Now there was a good excuse for a chocolate donut! The word of the day provided absolution for my habit of going to the coffee shop.
I love going to a coffee shop. I love the feeling of being removed from the bustle of time. I love the paradoxical isolation and concentration afforded by being in a public place. Now that coffee shops have internet, access to the network spoils that a bit, but not completely.
When I first started working at my university, another reason I went to the local coffee shop was so that I could smoke while working. I now leave the pleasures of smoking to the younger generation, but holding a cigarette was an important part of my persona for many years.
Once I made a reservation over the phone to go to Chicago with Liam, who was eight. I didn’t pay close attention to the arrival times and somehow missed the fact that I had scheduled us a four hour layover in Detroit. No strangers to idling around in airports, Liam and I kept ourselves amused watching the fountain with its unpredictable yet pattern-filled spurts of water from innumerable jets, riding the transports and wandering through the shops. I got us a bite to eat at McDonald’s.
The boys in his step-family, especially the younger, claim fast-food with passions bordering on tribal. When I first took up with Joe, Liam tentatively went fishing, but really didn’t care for worms, bugs and such. After a year or so, he distanced himself from what was clearly shaping up to be new family in his life, creating his own tribe of one person whose emphatic motto appeared to be “I don’t hunt, I don’t fish, I don’t fart or enjoy jokes about farts. And I don’t eat fast food.” His rejection of my beloved (well, rejection of their tribal identifiers) was mildly inconvenient, but I was secretly proud of Liam’s decisiveness.
Once we went to a wild game dinner put on by a church in rural Pennsylvania and Liam – who was about 14 at the time – a won the youth door prize, a 22 rifle. When he went up to claim his prize, I saw him have a conference with the announcer, who then returned to the microphone to tell the crowd that Liam had declined his prize. Another winner got the gun. Liam explained to us that he thought the rifle should go to someone who would actually use it, but his explanation cut little weight when people heard this story. Almost to a person people thought he should have accepted the prize, though their reasons ranged from “he could have sold it” to “every boy should learn to shoot” to “he could have given it to me.” But I was publically proud of his action.
Though he has softened his views towards Joe and family, Liam still believes that fast food, McDonald’s in particular, is tantamount to poison. On that day in the Detroit airport, however, he viewed it as one of the great pleasures of life, as I still view smoking. I don’t actually smoke now, but I certainly did then and the airport offered no other place than a bar in which to indulge. After a couple hours I told Liam we were going to the bar so I could have a cigarette. He said we couldn’t because he was too young to be in a bar. Through gritted teeth I told him, “I took you to McDonald’s. You can take me to a bar.” He did.
All of those thoughts from one chocolate donut. So interesting where the mind drifts and so many hints to who you are this month. Now I need my chocolate!
