beyond the pale

I think the day-to-day drain of Boheme may very possibly be causing the erosion of my entire personality. Like the tectonic plates of my character are shifting and crashing and forming a whole new continent of me. A very inhospitable one. Or a penal colony, like Australia.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Since we opened, the sidewalk seats and tables have been popular flop spots for various and sundry unsavories. There’s no railing out there to set the tables apart from the general flow of foot traffic. (Well, there was one, illegally, for about 2 weeks. Thank you, Baby Button Eyes. Another story.) This means that any Hobo Joe, exhausted from all his napping and drinking and hallucinating, has been able to squat his moldy bum on my chairs and plop his shopping bag of hand-me-downs on my tables.

In the beginning, I was a bit intimidated. I mean, they were large. They were insane and mumbly. They were catastrophically grubby. And they’d park there, in my chairs, buying nothing from me, of course, because they were already sipping loudly on their well-worn bottles of VitaminWater filled with suspicious amber liquid. If I let them, they’d lounge there all day. I soon discovered I was in danger of owning a hobo coffeehouse. A coffeehouse that screamed, “Tired of sleeping in Cardboard Canyon? Sleep here instead!”

I decided I didn’t want that.

So I began to clean house.

“Can I get you a coffee?” I’d say. Uhm, hint hint.

Sometimes they’d scrounge enough mud-caked coins from their pockets to buy a small coffee and go back to the business of sitting. But at least they’d paid for the squat.

Other times, they’d say, “Uhh, no.”

And I’d reply, “I’m sorry. These seats are for customers only” while staring steadily at them until they left.

As time went on, this became my routine. Subtly offer them coffee, apologize firmly about the seating, stare til they left. It worked okay.

Most of the time.

About a month ago, a man flopped himself down in one of the sidewalk chairs. He didn’t look blatantly homeless, but he wasn’t entirely clean either. He wore a dress shirt and khaki pants that looked like they’d been worn for a few days. Wrinkly. Damp. There was just an overall lack of freshness, I guess. A plastic grocery bag sat in his lap. A cell phone was stuck to his ear. One hand dug in the bag. The other held the phone. I wasn’t sure what was going on, really, I just knew he’d been sitting there for a while now.

So I approached and did my routine. The offer. The apology. The steady stare.

He just stared back at me. I stood my ground.

Finally, belligerently, “What? Do you think I’m homeless or something?”

I paused to think. Honestly, I still wasn’t sure.

“No,” I said, “I think you’re sitting in my chair and you need to buy something or go.”

He didn’t budge. A few more words into his cell phone.

I was done with him. “Hit the bricks, dude. NNNOW!”

His eyes rolled up and over to the side as he threw me a slanty dirty look. He got up, very slowly — for effect, I could tell — threw me another look, and shuffled off down the sidewalk.

At that moment, the plates shifted inside me. I felt it. It made me reckless.

A week after that, while on my cell phone with My Beloved, I started my routine with two mangy looking dudes in wifebeater t-shirts whose arms were blue-green from tattoos. They were exchanging money. What was going on? Was this a drug deal? Who cared, dammit! They weren’t buying any coffee! They weren’t gonna sit in my chairs!

After they refused the subtle offer, I announced loudly, “Well, then you need to leave.”

“We’re just hanging out,” one said.

“What’s going on?” MB said inside the cell phone.

“Not at my tables, you’re not. Hit the bricks.”

Hit the bricks was all the rage with me.

“Tray …. what the hell is going on?” MB’s voice rising. “Do I need to come over there?”

I didn’t answer him. The plates were crashing and I was proclaiming all over the place.

“I AM ON THE PHONE WITH THE COPS AND YOU NEED TO LEAVE NNNOWWWW!”

“F*cking A, lady.”

“Honey, honey … stop … what … I’m coming there right now!”

The dudes stood up. They were very tall and very tattoed and I was going to be killed.

“J*sus Chr*st!” They stared down at me. I stared at them and I know I looked insane. I don’t know how I know. Except that they walked away and I ran inside, shaking, MB yelling at me inside the cell phone.

And with each incident, somehow, the geography of who I was was changing, the crust was stretching. I felt strong. I felt insane. I kinda liked it.

Then today.

The deadly lunchtime lull. A nicely dressed businessman pulled up a chair outside while I watched him from my perch inside, sized him up. Head tilted to the side. Cell phone smushed against his shoulder. Talking. Legal pad folder open on the table. I waited and timed him. Gave him 10 minutes or so.

Then I approached with the routine. I was so tired of doing this.

