Candy Colors - Richard Klin
The radiator clicks and bangs to alertness on this chilly morning. Its noisiness serves as a de facto alarm clock; as loud as a real one, and certainly much more pleasing than a standard alarm clock’s shrill, jarring wakeup summons.
There is a dull throbbing in his head. It is not at all a hangover, but instead the fatigue of the previous night’s mild dissipation: alcohol, smoke, coffee, loud music.
The heat begins to drift through the small apartment, spreading out to the ungainly, sagging couch and overstuffed easy chair, to the little table with its ancient formica top and odd, 1950s stardust design. The table is flanked by a garish pink lamp, which he had purchased at a stoop sale for only a few dollars and dubbed it, in honor of its ornate tackiness, the “Vegas lamp.” The heat reaches the small, squat refrigerator and the seldom used, rickety oven, which only functions via the constant lighting of the pilot, an unwieldy, faintly perilous operation. And then the heat reaches his cramped little bedroom.
The radiator, many times painted over, is a formidable old warhorse. It continues to crank out more heat. The apartment is now warm throughout, including—luckily—the bathroom, with the sturdy, almost industrial, toilet, the old bathtub with its thick, metallic shower head, and equally sturdy sink with two large faucets and heavy handles, one stamped with an ornate H and the other with an ornate C, as if ascertaining which faucet dispenses hot water and which one dispenses cold is an incredibly complicated endeavor that requires perpetual cognitive reinforcement.
Ablutions completed, he retrieves his clothes, some of them still strewn on the massive couch, the rest crammed into the bedroom dresser. Books, comix, music zines are all scattered about the apartment, but the domicile is sans pizza boxes and takeout detritus. He draws the line at food. Mountains of discarded food seem like an entirely different level of slovenliness. And there is no need, not really, to bring food into the apartment. Park Slope is a mecca of cheap eateries, Seventh Avenue—its main drag—the home of pizzerias, Chinese restaurants, the barbeque place, Athenian Diner, and huge Dominican restaurant that abuts Flatbush Avenue, where he and his little gang meet up on an almost weekly basis, his order steadfastly unwavering: fried chicken, sweet plantains, Dr Pepper, café con leche. These gustatory preferences are so ingrained that at times the cook, in the far back of the restaurant, spots his entrance and automatically begins to prepare the chicken and plantains without a word being uttered.
The accouterments for today’s stretch of copyediting are then gathered up: Chicago Manual of Style, well-worn dictionary, and the jumbo, unwieldy manuscript, fat rubber bands holding the pages together. And then the rest: the red pencils, pens, erasers, yellow Post-its, all stuffed into a sturdy backpack.
As he makes his way down the stairs and exits out the front door, he is aware of how perpetually quiet the building is. One rarely hears the sound of neighbors; face-to-face encounters are equally unusual. There is the musician on the third floor. He can occasionally hear the steady pulse of bongos emanating from her apartment. There is the couple down the hall from him on the second floor; pleasant enough but certainly not worth getting to know. The overbearing, didactic tenant on the third floor is gone. Apparently unable to pay his rent, he stealthily moved his few possessions out of his apartment and then vanished, whereabouts unknown. And there is the ground-floor peril in the form of the oddball, bearded Finnish engineer who occupies the apartment near the front entrance, often lying in wait to trap an unwary passerby in pointless conversation.
Leafy, expansive Prospect Park lies to his immediate right. A day in the park, of course, is not on the agenda. He proceeds in the opposite direction, to quiet and composed Eighth Avenue. At night, in this colder weather, he can occasionally smell wood smoke as he traverses the stately avenue.
Lugging his backpack, he cuts down to the decidedly un-stately Seventh Avenue, soon passing the little clump of stores—the small real-estate office, deli, newsstand. And he begins to anticipate food and coffee, pondering his breakfast options as he strolls by the TV-repair shop and Szechuan Palace. A bolt of inspiration strikes in the form of the huge diner here in the nether reaches of Seventh Avenue. The diner is where he will eat this morning.
Eggs, toast, bacon, coffee. There are only a handful of customers in the morning, this diner a poor relation to the more bustling Athenian. At night it is nominally more crowded, presided over by a hulking, gravelly voiced older man who is perpetually embroiled in a series of loud conflicts, hanging up on a disrespectful customer, inveighing against the various hustles perpetrated against the diner. There is one evening when—in direct contravention of all the accepted norms of customer service—he accuses two busboys of laughing at him in Spanish.
Breakfast completed, he makes his way along Seventh Avenue. December has been unreasonably warm, an unexpected respite from the season’s usual frigidity. This stretch of warmth has lasted far longer than the norm, but snow is set to begin this afternoon, which is very apparent by simply looking at the sky. It is an absolute certainty: Winter will finally come into play, all reprieves exhausted.
So these are absolutely, positively the last few hours of warmish weather. Never, as far as he remembers, has the change of season been so delineated.
