excuse me do you have a light

My coworker does not ride the subway. A shocking revelation; I remember stopping work completely to turn to him and squint the moment the words left his mouth. I thought at first it must have been a joke, something to sidetrack me or cause me to spill hot coffee all over my skinny jeans. But it was sincere, an honest remark that to him was just like preferring half and half to skim.
We were busy at that particular moment, swamped by the late morning pastry rush, so I let it go, shaking my head as I shook a can of whipped cream. Interrogation would commence during our shared afternoon smoke break.
Once the counters had been cleaned and the hot-pots restocked, I slithered through the tightly-packed wooden tables of the cafe and out onto the sidewalk where Brick was already waiting, brandishing a pack of menthols and a Bic. The latter was a welcome surprise - all too often we’d had to pester walking passersby or sneak out with the cafe's emergency bunsen burner. There was probably once a staff lighter, but smokers are to shared lighters as tourists are to hotel towels and miniature bottles of shampoo.
We leaned into the building under the awning to shield ourselves from the wind of passing taxis, taking care to stay out of the register’s line of sight through the window. Crossing our arms and cultivating cancer between our fingers, we knew in this moment we were the envy of the two other nine-to-five’ers stuck inside.
Inhaling deeply and watching the matte white paper of Brick’s Newport Short slowly ignite, I again offered up the question of the subway. “So it’s like a… big life choice? Some kind of personal philosophy?”
He chuckled before responding, and spit onto the sidewalk. Brick spit a lot while smoking, but it was always silent, effortless. Somehow it never seemed disgusting or rude.
“Never much liked it,” he responded. “I’ve been here longer than you, you know.” I rolled my eyes. Though originally from Chile, much further away than my own home just outside Philly, he loved to quip about my non-nativeness to NYC. He claimed I was always trying to play the part.
“Nobody likes it. It’s dirty, it’s loud, it’s running late, fuck, if you’re lucky. But what are you gonna do?” I squinted at him expectantly.
“Not use it. Keep my $2.75 please and thank you.”
I shook my head. So he was gonna make this difficult. Gave us something to talk about at least. It was my fourth week at the coffee shop, and my first two had been spent in near solitude, pretending to be a machine as the manager barked orders and Brick stood cautiously behind him exchanging mirthful glances between me and Candy Crush on his iPhone. The only other coworker I knew by name was Audrey, a snarky teenage girl who always seemed high and was at best apathetic towards me. Brick, with his signature coolness and baggy clothes and slang, was far more interesting.
I ashed my cigarette and turned to Brick to see his still at half-length. I’d never seen him finish a cigarette in one break, not even a Short. “American,” he chided, shaking his head at the black spot on the concrete where the left toe of my Vans had just been. He tapped his smoke out eloquently on the wall of the neighboring apartment building, slid it back into its flattened paper box and followed me back through the doors of the cafe.

I didn’t actually see Brick leave the shop for a few shifts after that; it was getting to the end of the month when he and most of my coworkers worked doubles to pay for their rent. We finally got a Sunday shift together and I knew he’d never worked a Sunday night in his life - it was another unexplained policy of his, not to be questioned or under any circumstances violated. When it came time to leave, I walked out the door after him, spinning my keys around my index finger then sliding one into the Kryptonite lock securing my fixie to a lamppost.
“You got one around the corner, too?” I asked, gesturing to my bike, hoping to solve the mystery of how Brick disappeared from the Village Bean and materialized on his couch somewhere in Queens. But he saw my angle, and kept up his stunt.
“Chopper’s picking me up at Washington Square. Gonna fly me through the arch and up and outta here.”
Frustrated, I shook my U-lock and pleaded. “Come on man, lemme know the secret! No way it’s a bus route. You’re so not that kind of guy.”
“Man, you think there’s a bus ‘kind of guy’? You lil’ U-students and your… bicicletas, todos iguales…” I knew Brick well enough to spot the Spanglish as a sort of concession.
“So it is a bus then,” I said cockily, “You take a bus all the way from here to goddamn Queens, hell, probably three transfers, must take all night.”
He made the Jeopardy wrong-answer buzzer noise. “Nope, not quite, sorry folks, see you next time!” With that he flicked his cigarette in the general direction of a nearby trash can, picked up his two plastic bags of stale croissants and banana-oatmeal muffins and began to walk away. “Get home safe kid, hope nobody opens their car door into you today,” he called back. I shook my head, slid my feet into my bike's pedals and rode off the other way.

