Outside of a hip, cramped coffee shop just inland from Ocean Beach.
The sun, newly risen, toweling the morning fog from her face as the smell of artfully ground beans soak the air; a cyclist makes a stop from his long morning ride.
The man, in his early 40’s, is clad in a logo’ed biking jersey, oblong mirrored sunglasses and special biking shoes that make him waddle as he walked. Locking his lithe, high-performance road bike at the bicycle rack, the Bay Area techie posed like a chiseled marble statue as he sucked down water while catching his breath.
His eyes squint as he enters the tiny coffee shop and lips purse in response to the morning soundtrack – The Misfits – loud enough that the two opening baristas bellow at each other from across the dinky bar as they execute the morning’s duties. Tensed legs clad in spandex showcasing calves of cabled muscle, the biker places his order before fleeing for an outdoor bench.
The baristas: a young woman with Buddy Holly glasses, velvety mauve hair and intricate, colorful tattoos winding the length of each arm. A young man, spry and slender with a sharpened pencil tucked behind an ear. The song ends and the rhythmic chunk-chunk of the portafilter basket being emptied punctuates the temporary silence as they deliberate the best punk rock album of all time.
The street is silent this early in the morning and a musty garbage smell fills the air. A seagull surveys the parking lot as an elderly man waits for the bus: endless, ageless, a reel-to-reel copy of an earlier time. The biker guzzles his coffee and picks at a piece of sweet cinnamon toast, checking his smartphone and gadgets all ring/chime/whoosh.
Inside, the baristas socialize while delivering orders to the regulars: a man paging through The Times, a woman producing an ornate-looking line-drawing on a beat-up red Etch-A-Sketch.
The biker returns and requests a free refill. The first barista wheels around, narrowing hardened eyes at his request before provisioning a taut reminder that refills are permitted for mug-carrying customers only – not cardboard takeout cups. An exception was made the last time, she said, to which he returns a smile and she interprets it as a smirk. The second barista thinks little of him and shrugs, wiping his hands onto his fresh-looking apron before pivoting back to his work. Flustered and indignant, the biker’s voice rises as the barista straightens her spine, eager to be the first to refuse him a privilege.
Their voices rise and fall. Cheeks streaked with lines of scarlet, he waddles out of the coffeeshop with a puffed chest and empty hands; hands he uses seconds later to gesticulate wildly in describing the grave inconvenience after the fact.
The regulars slurp their drinks with pleasure and watch the man return to the bicycle rack and climb onto his precious road-child, locking his shoes tightly into the tiny metal pedals as he pushes off, wind at his back, turning with little effort towards the blinding embryonic light.