Monday, November 10 low fog. I sit in a coffee shop drinking an espresso and looking over my work schedule. 67 hours I’ve been assigned this week, just writing it requires a sigh of exhaustion. A library copy of Desolation Angels lies face down and opened to the second half. I sit at my small round table and observe the man at the next.

He’s sitting directly in front of me, he reads a copy of life the 40th anniversary commemorative edition. His hair is a yellowish silver with waves that begin on the front of his mind and crash behind his ears suggesting carelessness. His face is a reddish copper with big open pores on his nose. The beard that hangs off his chin is mostly black with a few bone white hairs sticking out in places. He’s a heavy man and his tan plaid shirt forms a circular bulge at his belly. His black suspenders bend around his girth and his pants have that baggy look that some big men have when they compensate for their gut by lowering their britches. His hands are short and thick, and the swollen knuckles and dried out calluses suggest that he has worked more hours than I have been alive for. He raises his drink which looks like hot chocolate complete with sugary brown droplets racing down the side and his stubby fingers quietly work at an open cookie bag.

The hum of the coffee shop comes in waves and eventually the morning commuters have left to go sit in traffic north of Golden gate. A Louis Armstrong song is playing slow and happy. I sit still absolutely infatuated with this man. His eyebrows which have an amazing resemblance to a condor’s wings dip and swoop in concentration. His rugged face gains sense of innocence for every now and then his lips move to sound out a word.

I wonder if this man has children or grandchildren. Does he read to them? Do they enjoy it as much as I would? All the sudden I’m four years old into a bed in a room that retains the heat and aroma of a wood-burning stove. There’s it’s my newfound narrator in a squeaky wooden chair in the corner holding a copy of the 40th anniversary commemorative edition of life. I don’t think he would even have to read to put me to sleep, fore I could fall asleep to the occasional page turning or the chair adjusting. But complete comfort is reached when I hear the hollow whisper of the gruff as he sounds out yet another word.

Here I am 20 years old sitting in a coffee shop analyzing and incorporating a complete stranger into my childhood memories. I feel foolish until I look up from this very paper to see him drowning his eyes in the window with a defeated bend of his lower lip. His shotgun shell fingers scratch his nose and I see why I’m involving him in my memories. He has no wedding ring. I feel cold for him and his loneliness or my sense of it. I picture him crying the way a big man cries in heavy sobs and creased forehead and I too feel ready to cry. My eyes feel the familiar warm rush welling up, my stomach carries the same breathless sensation and if it weren’t for the two attractive girls sitting across the room I just might’ve broke down and bawled my heart out to this disheveled Santa Claus.