It is often the norm for him to stop at the scattered bookshops or tiny record stores that dot Seventh Avenue, or linger at Otto, the crowded emporium packed with its hodgepodge of used books, music, comix, old magazines, along with vintage clothing and used furniture. The place, actually, is not named Otto; Otto is the faded, barely discernible name in large letters that is emblazoned on the building’s side, a remnant of some long-ago, forgotten business. It has occurred to him, in one of his meaningless epiphanies, that the word palindrome should itself actually be a palindrome. Otto is a perfectly good candidate for a replacement word.
For whatever reason, he is less inclined to linger this morning. Stanley’s is his ultimate destination. The weight of his backpack, which is dangling from one shoulder, feels like a nagging pain and serves as a reminder that he must fulfill his quota of copyediting for the day. And so he walks along, the south Slope morphing into the more established, less déclassé north Slope, with the large Middle Eastern restaurant coming into view, a few boutiques, the store that specializes in Indonesian kitchenware, and the sparkling white exterior of La Panetteria, home of white-chocolate latte and elaborate muffins.
Up ahead are the first glimpses of the Stanley’s sign and its distinctive coffee-cup logo. He quickens his pace ever so slightly. In the warmer weather—especially on weekends—Stanley’s is packed to the gills, the interior awash with people, the outdoor bench lined from end to end. He is a known quantity at Stanley’s amid some other known quantities. There is the rough-hewn, abrasive middle-aged man who—in an amusing contradiction—is the owner of the New Age crystal shop on the corner of President Street. There is the friendly guy from the record store, the old man who always wears a Walkman, the gracious, pleasant Turkish man who—through no fault of his own—has creepy, vampire-like facial features, and the occasional fellow copy editors, most of whom he doesn’t like. And then there is her. She is often at Stanley’s just when he is, and although he cannot place her, he is sure he has seen her before, perhaps at Seven Seas while the Insomniacs or Makers were onstage, or at one of the many shows at the dive bar on Fifth Avenue—a dive bar for real, so authentic as to lack urinals in the men’s room, opting instead for a long trough that necessitates the need for everyone to line up and take a collective piss into the melting ice. This woman from Seven Seas or the dive bar on Fifth Avenue or somewhere else entirely always nurses a cup of coffee, deep in solitary concentration, or is engaged in writing a letter, all activities that preclude initiating any sort of conversation.
Those distinctive olfactory sensations of Stanley’s—coffee in their various incarnations--hit him as soon as he opens the door. He orders a fortifying cappuccino and takes his seat, listening to the satisfying hissing and clanking of the cappuccino preparation, the hot caffeine flooding out of the little spout and into the cup, which he collects and brings to his table, cappuccino positioned carefully as he arranges his Chicago Manual of Style, well-worn dictionary, jumbo, unwieldy manuscript, and the rest: red pencils, pens, erasers, yellow Post-its.
The reference books and manuscript pages give off the aura of erudition, as if he is engaged in some sort of scholarly endeavor. It is the opposite, of course, as evidenced by his current project, a novel in which the protagonist uncovers a decades-old massacre—described over and over in loving, graphic detail—that has transpired in his small town. There are hackneyed mystical elements as the book progresses, touching on the eternal nature of suffering and redemption, all handled with the so-called profundity of something you’d expect at that crystal shop on the corner of President Street.
He sips his cappuccino, tasting a clump of brown sugar. At their customary Sunday brunches, he and Vanessa would always divvy up the packets of brown sugar. At some point in their relationship, feelings of annoyance at having to share the table’s brown-sugar allotment began to creep in. He would begin pretending to absentmindedly snatch up the brown sugar packets, leaving her with the white sugar. In retrospect, the resentment over having to share brown sugar was probably the harbinger of doom for the relationship. He, not Vanessa, had initiated the breakup, which had backfired completely. She had quickly found another boyfriend. He hadn’t found anyone.
Plunging back into the manuscript, he continues with the work at hand. The mystery of this long-ago massacre can be ascertained via the discovery of a hitherto unknown diary, written in a cryptic style that the modern-day protagonist needs to decipher. He stifles a yawn, then gazes out the window onto Seventh Avenue. It is hot inside Stanley’s, the heat obviously cranked up in anticipation of the impending winter, now just hours away. Last week, here at this very table, he had overheard a conversation between a man and woman at the adjoining table. He soon ascertained that these were two beginning ministers, engaged in the most utilitarian sort of shoptalk: obtaining choir robes, preferred hymnals, heating costs.
There are no conversations to overhear today. He plows on. It is intimated that the grisly, long-ago massacre will once again commence in the perpetual cycle of death and retribution. There is a discrepancy with a character’s name, he suddenly notices, and queries this on a Post-it, snaps it off the little pad, and firmly affixes to the side of the page. Depending on the variables of the individual copyedit, he can be a zealous affixer of yellow Post-its, unafraid to plaster a sea of yellow onto a manuscript.