“Can I get you a coffee or something?” He was still on the phone.

And he didn’t acknowledge me. Didn’t even look at me. Raised his free hand, dangled the fingers, and shooed me away. Dismissed me entirely.

And in the two seconds that followed, I felt it again. This time, the continents collided, exploded. The massive continent of the one me against the massive continent of … my inner Shaniqua. I have no idea where she came from. I only know she suddenly stormed front and center and she was big and black and mouthy. In an instant, I was a giant, kick-ass black woman. Oh, no. He di’int just do dat.

“Then you need to GO.” He kept talking on his phone. Didn’t look at me. Shooed me away. AGAIN.

Shaniqua roared out of me. She grabbed his opened folder, closed it, and walked away with it, plopping it forcefully on an outside table at the deli next door. As she walked past him back into B*home, she yelled:

“YOU NEED TO GO. I AM DONE WITH YOU.”

Once inside, I started shaking. I saw him hang up his phone. Here he comes. He was raging at me.

“THAT WAS SO RUDE! I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU DID THAT! ESPECIALLY SINCE WE DID AN EDITORIAL ON THIS PLACE ABOUT TWO MONTHS AGO! I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU!”

I had no idea who “we” was. And I knew “this place” meant the wine lounge, not little B*heme. Shaniqua wasn’t done.

“SPEAKING OF RUDE, SIR. YOU DON’T GET TO COME HERE AND COP A SQUAT IN ONE OF MY CHAIRS, ORDER NOTHING, AND THEN DISMISS ME AS IF I’M LESS THAN HUMAN! I’M NOT TAKING THAT KIND OF CRAP FROM ANYONE! AND YOUR “EDITORIAL”? IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. YOU NEED TO HIT THE ROAD NOW!”

My voice … where was it coming from? Shaniqua was loud, man. He stomped away, but I knew he couldn’t really do it. I knew he’d come right back. Here he comes again.

“YOU KNOW WHAT? I KNOW PEOPLE. YOU JUST PISSED OFF THE WRONG PERSON! IT’S NOT LIKE I’M HOMELESS OR SOMETHING –”

Shaniqua interrupted.

“IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU BEING HOMELESS. HOMELESS PEOPLE COME AND TRY TO SIT FOR FREE AND RIGHT NOW THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND THE HOMELESS PEOPLE IS THAT YOU’RE BETTER DRESSED. NO. THIS HAS TO DO WITH YOUR PRESUMPTION AND YOUR TOTAL COMPLETE RUDENESS AND YOU NEED TO GO!”

“WELL, YOU PISSED OFF THE WRONG PERSON! THE WRONG PERSON!”

Finally, he stomped off for good. I stood shaking for several minutes until Shaniqua subsided a bit. I grabbed my phone and called MB.

“Well … guess what I just did?” I said, quavery voiced.

And MB talked softly to me for a long time until the plates stopped rumbling and all was quiet inside.

The thing is ….

I may just be temperamentally unsuited to be a coffeehouse mistress. At least the kind I have to be at little B*heme. This is one of the things I’ve learned. Quite arduously and repeatedly, I might add, lo! these many months. And this is likely to be one of those rambling, sweet-Jesus-what-the-heck-is-she-talking-about posts. Sigh. I’m trying, peeps. I’m just worn down to a nub right now. Forgive me.

But I’m not kidding when I call it “little B*heme.” Just to go through some logistics here: My primary coffeehouse area is 276 square feet. I have 2 tables in this area that seat 2 people each. My front doors are always open — literally — so I’m a kind of indoor/outdoor coffeehouse. The sidewalk area has 3 tables, seating, oh, about 10-12 people. In the very back of the building is the private bamboo patio. That seats about 25-30. To get there, you have to walk through the wine lounge. People go back there, they like it there, but the main action, so to speak, is up front.

And this is bad.

Because somehow, over the last several months, I have managed to open a gaping Pandora’s box of conversation and I just cannot get. it. to. SHUT.

No. I’m a prisoner in my own space. There is literally nowhere to hide. I can’t leave the area unattended; I’m by myself most of the time. Just to use the bathroom only a few feet away, I must lock up the register, run — quick like a bunny, and pee faster than anyone in the world has ever peed. Even that boy in third grade who peed so fast and deadly during the class spelling bee that we spellers didn’t know until the floor got slick under the soles of our wallabees. Poor kid. He peed a puddle AND he couldn’t spell Caesar.

