In A Bookstore Cafe

Posted on December 3, 2003 in Cafes Prose Arcana Writing Exercises

As an exercise in the Wednesday Writers group tonight, I had the writers make two lists. In the first list, they were to put down a series of names from their past and write one or two details about them. In the second, they were to note various features of the bookstore cafe in which we were sitting.

Then for the last part of the exercise, I asked them to write a scene in which the people from their past invaded the present.

This is what I wrote:

Jacob and Judy are sitting behind Marilyn. Jacob’s systematically ripping off the cast that the doctor put on his arm earlier this afternoon after he drunkenly put his fist through the shower door. Judy’s sipping coffee and telling him not to do that. “But if it heals,” he whines, “I’m going to end up in the Kuwaiti army.” Judy points out that he’s in this spot because he hasn’t bothered to attend classes. Jacob grunts and rips off the last bandage.

One of the barristes watches him, counting the black stitches along the length of the red wound.

The lady in lavender looking at the gift books — she’s interested in something about the tarot — pays no attention as a small blonde teen leads her afro-headed smokestack of a boyfriend out the door. “We’ll send pictures,” says the blonde to someone back in the cafe as Martha Neimer comes in clutching a stack of success for women books to her chest.

Pat Campbell — stuck in his adolescence due to the time he flew his tethered model airplane into the high voltage lines — sulks next to a table of Asian teenagers who are combining their Calculus homework with talk about which boys they like. Blonde Pat sighs because he’s not one of the topics of discussion.

Greg and Laura from Pomona College stand in front of the glass case which is full of dainties like caramel brownies, chocolate chip cookies, apple tarts, lemon bars, rice crispies bars, mutely technicolor wraps, and three different kinds of cheesecake. As the server brings him his focaccia sandwich Greg — who is taller than a full-sized refrigerator — takes the hand of Laura — who is small enough to cram into the bar box beneath the express machine –, lowers his head, and gives thanks to God.

The barriste waits for Greg to finish and leave, then asks the next guy in line — Wendell from high school — what he would like. Wendell orders a simple cup of coffee and then practices his Japanese lesson aloud, which he reads from a book. The black-haired boy behind the counter pours the coffee for my half-black, half-yellow friend and is glad to be rid of him.

Perhaps you would like to try. Make a list of old friends and enemies with their characteristics. Then make notes about where you are sitting. Then write a scene in which they figure as participants or ghosts in the present scene. Either post your results as a comment or trackback to me.