He works some more, then flips idly through the pages of his Chicago, randomly alighting on the section that offers guidance on the specifics of Chinese transliteration, something, as far as he remembers, that he has never encountered and most likely never will. His usual concerns are along the lines of dreaming up new words for palindrome. And ruthlessly, unmercifully eliminating the aberrant donut whenever he finds it, restoring the word to its proper styling of doughnut. On this, there is no compromise.
It is time for another cup of coffee and he ambles up the counter, ordering a regular coffee this time, and returns to his work. The cryptic diary entries come back into play. The sounds of hissing and coffee preparation float through Stanley’s. It is very warm here.
He goes off to take a piss in the lone bathroom, copyedits some more, considers getting another cup of coffee, rejects that option, applies a few more yellow Post-its, concludes that he has done enough for one day, leans back in his chair, stretches, and then carefully reassembles the manuscript, applies the thick rubber bands, gathers his Chicago Manual of Style, large, well-worn dictionary, red pencils, pens, erasers, yellow Post-its, stuffs it all into his sturdy backpack, and exits Stanley’s.
Seventh Avenue has picked up its pace, people scurrying back and forth; last-minute preparations for the impending snow. He passes the bank, florist, cheese store.
Just like that, the snow begins to fall. As if making up for lost time, the snowflakes are thick and substantial, quickly pelting the sidewalk and parked cars. The pedestrian traffic speeds up and more people, it seems, are traversing the avenue, Park Slope poking its collective head out, partaking of the season’s first snowstorm and dramatic change in climate.
The Athenian Diner lies across the street. There is another moment of inspiration: grilled cheese and fries, more coffee. By now it is snowing for real. As he makes to cross the street a woman suddenly appears, her long hair flecked with snow, thick sweater and scarf also streaked with snow and winter moisture. Perhaps the snow has caught her by surprise. They smile at each other, these two people braving the weather on Seventh Avenue, and both of them inch across the street, a much more involved endeavor than it was a mere half-hour ago. The cars are now crawling along, the drivers extra-cautious at this suddenly difficult terrain.
Both he and this snow-flecked woman make it across the street in tandem. He lets her take the lead. To his discomfort, they both reach the heavy glass doors of the diner. He feels thoroughly odd. In essence, he has followed this woman right to the diner. There is no choice, though, but for both of them to enter.
The Athenian Diner is packed, a rarity on a weekday, but the snow has made the restaurant a sudden refuge. He begins to make his way to the counter, but notices the snow-flecked woman is also making her way to the counter, and he is—again--inadvertently following her. This is bad enough, but there are only two remaining vacant seats at the very end of the counter. Both seats are adjoining. He couldn’t have planned this better, but of course he hasn’t planned anything. Now he has followed her across the street, into the diner, to the lunch counter. For a moment he actually considers turning around and exiting.
But that is absurd, of course. He certainly didn’t intend to follow anyone, nor does he have any control over who sits where, nor did he engineer a packed counter with only two remaining seats. The Athenian Diner is one his mainstays. He even knows what the shouted order whiskey down means: It is diner-speak—paradoxically--for “rye bread.” Surely anyone who knows the meaning of whiskey down is no outlier and can eat here whenever he so chooses.
And so he proceeds to the nether reaches of the diner and sits side by side with this woman, who seems not bothered in the least by his presence, smiling and even shifting slightly so that he can position his backpack, which suddenly feels horribly intrusive and even slightly embarrassing; lugging around this stupid backpack filled with red pencils and yellow Post-its.
They both place their orders. Two steaming cups of coffee and glasses of water are placed before them. The diner’s usual hubbub is magnified in the capacity crowd. Shouted orders and the clanging of utensils constantly ring through the air, waiters and waitresses scurry back and forth, plates and cups are stacked and hurriedly removed; new plates and cups spring forth.
She has an almost languid air about her, this woman sitting next to him amid the frenetic Athenian Diner, informing him that she is a recent arrival from Washington Heights, now living a few blocks away on Sixth Avenue. Their orders are served at the same time, thrust in front of them.
And so they converse. There is a subtle intricacy to the way she speaks, a life that somehow hints of twists and turns. They speak some more, skipping around from topic to topic. He wishes to know much more about this person, this snow-flecked woman who once lived in Washington Heights and now lives on Sixth Avenue.
It would be a long, astonishing distance to traverse, this journey to know all about her life. Perhaps it will happen. He may indeed know so much about her life; the college she had attended, her friends, her family. What she does now.
And they may even, eventually, share a bed and go to brunch and on Fridays see three ear-splitting bands for ten dollars.
But he will never fully understand. He will get so, so close. But he will never fully comprehend the things she speaks of. He will never see the things she has seen. He will never feel the feelings she has felt.
Originally published in Adelaide magazine's literary anthology, 2018
Richard Klin is a writer based in New York's Hudson Valley and Nashville. He is the author of (among other things) the novel Petroleum Transfer Engineer (Underground Voices). His writing has appeared in The Millions, Cultural Daily, the Atlantic, DuFrank Lit, the Brooklyn Rail, and many others.
