Missing Things

the other lost and found

The coffee shop was as busy on the Wednesday morning as it had been on the Monday morning, which was to say not at all.

"Is there a theme to today's playlist?" Carl asked Krista after he had ordered. "Is it golden oldies or something else I can't glean?"

Krista smiled and started to make his coffee. "It's covertly queer songs. Mad About The Boy, which is what's playing now, was written by Noel Coward about Douglas Fairbanks Jr. He was apparently quite taken with him! It's usually women singing the song, though, so no one notices the queer subtext. I swear almost all queer culture is just trying to find ways telegraph our queerness to other queer people while hiding it from the straights."

"Yeah," Carl said.

He looked out at the office across the street. He wondered what, if anything, he had been telegraphing to Brad. And if he had been telegraphing something to him, he wondered if Brad had picked up on it. He was having lunch with Brad and Mike later and maybe he could try telegraphing something then.

He looked at his watch. He had three hours to sit at his desk and work before lunch — three very long hours.

"Are you looking to hire staff?" he asked Krista.

"Not unless you're willing to work for free," she said, handing him his coffee. "Why? Do you see yourself out of work soon."

"No. I'm just getting sick of my job."

"You'd get sick of this too, I promise. Yesterday someone lectured me for too many minutes about how coffee crops were destroying the planet. I almost felt like packing it all in then and there, saying, 'You know, you are so right! I had never realized how much my tiny shop was contributing towards the demise of the planet! Let me close up shop right away to avert disaster!' and kicking them and everyone else out. But instead I smiled and waited for them to be done, and then asked if they wanted anything else besides their ice tea."

"That sounds awful."

"It was. But it's what I have to do to make sure the collective has a place to congregate and I have a way to eat. We all lose a bit of ourselves in this capitalist mess. What we're trying to do with the collective is help ourselves and others find those bits we've lost. We want to use art to find community and connection with other people. But we still have to pay our rent so here we are."

"Yeah. Here we are. And here I am."

"It'll be OK," Krista said. "You can help the both of us by joining a class!" She laughed.

Carl laughed too. "So this was all a sales pitch for classes?"

"Isn't that what it's all about? 'Always be selling'?"

They both laughed. Carl finished off his coffee and headed to work, hoping the morning wouldn't be too long.