So — as I was saying somewhere back there, ahem — when solo customers come in and sit in this teensy area, I am naked, exposed, a captive audience to whatever it is they feel they simply MUST talk about. Right then and there. For hours on end. Ad infinitum. I’m not kidding. There are probably at least a dozen customers who come in regularly who make my heart sink like a stone when I see them because I know they will stay and stay and stay and staaaaay, like the worst zit you’ve ever begged God to be rid of. They will come in and set up camp and part of their camp is somehow me — conversation with me — because, apparently, in the beginning I seemed friendly and open and conversationally accommodating. None of which I actually AM. No. I am snarky and closed and conversationally intolerant. But, through the magic of improvisational theater, I have managed to create a credible character — coincidentally also named Tracey — who likes nothing more than people who drone on endlessly about nothing. Tell her what’s on your shopping list? She is agape. Lecture her about the films of Luis Bunuel? She will sit and take notes. Share about how you ripped a really good one and stunk up your house for hours and hours? Why, that’s Tracey’s most favorite thing to hear! Please tell her more, Mr. Fudgypants! Seriously, it is the single greatest acting job of my life and I have performed it 6 days a week, 9 hours a day, for 7 months now. Talk about yer Long Day’s Journey into Night. Except without the blessed haze of morphine addiction. And without a thundering ovation. And without a damn-ass boquet of smelly roses.

Look. It’s not that I hate these people, although I realize it sounds like I do. It’s just … they quite literally exhaust me. I go home at the end of the day and I’m not physically tired; I am emotionally worn down. Shredded. I’m not an extrovert. I can seem pretty gregarious, but to do so, I must really work at it. When I discovered theater as a kid, I was the shyest girl in school. One of those painfully shy, perpetually red-faced types. Acting brought me out of that shell but it didn’t take the shell away. I like my shell. I need my shell. I like to decide when I come out of it and when I go back inside and regroup. Recoup. But I don’t have that luxury at B*heme. It’s like every day I’m hosting a party where someone else has chosen the guest list. I’m always anxious about who’s gonna show up next. I’m always anxious about having to be “on.” I’m always anxious about how long certain people, who have serious misapprehensions about my charms, will stay. The anxiety makes me cranky. And, you know, when these customers show up, they’re not coming for conversation, even though I’ve called it that. To me conversation means give and take and, honestly, there ain’t none of that going on. Nope. They come to talk at me and to hear themselves talk. It is almost completely one-sided. A kind of monologue … written by a playwright of dubious distinction.

Unfortunately, most of the time there’s no deterrent for this batch of talkers. I mean, I could be in deep shackle to a conversation, see another customer approaching, and think, Aha! Salvation is at hand! Their mere presence will break the conversational shackles! It will! It must! Nope. It doesn’t. The talker just continues to talk at me as if the new person isn’t there because — I don’t know — they’re OCD or something or I’ve become their listening ear, their shrink, their priest. I mean, what to do when your ears are sprinters and their mouths are marathoners? I don’t know. Slit your wrists or something? Seriously. I could slit my wrists in front of them — because of them — and they would not miss a beat blabbing on about how to make salmon cakes with crackers. Then they would blab through my tearjerking memorial service and haunt my grave, blabbing, blabbing, eternally from 6 feet above me. I am dead. You have killed me. Please please pleeeease shut up.

There are times when one of these people is hanging around, where I act aloof, uninterested, brusque even. Then I pull up a stool and try to hide behind my mammoth espresso machine. But it’s not long before I hear a voice, wheedling, “Traaaaaacey, aren’t you gonna come talk to me? Come onnnnn.” This happens more times than I can count, no matter how many signals I put out that “the doctor is OUT.” And I cannot do it anymore. I’m simply not suited to it. I’m exhausted. I feel trapped. I AM trapped. I’m not extroverted enough to make it work and B*heme isn’t busy enough to make such endless conversations impossible.

I’m tired of feeling that gray sinking doom when I see certain people lumbering up the sidewalk.

And I’m tired of feeling guilty about the gray sinking doom. You know?

So really …. well, that’s the thing.

~ To start, and to get off on just the right foot, be sure to have baby button eyes. Never cover them with sunglasses to keep freakage at a minimum.

~ Before your Local Coffee Mistress (LCM) moves in, call an electrician to add the 220 line she needs in her space. Work that she did agree to pay for.

~ But don’t give her a chance to find her own contractor.

~ Don’t give her an estimate.

~ Just have the work done without her knowledge.

~ When the job is done, present her with a random “bill” that you typed up on your computer informing her it cost $1500.

~ Refuse to provide a copy of the actual invoice from the actual — and, of course, legitimate — contractor you employed.

