Creating a character from overheard conversations
Mark K June 7th, 2008
We were recently visiting a California beach town and I went downtown for my morning coffee. I was observing some of the local characters - my daughter calls this “eavesdropping” and I got curious about them in a “writerly” sort of a way. Later on, I wrote this monologue, imagining how one of the characters might tell the story.
Hi, my name’s Kip and I live here at the beach. You might have heard me referred to by different names – Crazy Kip, Ripped Kip, Flipped Kip – I know there are a lot more, but it doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes, though, I can tell that people are talking about me when I come down the street. Like this morning, I was walking by Mr. Toad’s where I was going to get my morning coffee, but I forgot they open later on Sundays. There was a bunch of Hispanic guys waiting out front – they had just finished cleaning the Sunset Grill and were waiting on the sidewalk for rides, I guess. I could hear them talking as I got close, something about “caer”. Mario was asking the group a question. I know I was doing my lopsided walk and I think he was asking them if they thought I was going to fall over. “Do you think he’s going to fall?” “I bet he’s going to fall.”
Mario’s a good guy, so I didn’t really mind but he made me a little paranoid. I wonder if he knows I was walking the trestle this morning. Was that what he was talking about? Then he asked me if I was working this morning. “Trabajar? Vas a trabajar?” I know he was just teasing, though – he knows better than that.
I kept following the Esplanade until San Jose and turned left and then turned left again on Capitola. I went that way because that’s the way I lean and because I had to unwind – I had come the opposite direction a littler earlier. I figured I’d stop and see Cathy at the Koffee Kup since that was my other favorite place to have coffee.
When I got there Sue was sitting with the Sunday paper, working her way through the pile like she always does, so I had a seat next to her. Both of them said hi and Cathy immediately started making my coffee the way I like it – she steams the milk – whole milk of course – while the espresso drips into one of those little bitty pitchers. She gets the foam real thick –thick enough to float an espresso cup on top of it – believe me I’ve tried. Then she pours the espresso into a tall glass like the kind they serve lattes in. She carefully pours the foam on top – very carefully, so there isn’t too much mixing between the coffee and milk. She takes a long spoon – she knows I’m watching her every move – and she pokes it through the foam until it’s almost reaching the bottom of the foam layer. Very, very slowly – this is the crucial part – she mixes and swirls in a clockwise direction, letting a little of the foam blend with the coffee. After about a minute you have three basic layers – coffee on the bottom, blended coffee and foam in the middle, and a head of foam on the top. Then she gets another cup – a mug like the kind they use in old-fashioned diners – and she surgically removes the virgin foam from the top, carefully transferring it one spoonful at a time to the mug, being careful not to pop too many bubbles – which, by the way, should always be the tiniest of foamy bubbles to begin with.
“Your Kipochino is ready,” she says, walking toward my table with a smile as I let my breath out and smile back. She puts both the glass and the cup in front of me and I wrap my hands around the glass, feeling that it’s almost too hot to hold. “About a 9 out of 10,” I tell her and she smiles again and says, “Some day, maybe I’ll get a perfect 10.”
Sue doesn’t even look up from the paper – she’s seen all of this quite a few times before. She just keeps turning pages – not really reading the paper, more like looking at the paper. She never misses a page – just keeps turning and turning. She can talk the whole time because she’s not really reading anything. I swear she’s the loudest silent reader I’ve ever heard – swish…swish…swish… I count the pages as she turns them, three at a time. Then real quietly, on the bottom of the table, I drum an answer. Swish…swish…swish — tap, tap, tap. I have to tap quickly, before she turns the next page. Swish…swish…swish — tap, tap, tap. On the funny pages now. Swish…swish. Oh, no, she’s stopping to talk with Cathy after only two. She lets go of the page. Only two! I reach over and turn the page for her. Swish….Tap, tap, tap!
“Kip, what are you up to?”
“Nothing!
She goes back to talking to Cathy. I stare at Cathy and drink my Kipochino. I take a sip of the mixed part, then add one spoonful of the white foam and let it “get used to the neighborhood”, let gravity help it to join the blended part, before I take another sip. I’m thinking maybe I should have had a decaf because of the trestle thing and all, but try to just settle down and listen to Cathy. Sue has been asking her if she’s seen much of Jo Jo lately.
Cathy explains that they’ve had a bit of a falling out. I’m gazing at Cathy because I think that she’s real pretty. She says that Jo Jo’s still mad because of the Christmas decoration thing. I’m thinking of how Cathy never wears any makeup but when she smiles, it’s like she all of a sudden put some lipstick on. Cathy’s talking about how she was in charge of Christmas decorations for the village and that Jo Jo’s still mad that she didn’t hire him to be the Santa Claus. She’s not smiling now because she feels a little guilty and she frowns when she says the next thing and she has a little of the biker chick look when she does this. She says that Jo Jo isn’t the most reliable guy and she didn’t want him showing up on the 26th when he wouldn’t be helping at all with the pre-Christmas sales. I wonder how Jo Jo feels about being the number two Santa Claus in Capitola and I hope Cathy will talk about something more cheery so I can see another smile.
Now Sue is asking me what I’m going to do this afternoon. Am I going to go down to the beach and look at the girls? Maybe she noticed the way I was looking at Cathy. I tell her no that I don’t go to the beach very much, that I’m going to be taking a nap. She says, “Oh?” in a curious sort of way, swishing away at her pages the whole time. “Why are you so tired this morning?” If Cathy had asked that question, I would have just died, because I would have known just what she was implying – but she would have a way of doing it that would make me feel good like, “You old devil, Kip, we know what you’re up to and I’m a little jealous about it!”
But that’s not the way Sue asked. The way Sue asked, I wondered if she knew about me and the trestle. I’m thinking they were both sitting here an hour ago, judging by how much of the pile Sue had swished through already – and heard the 7:30 freight go through town. Did she know, did Cathy know, did the whole town know I was up there?
Did they know that it wasn’t about jumping, it wasn’t about falling? Did they notice that my watch wasn’t on my wrist, but in my pocket? That I didn’t know exactly what time it was when I started across the bridge every day? That I knew that it was seven-ish and that I knew there wasn’t a lot of extra room if I cut it too close? Did they know how scared it made me, how crazy it made me, how alive it made me feel? Did they know that today was only the second time I cut it too close and had to lay down and squeeze so close next to the nothing of a railing, staring through the cracks to the river below, making myself as small as I could, screaming as the train roared past and shook the bridge so that it seemed like it would fall down any minute? Could they hear the screams from here or the crazy laughter as it finally passed me by?
“Didn’t sleep that well,” I say, taking another sip, adding a dollop of foam.
Swish, swish ………… swish
Tap, tap, tap.
