Feeling alive for a moment

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Larisa sat alone at the Vbar coffee shop down on Sullivan Street. She drank her skinny latte and chewed on the pumpkin flavored granola that she packed away in a small Ziploc bag before she left her apartment.

The place was sort of empty for a Thursday morning. Typically, just finding a chair was a challenge. But on that day, there were enough empty seats to make one wonder.

Maybe it had something to do with the relatively warm weather. Forty degrees may have seemed like arctic temperatures in places like Boca Raton or Palm Springs but when it came to the city in January, it seemed rather temperate.
Larisa wore her lucky turtleneck shirt. The fabric pressed hard against her small love handles but she liked the way that her large breasts burst through the thin lilac cotton.

Across her left finger she wore the antique brass ring that she received from her aunt Rebecca only a few months before she passed away from stage three Leukemia. The two of them were never that close but for some strange manner, Larisa felt safe when wearing that ring. It almost felt like someone was watching over her from above.
The radio was playing soft classical music. She always preferred the piano to the violin.
Around 11:30am, Jake walked into the place.

“Hey, what’s going on?” He asked in his typical Jake shyness.
She pretended as if she did not notice, but she did notice, she noticed just as soon as the door opened, just as soon as he walked in. Her heart beat like an African drum to the sound of her enthusiasm. She did her best to seem aloof.
“Not to much, what are you doing here?” What a stupid reply, she thought. She only wished she could take it back and start off with something more meaningful.

“Oh, you know, just getting some coffee. Hanging out. Trying to avoid work, the usual, you know.” Hey smiled and then turned towards the book that Larisa was reading. He could not make it out. “What are you reading there? Is this fun reading or something for school?”

“Oh trust me, this is definitely not for fun, this is for Schiller’s class. The book is called Journey to the End of the Night. Louis-Ferdinand Celine wrote it. He was a French writer from back in the day. Schiller is making us read it for his seminar. The book is kind of heavy reading if you ask me. I am only on page 58 and I have to write a paper on this stupid book by Monday afternoon.”

“Oh I love that book,” he smiled, “I read it over the summer. It’s a classic. I am sure that you will eventually change your mind. Celine was a freaking genius. He is definitely one of my favorite authors along with Bukowski and Philip Roth.
Once again, she felt inadequate. Jack was a deep guy. He must have thought that she was boring. There were not many people like him around campus. While all the other boys were always busy with getting drunk and trying to fuck anything and anyone that walked, Jake read books, played the guitar and always had something smart to say.

Larisa and Jake were not good friends. They weren’t really friends at all. They sort of knew each other from some of the classes that everyone took during freshman and sophomore years at New York University. The two of them never really hung out. Yea, there was that one time when Professor Falica took them all out for beers to celebrate the end of the semester but they sat on the opposite corners of the long rectangular table. Jake sat next to the professor and argued with him about something that seemed rather intellectual. She on the other end and on the other side of the table sat with Jenny Crugerman and Stephanie Sigel and engaged in the same old discussion about where to go out that weekend and how cute this boy was over the next. She recalled just how much she hated life on that particular night. Everyone around her seemed so similar to one another. No one ever had anything interesting or original to say and neither did she.

But on that rather warm Thursdays like that Thursday, things would be different. Sometimes life intervened in one’s favor. At least that was the way she felt as Jake slid his tall chair along her outer thigh.

The sat around for a while and talked about the kind of things that people around their age spoke about. While Jake had much to say about everything, she focused on her smile. A guy like Jake was full of theories about life. He had read important books. He had already managed to backpack all across Europe and the Yucatan Peninsula. Larisa has never been anywhere. She did not read any important books nor did she have anything smart to add to Jake’s many worldly observations.
She smiled and nodded her head. She pretended to keep up with the conversation but what she was actually attempting to do more than anything else was to seem much smarter than she actually felt.

Jake was a nice guy. He lit with enthusiasm. He treated her to a cup of herbal tea and later they split a double chocolate brownie that made her feel that much better.
When they walked into his apartment, she was overly impressed by the paintings that were displayed all across the studio apartment’s walls. Jake had painted these during the summer he spent out in Florence Italy. She could only hope for such adventures or such talent.

