Howe Sounds

Howe Sounds - Said the Whale (listen in new tab)
It’s a slow Sunday at Café Ulysses. K’s been there all morning. Claire started her shift a short while ago.
Right now she hooks up her Ipod to the sound system. She searches, sliding her thumb slowly around the white circle, and eventually clicks play. “I love this song.”
K stands, leaning on the counter, staring absently out the window. “What?” He barely hears the music.
The café is empty, except for two teenagers who’ve been sitting for hours reading books too big for them. Probably Hegel or Hobbes. Sartre. Or Marx. Claire hums along to the song as she slowly wipes clean tables to kill time.
Claire: “You’re not here, buddy.”
K: “Guess not.”
Claire: “Shannon?” It’s a guaranteed conversation prompt these days.
K: “Yeah. You know she’s worrying me. She goes a week without skyping or emailing. Then when she does, she anxious and crying. And then everything’s ok. And now she’s back to crying. She’s been so closed. I, I don’t get it.”
Claire stops. Looks at him. Offers, “Yeah. It’s not really like her.”
Gregory Tours appears at the door. It rings its little chime as he swings it open. “Claire. A pleasure as always.” She rolls her eyes. He points at K. “And you! Get your mind off that girl. I need latte, all fat. Stat.”
K sighs and driven by habit sets to work. “Well, you know I’m screwed up by it all.”
G.T.: “Yeah. It’s not good, man.”
K: “Thanks. Just thanks.”
G.T.: “I think you appreciate my honesty.”
His back is to the door and he ignores the door chime and the soft scrape of the door on the tiled floor. Claire will get cash. Still humming, she takes the order. “No. We only have one size… Hotshot! To go, low-fat cappuccino.”
K slips a steel cup of new milk under the steam wand. He hands G.T. his latte in a white ceramic mug capped with foam. “You are salt in my eyes,” he says as he taps the fine, ebony espresso grounds into the portafiler. He fits it into place and sets the machine to work.
G.T.:“Kiss me.”
K gives him the finger as the milk roars. With casual skill he puts the one-size paper cup under the espresso nozzle just as it starts to drip. Then a cloud of foamed milk, faintly stained caramel as it fills the cup.
Claire comes over. “Don’t worry. It’ll sort itself out.”
K hands off the drink to her. He cleans the steam wand with a rag, and wipes the grate beneath the espresso nozzles.
He turns to Claire. “I want to believe that. It’s just starting to eat at me.”
G.T. shrugs: “Starting? Really? Just now? Relax. Not much you can do from here.” After a moment a few moments he taps K on the shoulder. “Hey, do you see that girl?”
K looks, finally. A the dark haired woman standing by the free local newspaper rack, looking for something recent. She puts the to-go cup to her mouth. He can only see her from the back. His eyes ride down her vaguely familiar curve. His mouth drops open a little. His mind floods. It’s a simple and expansive, enveloping moment of recognition. He barely recognizes what it is. He breaths out a quick, quiet “Huh.”
Claire is singing, dancing by the register. “Let’s go back to the coast baby westward to the ocean.”
Then, K says from across the café, “They’re all old. They don’t drop new ones off all the time.”
She turns. Her glasses shimmer in the light. Eyes meet. She smiles. It’s a vaguely knowing smile.
Now, no one else is there. They’re standing in a suddenly abandoned city. Silent, except for Claire’s looping chorus.
Her: “Yeah? Free almost always has lazy at its core. Do I know you from somewhere?”
K: “Yeah. You tried to pick a fight with me at V.I.’s once.”
Her: “Really?”
K: “Well. Looking at you, you do seem the type.”
Her: “Totally. I’d win too.”
K: “That remains to be seen.”
Her: “I think it’s worth seeing.”