important insane person muttering. He stares straight ahead, squares his shoulders, and speaks, rapidly, to no one at all. At first, I thought he was just practicing for a speech he was about to give. Now I think he’s a little bit nuts. But we’re all a little bit nuts, of course: the key is in how our insanity manifests itself. The crazies with the more benign symptoms are the lucky ones.

And then there was the family that walked into my evening Starbucks, last night, three boys and a very serious looking man. Father and sons, I think. They got their drinks, and the father settled down in one of the big plush easy chairs, and one of his boys sat down across from him. They were all carrying bibles, so I thought at first that this was going to be some sort of bible study thing. But the father wound up talking to each boy individually, without reference to holy books: the kids grinning and flippant at first, and then, perhaps lulled by his relentless severity, sober and serious. I guessed that this was a sort of father-son talk thing, a scheduled airing out of differences, motivations, goals, a laying down or reinforcement of the law. Not contentious at all, as far as I could tell, but each boy got up with an expression of what looked to be relief and signaled the next in line. It seemed a little weird to me, but I’m not really equipped to judge.

Or the guy who arrives in what looks like an unmarked police cruiser every morning and sits in his car, in the parking lot, watching. He watches everyone who walks into the Starbucks, and everyone who walks out. Occasionally he gets out of his car, opens the backdoor, takes something out, puts it back, hitches up his pants, gets back in, and watches. Sometimes he’ll come inside and engage someone in an animated conversation about something or other — one of those soliloquy type conversations, where the accoster stands too close to the accostee and holds forth at great length. His victims smile and nod and, after five minutes of this, find a way to extricate themselves and flee. Eventually, he wanders back to his car and gets back in, and watches. I’ve never seen him buy a drink. He strikes me as a very sad man.

I wonder sometimes what all the other patrons think of me, sitting at my table, staring at other people or off into space. Why is that guy wearing a duck suit, they may wonder. Or why is his tongue unfurled all the way down to his chin? Or why is he screaming at the little clown doll he’s propped up on the opposite chair?

I don’t think I’m doing any of these, of course. But you never know. It’s hard to tell, sometimes.