Jake took out a painted glass pipe from the drawer of his desk. Thick green marijuana spilled out of a round plastic container into a pure piece of notebook paper. Jake broke the plant into small pieces and placed them into the pipe as he lit it up.
Larisa observed the slow moving dials of the living room clock that indicated that noon was just around the corner. A bit early in the day for pot smoking she suspected. She has only smoked pot a few times before and could never really get high. But Jake offered and so she accepted. For him, she would climb a tall white mountain only if to see him at the top.
As the smoke made its way through her system, Jake inserted his intellectual tongue into her ordinary mouth. It tasted like knowledge. It carried an older texture along its cress. His kiss was more mature than that of most boys who had kissed her before.

As he slowly massaged her breasts and licked the tips of her nipples, Larisa could feel her back twist and twirl like a drunken ally cat. Panic settled in all across her inner thighs. Things were moving way too quickly. But she knew that she would never get a second chance. She knew that Jake was different than most of the other boys she came across. And besides, she was in New York City. Her parents lived more than two hours away. No one would ever find out, she suspected.
Despite several attempts to keep her underwear on, Larisa had no real chance. Jake’s persistence that he attributed to them Marijuana and to the fact that he absolutely loved her body and must have had a taste of her inner salty flesh, that was all way too much. Despite the mastery of his tongue, she could not help but to worry about just how bad it must have tasted. She did not want to loose Jake as a result of his body’s saltiness.

Jake asked her if she preferred for him to be on top or at the bottom. She did not know what was the right answer and so she told him to simply have his way. He took a condom out of his bedroom drawer and asked Larisa to place it across her larger than usual cock.

While he moaned in pleasure, she just closed her eyes and thought about what life would be like if Jake decided to make her his girlfriend and the two of them would be known amongst her girlfriends as a leading couple of the overall popularity scale.
While Jake took his time, soaping up in the shower, Larisa fixed her makeup and dried her long brown hair.
Low cumulous clouds came down on the streets of New York City; the sun was slowly disappearing despite the early hour of the day. As the temperatures plummeted down back to the ordinary low thirties, Larisa walked towards her university dorm room and wondered if Jake would ever call her up again for a second date.

Regardless of anything that he may do or would have done, nothing really mattered for during that brief moment that for the first time in her life, Larisa felt like she was alive.

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Are you drinking

By: Charles Bukowski

washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
out again
I write from the bed
as I did last
year.
will see the doctor,
Monday.
"yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-
aches and my back
hurts."
"are you drinking?" he will ask.
"are you getting your
exercise, your
vitamins?"
I think that I am just ill
with life, the same stale yet
fluctuating
factors.
even at the track
I watch the horses run by
and it seems
meaningless.
I leave early after buying tickets on the
remaining races.
"taking off?" asks the motel
clerk.
"yes, it's boring,"
I tell him.
"If you think it's boring
out there," he tells me, "you oughta be
back here."
so here I am
propped up against my pillows
again
just an old guy
just an old writer
with a yellow
notebook.
something is
walking across the
floor
toward
me.
oh, it's just
my cat
this
time.

The Grey Dog Coffee Company

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I was not all that excited about the idea of becoming the newest employee of the Grey Dog Coffee Company. Sure, I would get all the coffee that I wanted for free and I would mostly be working along with good looking hippie college students who could surely teach me a few tricks in the sack. But still, I was a graduate of the prestigious MFA program in creative writing of the University of Michigan. It simply seemed illogical that I would find myself sitting here in this small village coffee shop awaiting an interview.
But what is a brother to do? These are hard days and somehow I had to pay rent. Susan and Irena, my two lesbian roommates would not likely grant me an extension. Somehow I knew deep down in my bones, that if given the chance, Irena would be more than happy to jump my bones. She went both ways. But Susan was strictly butch. She never experienced the joy of a man and would likely argue that there were no such joys. Clearly, I could not fuck my way out of this one. There were less than seven hundred dollars left in my checking account and time was running out.

Her name was Ski and she was the assistant manager of the coffee shop and an undergraduate student at New York University. Before we sat down beneath those yellow chandelier lights all the way in the back of the coffee shop, she wanted to know if I would like anything to drink and of course, it would be on the house.
“Sure, I will take a cup of coffee, black, two sugars.”
“Give me a moment,” and then she returned with two cups of coffee and a friendly smile. She took out my application from a tall stack of papers and quickly glanced over my credentials.

“So tell me Greg, I see that you worked in a bunch of coffee shops back in Ann Harbor, Common Cup, Caribou Coffee and Foggy Bottom Coffee House. I also see that you have an undergraduate degree in American literature and an MA in creative writing. So I take it that you are a writer.”