~ Hang c*otch “art” in a common room.

~ Don’t listen when business people and moms attending a “Mother’s Day event,” and little old ladies from The Salvation Army are flabbergasted and complain.

~ Insist that gaye pryde posters be hung on doorways in your LCM’s space, posters that your LCM’s gaye customers complained about.

~ Hang gaye beefcake posters in a common public hallway.

~ Say “but a portion of the proceeds goes to help a charity for gaye men with AIDS.”

(An aside from me. Okay. So let’s hang huge posters to tempt their lust. Then maybe they’ll go and get themselves sick. But at least as they’re sick and dying, we can feel good that they’ll need all this money we raised from selling these supersexy posters. Hey! How ’bout after this, we host a kegger here at the beer and wine lounge for Mother’s Against Drunk Driving! I just think it’s insulting — to gay people.)

~ Enter your LCM’s shop at any time during her business day — especially if customers are around — to discuss what you call important business issues and she calls harassment.

~ Show up with bills for completely made-up things.

~ Pester her for a photocopy of her driver’s license even after she’s
told you she had an identity theft FROM HER DRIVER’S LICENSE.

~ When asked the reason why it’s needed, tell 3 different stories on 3 separate occasions.

~ About a week later, enter her business space in illegal possession of a Notary Public’s Journal.

~ Hand the journal to your LCM, opened, and demand she write personal information in it — driver’s license, Social Security number. Stuff she said she wasn’t going to give you without verification of why it’s needed.

~ Leave it there for her to fill out.

~ Bitch at her when you find she hasn’t cooperated … again. Damn her!

(Note to Baby Button Eyes: You cannot walk around with those journals. You are not a notary. It is illegal. Oh, and even if you are a notary, you can’t notarize your own transaction. Or whatever the heck that even was.)

~ Tell her, in this same conversation, “This isn’t working for meeee. Maybe you need to look for another space.”

~ Back down seconds later when your LCM stares you down and says, “Okay. When do you want us out?”

(More to come on HTMYLCMI — Landlord Version …. oh, yessss …. and stay tuned for HTMYLCMI — Customer Version.)

Some days at B*heme ain’t all bad. Today, two giant dogs fell in love with me. And I with them. In honor of our love, I kept clicking away, taking crappy cell phone photos. It’s a gift. Still …. Meet Buster and Simba, 2-year-old, 150-pound Great Danes:

Simba in the front. Buster next to him. Staring at the traffic. To be fair, the traffic mesmerized them just as much as I did.

Even enormous canines like Diedrich coffee:

“Oh, Tracey, min elskede ….. here, let me please to kiss you …. pay no attention to deh spittle on deh nose …. may I please to sit in your lap?”

Which he really did try to do. I just couldn’t get a picture of it. I was too busy being crushed under the weight of a giant, lovesick, caffeinated dog.

I don’t know how this will all turn out. Not B*heme. B*heme will be over soon. No. I mean this. These posts about it. I’m literally writing off the top of my head here. And that’s how I’ll do it. I don’t want to overthink it because I’m exhausted about it in general. I don’t need to become more exhausted trying to eke out posts about it. So these will be more like journal entries, I suppose. Likely full of ranting and rambling and hyperbole and fingerpointing. (If you think that doesn’t sound like a journal entry, you’ve never read my journals. And, you know, thanks for that, seriously.)

So. Pointless, incoherent ramblings? Bitter rage and recriminations? You need to jump on this merry-go-round of fun NOWWW!!

Okay. First, here’s a truth: We’ve discovered, MB and I — over probably the longest seven months of our lives — that we really WANT to have a coffeehouse. We really DO. Oh, yes, indeedy. More than anything, we want to lounge behind a large window every morning, sensuously sipping our espressos, tempting all the passersby, you know, like those hardworking hookers in Amsterdam.

BUT.

When people come and knock on our window and want to be serviced, we want — more than ANYTHING, I tell ya — for people to drop money at our lazy feet while we laugh and laugh and laugh and LAUGH.

Hey, I said it was a truth. I didn’t say it was nice. Basically, we want to make lots of money at a coffeehouse that nobody comes to but us. And if I could flop in my jammies, do crosswords, and read, so much the better. I mean, this is just what we’ve learned after lo! these many aggravating months. Really — okay, let’s be honest — we want, as sober, healthy, childless, white US citizens to be richly rewarded for doin’ nuthin’ but hanging out and drinking coffee.

So if any of you know of such an opportunity, you can email me, mmkay?

But do it now, before I implode.