Dead Writers & Whistling Espresso Machines
By Jay Larsen
Every Monday Ken and his dead friend Karen would write together. They would meet at The Parisian Used Book Store & Café in the Mission District of San Francisco. Ken would sip coffee, paying for every refill. The waitresses loved Ken because they thought the subsequent payments were tips for good service, and being good American lovers of money, they also loved its source.
Karen would sit across from Ken and tell him things to write in his notebook. Karen didn’t like coffee anymore—the afterlife has that effect on some people—but she did like the whistling coffee and espresso machine at the Parisian. She would listen for hours to the variety of tunes the brass contraption would perform. Being Italian, the espresso machine had an affinity for Italian love arias, a fact which annoyed the Parisian’s Korean owners to no end. They were always cursing at the Italian apparatus and whacking it with large wooden spoons, threatening and pleading with the machine to whistle anything but Italian opera. “We in Amellica now. Why you not whistle Amellican songs? Spllingstien or Simon and Gallfunckel? At least something Fllench!”
Sometimes the machine would relent and buy itself a pause in the beatings by belting out a few Sinatra tunes: “New York, New York” and “My Way.” But after a short time the arias and the complaining would begin anew. Karen would listen to the espresso machine, as well as the Korean complaining, with a sparkle of joy in her eyes that Ken had never seen while she was alive. And he noticed that none of the customers ever complained about the machine’s taste in music.
“Being dead really makes you appreciate things,” Karen would say when questioned about her reaction to the recurring conflict. Then she would tell Ken to shut-up and start writing again. The waitresses thought Ken was talking to the portraits of Dead American Writers that hung on the walls, all of which had written in Paris at some point in their now famous careers. It was obvious to the waitresses that Ken was a writer who finding himself removed from the literary center of the universe, Paris, attempted to contact his muse in the next best place for writers outside of France, the Korean owned Parisian Used Books Store & Café.
Ken had no desire to be a writer or even to talk to dead ones. In fact, he was not even troubled by the complete lack of books in a shop which proclaimed itself to be a used book store. The coffee was good, and that was good enough for Ken. Also, he missed his dead friend Karen, and she would only meet with him if he agreed to document her fantastic accounts of the realms beyond the mortal plane. So Ken would sit, pen in hand, and he scribbled notes in his notebook while talking to Karen about whatever subject came up: business at the Store; Sherri; the raise in tuition at State Universities; or the construction of pyramids (a subject which Karen claimed to know a great deal about).
No, Ken had no desire to be a writer, but he did enjoy hearing his old friend’s voice as it wove a delicate duet with the whistling espresso machine. And as long as the pretense of a notebook and a chewed up pencil kept him from losing contact with Karen, Ken was willing pay.
Luckily, Karen never thought to say to Ken, “Now read that back to me will you?”
By Jay Larsen
Every Monday Ken and his dead friend Karen would write together. They would meet at The Parisian Used Book Store & Café in the Mission District of San Francisco. Ken would sip coffee, paying for every refill. The waitresses loved Ken because they thought the subsequent payments were tips for good service, and being good American lovers of money, they also loved its source.
Karen would sit across from Ken and tell him things to write in his notebook. Karen didn’t like coffee anymore—the afterlife has that effect on some people—but she did like the whistling coffee and espresso machine at the Parisian. She would listen for hours to the variety of tunes the brass contraption would perform. Being Italian, the espresso machine had an affinity for Italian love arias, a fact which annoyed the Parisian’s Korean owners to no end. They were always cursing at the Italian apparatus and whacking it with large wooden spoons, threatening and pleading with the machine to whistle anything but Italian opera. “We in Amellica now. Why you not whistle Amellican songs? Spllingstien or Simon and Gallfunckel? At least something Fllench!”
Sometimes the machine would relent and buy itself a pause in the beatings by belting out a few Sinatra tunes: “New York, New York” and “My Way.” But after a short time the arias and the complaining would begin anew. Karen would listen to the espresso machine, as well as the Korean complaining, with a sparkle of joy in her eyes that Ken had never seen while she was alive. And he noticed that none of the customers ever complained about the machine’s taste in music.
“Being dead really makes you appreciate things,” Karen would say when questioned about her reaction to the recurring conflict. Then she would tell Ken to shut-up and start writing again. The waitresses thought Ken was talking to the portraits of Dead American Writers that hung on the walls, all of which had written in Paris at some point in their now famous careers. It was obvious to the waitresses that Ken was a writer who finding himself removed from the literary center of the universe, Paris, attempted to contact his muse in the next best place for writers outside of France, the Korean owned Parisian Used Books Store & Café.
Ken had no desire to be a writer or even to talk to dead ones. In fact, he was not even troubled by the complete lack of books in a shop which proclaimed itself to be a used book store. The coffee was good, and that was good enough for Ken. Also, he missed his dead friend Karen, and she would only meet with him if he agreed to document her fantastic accounts of the realms beyond the mortal plane. So Ken would sit, pen in hand, and he scribbled notes in his notebook while talking to Karen about whatever subject came up: business at the Store; Sherri; the raise in tuition at State Universities; or the construction of pyramids (a subject which Karen claimed to know a great deal about).
No, Ken had no desire to be a writer, but he did enjoy hearing his old friend’s voice as it wove a delicate duet with the whistling espresso machine. And as long as the pretense of a notebook and a chewed up pencil kept him from losing contact with Karen, Ken was willing pay.
Luckily, Karen never thought to say to Ken, “Now read that back to me will you?”
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Credits: Words and Collage by Jay Larsen
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