Friday, February 12, 2021

I’m at the only empty table on the city square. I can smell why it’s empty. I’m downwind from the Friday backgammon players. One of them is smoking a cigar. I like it. It reminds me of the pipe tobacco that I smoked forty-odd years ago. In college, during blizzards, we would all hang out in a dorm room, smoking pipes and listening to Bruckner. We would drink lots of tea -- Earl Grey, I believe, long before Captain Picard made it trendy. Once, when we ran out of mugs, I tried to make the tea in a glass beer mug. It exploded. The hot water fell in my lap. Those who were there said that that was the fastest anyone had seen me move. I’ve gotten lunch today from my favorite hummus joint. Their normal window is open, but all orders are still to go. I get the usual hummus with tahini and two large pitas. I’ve gotten reasonably adept at scooping up the hummus with a shred of the pita. When I’m done, I go into the sandwich shop to get a large coffee. The bottle of ouzo is on the counter, behind the plastic barrier. Three clear shot glasses form a perfect line from the bottle to the credit card scanner. When I return to the table, the players are gone. The backgammon set is still on their table, closed and unguarded. After several minutes, one of them returns and sits next to it, drinking another beer. The music from the cafe shifts to something quiet. I can hear the sounds of the square through it: birds, traffic, children shrieking and laughing, and, far in the distance, the street corner violin. I finish reading an article on my phone, then pick up my bag of groceries, put on a podcast, and wander home.