“Well, that all depends on who you ask. I published a few short stories in The Believer and the Chelsea Literary Journal but I doubt that you ever ran across my works.”
“That sounds really cool, I would love to read one of your stories.”
“Why, are you the reading type Ski?”

“Are you kidding me, I love books. You will always find a good book at my bedside. Without books, what is the point, right?”
“Hell yea. But you and I are in the minority on this one, most people prefer reality television.”
“’Hey, forget most people,” she smiled “most people suck.”
“I could not agree more Ski. Tell me, who is your favorite author?”
“Oh, that’s a good one, I could not say, I am torn between Hemingway and Truman Capote, how about you?”
“Hard one, I would be torn between Henry Miller and Philip Roth.” We went back and forth for a while. Suddenly, one of the employees yelled Ski’s name out. She excused herself for a moment and left me with a sweet taste in my mouth.

I looked around at the people who were quickly filling up the place. It was eleven O’clock in the morning on Tuesday in December and none of these people were at work. Were these people independently wealthy? Were they tourists? Students? Or were they as unemployed as I? It did not really matter, the place had a good vibe to it and no one seemed to differentiate between a Sunday and a Tuesday. Everyone just seemed more than content to be here in New York City and away from the cold winds that were running around the tall city buildings.

“Sorry about that,” she apologized when she returned “there was a bit of a mix up with a customer but now it is all taken care of. So where were we?” She smiled.
“You were about to tell me whether you were single or had a boyfriend.”
“I don’t recall that conversation.” She laughed. “I recall something about Hemingway.”
“So what is the answer?” I insisted.
“Do you always ask such questions during a job interview?”
“Only when the person who interviews me is a good looking woman who likes books.”
“You realize of course that now things are too awkward for me to offer you the position.” She apologized.
“Yes, I know, I fully realize that. But I will take your phone number any day over a job. There are many places were I can earn a buck but not too many women in New York City who can put a smile on my face.”
“So I put a smile on your face?” She bashfully laughed.
“You did and you do. So what do you say Ski, do you have a man in your life?”
“Not at the moment. But I am not sure that I am taking applications at the moment.”
“I think you should reconsider, just look at my resume, I am more than qualified.”
“Oh yea? And what exactly do you think qualifies you for the position?”
“Well Ski, I am a very hard worker, I take my job seriously and promise to show up for work on time, every time and to stay late at work when ever is required. I tell you Ski, a man with strong work ethics is hard to find around these parts.”
“Trust me Greg, I already know that by now.“ She smiled.

She would not acquiesce and instead of her telephone number she instructed me to add her on Facebook which I did just an hour after I came back home.
Irena walked in on me just as began to jerk off under my sheets. She did not seem embarrassed at all, rather, she seemed aroused. The idea went through her head for a quick moment but instead of jumping into my bed with that tiny Russian body of hers’, she demanded the long overdue rent. I told her that I needed another few days before
I would have the money.

“Yea, well, I heard that one before. Maybe you should consider getting yourself a job instead of sitting around here and jerking off all day like some damn teenager.”
A few days later I emailed Ski a PDF copy of “Red Wine Wonders”, a story that I published in Literal Latte, a local publication off of 10th street down around the corner. From her reply, I could tell that she really liked it.

We agreed to meet up for a drink a few days later in the Vig Bar, a trendy little join off of Elizabeth Street. When thinking about it, I was not in any position to pay for all of the martinis that she ordered that night. Ski had enough dirty martinis in her to piss out olive oil and I was the one who laid out more than a hundred bucks at the end of the night.

A single man of limited means living here in New York City was an exercise in idiocy. I could have opened the gym.

Maybe it was time for me to listen to my brother’s advice and to move back home to Nebraska where the beer was cheap and the spare bedroom available. But let’s be honest now. Great writers don’t come from the wheat fields of the Midwest; they did not thrive in silence.

Women like Ski, long literary streets and a constant headache are the hallmarks of New York City, a city that will always offer a man a good kick in the ass.
Ski could not come despite my many attempts. More than thirty-five minutes down between her thighs and my tongue was growing numb. Maybe it had to do with a lack of technique, maybe it was the vodka. I never got a second chance.

Standing out on that cold empty road that connected Sioux City and Omaha, I held on to my backpack and a copy of Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums and wondered just how long he would have stuck around the streets of New York before he would give up on his literary dreams.

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