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He wrote at a table near a window. An empty coffee cup and a small plate that had once held medialunas had been pushed to the side to make room for a large notebook into which he now scribbled furiously.
He always chose a table by a window. If by chance they were all taken, he would hesitate in the doorway looking confused. He was convinced that he wrote better by a window.
For thirty years now, his days had started with his putting words into notebooks. An uncharitable reviewer had once described him as “a minor poet” and it had stung at the time. But over the years — and with no ensuing rise in his stature to disprove that reviewer, he had come to embrace the moniker defiantly: Too small to be celebrated; too big to be wholly ignored!
He may have been a merely minor poet on the literary scene but in his Buenos Aires neighborhood he was referred to as “El Escritor,” the Writer. Neighbors who had written a poem or a story would bring it to him for his blessing or critique. Let those literary legends have all the prizes and the million-dollar contracts, in the ten-block radius of his house, he was king.
He told himself that this recognition by the people he saw every day made up for what he hadn’t achieved — and sometimes he even believed it.
His neighbors hadn’t the faintest idea what he wrote and it wouldn’t have mattered if they had. It was an article of faith among them that he wrote serious pieces and that he was revered in distant lands. With their respect came familiarity: He was their writer, the one who made them proud on the world stage, the one who had — of all the glamorous destinations that had certainly been offered to him — chosen to reside in their neighborhood. If anyone needed proof, here it was for all to see: clearly he possessed a rare wisdom.
They called him El Escritor the same way they called the shoe repairman “El Turco” without any idea if he were truly from Turkey or even of arab descent. Or the way they called the pharmacist “El Ruso” though if you had asked him he would have told you his family were jews from Poland not Russia.
But that was the thing about nicknames, they weren’t questioned. They were decreed and once decreed, they were beyond appeal. They just were.
—
One night El Escritor was feeling restless in his apartment. For several days now getting the words out had been a struggle. As usual he took his notebook to the cafe each morning, but the words refused to come. He began to wonder if this was the onset of writer’s block, that mysterious affliction he had heard a lot about but had never experienced himself. He was starting to worry. He kept picking up books, reading a few pages then putting them down. He decided to go out. He grabbed his notebook and headed for a bar.
He knew he wouldn’t write. It would be dark inside and the noise and the music wouldn’t be conducive to writing but he felt better taking his notebook if words should strike. He slipped his pen into his pocket. Going to a café in the morning was fine but he felt awkward going to a bar alone on a weekend night. It was like going a movie theater on your own — but worse. If you went a bar alone and kept to yourself, people would assume you were dating the alcohol.
The bar was crammed with young people in groups. Their outfits — lots of black hot pants for the girls, new shirts for the guys — told you this was just the start of a long night, La Previa. Later they would hit the clubs. Many of them wouldn’t get home until the sun came up.
He sat at the bar and as expected people kept a respectful distance. Whether by age or solitude, he seemed absolutely invisible. He liked having these people around but he was glad no one tried to talk to him.
He set his notebook on the bar and placed his pen primly on the cover, as if guarding it. He decided to try a drink they were promoting in elaborate hand-drawn letters on a chalkboard above the bar, an Espresso Martini. He remembered reading an article about the origins of this cocktail. Why not? He wanted to do something outside his routine, even if it was just a strange drink.
He nursed the drink slowly, savoring the strange mix of flavors. He watched the young people play. More people kept coming in. It was now crowded and he had people surrounding him on all sides. He could have joined three separate conversations that were happening at close quarters: some guys to his right at the bar, a couple sharing a single barstool to his left and a group of friends standing and repeatedly bumping into him from behind. Eventually they stopped even apologizing. Several times people said things he thought would have been worth writing down but he let them float away. He was enjoying being a part of the flow rather than the outside observer he usually was.
The drink had come with three coffee beans resting on the froth. They now lay forlorn on the bottom of the glass. He pinched one between two fingers and put it in his mouth where he rolled it around with his tongue.
The bartender noticed his empty glass and pointed at it with raised eyebrows over the roar of the music and conversation. El Escritor shook his head vigorously and signalled surrender with his hands raised. One was enough. More than enough. The drink had hit him hard on an empty stomach; he wasn’t going to push his luck. He paid the bartender then slipped a generous tip under his glass.
He got up — a little unsteadily — to leave. Seamlessly a woman slipped onto his stool without interrupting the conversation she was having with a young man whose forelock fell completely over one eye. El Escritor felt strange: the mix of vodka and coffee had done its job. He remembered reading how the drink was invented at a London bar when some super model-like woman had wandered in and asked the bartender for something that would “wake me up then fuck me up.” He pushed through the crowd to the door.
When he made it to the sidewalk, he gulped in the cool fresh air. He immediately felt more steady. Home was about 10 blocks away and he set off happily.
—
Once he left the buzz of the avenue the streets were quiet. He didn’t hear the three young men approaching until they were upon him.
“Dame la plata y tu celular,” one of them hissed, holding out his hand.
El Escritor was so surprised that he didn’t know what to say. The young man repeated his words, this time closer and more menacingly, pulling something from his pocket that glinted in the dark.
El Escritor wanted to comply but he couldn’t figure out how to put his notebook down without perhaps provoking his assailants. He decided to ask their help.
“Could you please hold this?” he said, offering the notebook to one of the other young men. The man complied and El Escritor removed his wallet from his back pocket and held it out to the ringleader who snatched it away.
But a third young man in a hoodie, standing behind the others, said, “Che! Es el Escritor!”
The leader stepped back and looked him in the face. “Caramba! Tenes razón.”
There was an awkward silence.
Holding out the wallet, the ringleader said, “Señor, we are very sorry. We didn’t recognize you.”
El Escritor accepted his wallet with a smile and slipped it back into his pocket. The man — boy really — in the backwards baseball cap held out his notebook to him with the deferential demeanor of an altar boy.
The ringleader said, “I hope we didn’t frighten you. We didn’t know you were you.”
“No, it’s understandable,” El Escritor said. “Mistakes happen in the dark.”
For some reason, the three young men found this hilarious and all started laughing, as if El Escritor were the wittiest and wisest man alive. Their mirth was contagious. El Escritor chuckled along with them.
Taking advantage of the sudden levity, the leader patted El Escritor on the shoulder. “Maybe you’ll even write about us.”
El Escritor considered this. “Now that’s an idea.” And then with enthusiasm added, “Yes, I shall!”
“It’s been really nice meeting you,” the ringleader said. The three young men took turns shaking his hand. El Escritor straightened himself up and turned to go home.
Behind him, he heard the men talking among themselves.
“Señor… it’s late to be out walking alone. If you don’t mind, we’d like to walk you home.”
“Thank you very much,” El Escritor said. “I’d appreciate that. And while we walk you can tell me some stories. I’m sure you’ve got some good ones.”
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