I’m not much of a Hemmingway man, but A Clean Well-lit Place, has always sort of stuck with me. I’ve always dwelled on getting old and, even in the youth from which I read it, I sort of knew/dreaded/welcomed becoming that old man.  It’s like I wanted to sort of skip all the actual living and jump to the part where I could just sit around and contemplate everything I’ve done or, like the waiters, have people wonder about what my life was like. 

This short story(?) has been intruding on my thoughts a lot lately. Living with my brother, on the floor, in his storage room, without a single true space to call my own somehow brings me back to this old man.  I dare say I am not nearly as tragic as he but, I am still drawn to his predicament and can easily put myself in his place but perhaps in a more contemporary setting.

Perhaps I’d go, every day, early in the morning, to a Starbucks.  Be that guy who arrives ten minutes before they open, every day, even though I know their hours by heart.  The baristas would see me and, the nice ones, would greet me by name and ask if I want “the usual?” The more impertinant ones would be curt and ask what I wanted, even though I always got the same thing, every day.  Just a small cup of coffee, that I nurse, for hours. A small cup.  I’d sit on one of the couches, set in a corner, and read the paper or a magazine; fiddle with my laptop, checking my facebook; or just sit there watching people walk by outside, doing nothing.  I’d then get up and leave, to be back the next day. Ten minutes before they openned.