Esperanto.

Sitting at Esperanto, on the back bar, where I go when I actually want to work and not mill around talking to Emmanuel or Alejandro, or any of the other regulars or baristas.

Had my working face on, brow furrowed, ankles wrapped around the stool legs. Gritting my teeth like the best of them, braced for words that wouldn't come. Lilith, Milton, Shelley, Blake. Following one trail to another, chasing Lilith's tail, wanting her to follow me home instead. Le Femme Fatale. From Gilgamesh to the Sistine Chapel we ran. I wonder if she and Eve got along in that cordial sort of way, inside wishing the other would fall. I suppose they both fell. Maybe they were more like sisters. Such stories. Is it wrong I like to believe in them?

I guess I forgot to erase the arrows that point at me, and the signs that inform all folk to speak to me. I guess I didn't look mean enough tonight, or smell enough, or look tired or mutter enough.

Beard sits down next to me. Youngish, twentyish, but those beards always make it tricky. I look down, we're wearing the same shoes, faded blue van classics. Two full sleeves, a whale, an 18, is that a dinosaur? Half inch baby blue guages. Patch on the pants, yes, he's a Brooklyn. He probably rode his fixed gear here, probably lives in Bushwick.

Oh here it comes. His mouth is fidgeting. He's going to say something. Here comes a voice dripping with a smart ass snarl. A one liner quip. Geezus I'm full of ice tonight.

But the voice is soft. And I balk. This is not expected. He's human, by God. And the softness unravelled into a croon, and a story, and very few words. Humorless, sincere, quiet, and weary. Drifter, writer, a wanderer on the scent of something, feigning to be content with only the search. The search, the damn search. Thanks Walker Percy.

We wander about the simple questions and land in the murky waters between stranger and, and. I need a word for those people that are no longer strangers, the interactions that swim under the radar so quickly but are not friend. Acquaintance sounds like someone your boss introduced you to. This is different. This is when stories are woven together and told at the same time, when the mask of a stranger's lie could impress, but there's no need for it. çôwdh. The secret intimate friendship. That will have to do.

Maybe we weren't wandering. Maybe we knew where we were going and took long steps to get there. Long steps and deep drags of turkish gold and cherry blossomed air toward streets without numbers. Steps until I stood at the foot of the Empire, and he kept on walking.