I told all of this to a girl, someone I’d promised a friend I’d take out on a date. Her name was Olivia but she insisted I call her Liv. She also went to the University, but was a dance major, so I’d never really seen her around. When I said I worked at the coffee shop she said she didn’t like our dark roast and, anyway, preferred tea. We didn’t sell tea.
Liv didn’t think much of Brick’s phantom means of transportation. “He’s probably just messing with you,” she said with an all-knowing shrug. “Maybe he just hops in a cab, calls an Uber.” I raised my eyebrows. Brick wasn’t calling no Uber.
“How do you think yellow cabs stay in business anyway?” she continued, changing the subject. “I don’t get it. They’re still everywhere, all over Times Square, clogging up Soho…” I was staring out the window of the restaurant, watching an old black man wearing raggedy grey clothes walking slowly down the sidewalk opposite the restaurant. It was a Saturday night in Chelsea, and the streets were busy. I squinted at the old man through the fogged pane, identifying his shoes, a surprisingly clean pair of Jordan 5 metallics. Despite all the foot traffic just outside our chosen burger joint’s door, there was no one else walking on that side of the street.
I turned my attention back to Liv, who had since transitioned from yellow cabs to complaining about the subway. She was saying something about having to wait some number of minutes for the L train when I realized I hadn’t said anything in a while and interjected with a “So you live in Brooklyn?”
She stopped and looked at me as if I’d just asked if two and two equal four. “Well yeah, where else am I gonna live? The Bronx? Queens?” She burst out laughing. I opened my mouth to object but quickly decided against it, picking up the menu instead.

“Where’d you get that?” I asked Brick one morning about two weeks later, pointing to a ring on his middle finger. He didn’t stop sweeping.
“Won it the other night, game of cards. Got lucky.”
I asked him if I could see it and he looked both ways for the manager before realizing we were the only two employees scheduled. He propped up the broom by the giant vintage cappuccino machine we didn’t actually use and handed the ring to me.
“Silver. Sterling, the band is at least. Don’t know about the rest,” he said. The center of the ring was filled in with what appeared to be black and white enamel, forming zig-zagged lines framed with a tarnished silver square. “Cool, right?” he said. I nodded.
“So what do you play?” I asked him later, as we folded up the prep lists for the next shift.
“Huh?” Brick said, not looking up.
“What game?” I asked, “You said you won the ring gambling. What were you playing?”
“Oh no game, won it on a sports bet. Can you believe people still believe in the Yankees?”
I raised my eyebrows and nodded, turning back to the pile of dirty dishes in the sink.

The following semester I decided to move off campus, and found an apartment uptown that my parents agreed to chip in for. Not feeling like taking the 1 train fifteen stops, I decided to hunt for a new job that was more convenient. I’d grown tired of the smell of coffee and pastry dough, anyway.
I put in my two weeks’ notice and said goodbye to the crew. Brick made a joke about the cafe becoming a little less gentrified in my absence, but I could tell he was disappointed I was leaving.
I applied for a few jobs waiting tables but gave up, deciding I didn’t really need the money anyway. To fill the time I started working as a food messenger, picking up Shake Shack burgers and Chipotle burritos for lazy apartment dwellers and hungover university kids. When the weather was good, it was a great gig, ferrying fast food all over Manhattan on my bike and weaving through traffic with only a few close calls every couple weeks. When it rained or snowed I stayed inside and tried to focus on schoolwork, fueling myself with lackluster Keurig coffee.

I missed the Village Bean, but I hadn’t gone back - it’s tough to drop by a job where you didn’t stay long. But eventually I found myself walking by the cafe on a Monday morning and decided to stop in, half-hoping they’d hired new staff that wouldn’t recognize me.
But sure enough, standing behind the counter was my old manager and Audrey, no flannel-shirt-clad Brick in sight. The manager greeted me with an “Oh, hello,” smiling with a glint in his eyes that said Don’t expect to get anything for free. Audrey offered me a “Sup,” then walked around the counter and out the door. I supposed it was her break.
I ordered decaf and a slice of coffee cake and dropped a few bucks in the tip jar, to which the manager replied flatly “You didn’t have to do that.” I’d hoped he would take it out and hand it back to me, but no such luck. With a nod I headed towards the door, suddenly wanting to leave the cafe as fast as possible.
I walked outside and found myself right next to Audrey, smoking and staring across the street aimlessly. She ignored me. I took a long sip of my coffee, then asked “Hey, does Brick still work here?”
“Who?” she said.
I rolled my eyes and racked my brain to think of his real name. I figured she knew who I was talking about but was just being difficult.
“Matías. The Chilean dude. Dreads like Bob Marley. Almost tall but not quite,” I said, enunciating his name with embarrassing Spanish accent.
“Oh, the squirrelly old black guy. Yeah, no, he left a while back. Bit after you did. Not long actually,” Audrey answered, not looking at me once.
I groaned at her description. Brick couldn’t have been more than a few years past thirty.
“What happened?” I asked, ready for an answer as wishy-washy as the last.
“Just left all of the sudden, don’t think he even put his two weeks in, more like two days. Boss was all peeved. Ended up being okay with it though, guess he was a decent worker and all.”
I’d always been envious of how well Brick got along with our hot-headed manager. I never could find out how long Brick had really worked there. It had definitely been a while though, and it was surprising to hear of his leave.
“Do you know what he’s doing now?” I prodded, testing Audrey’s patience.
“Can’t you just let me enjoy my smoke?” She sucked in one last puff and threw her cigarette butt on the ground, crushing it with her Birkenstock. “I think he owed some people money. Always thought he was jacking more than his cut of the tips. ‘Prolly went broke at the slots or something.” I shook my head. She was finally looking at me now though, and caught my eye-roll.
“Don’t believe me?” she said, angered by my apparent attitude. “You know what he used to do after work, right? Ever follow him ‘home’ on that bike of yours? Went down to shoot craps in Chinatown until God knows when, probably ‘til he had to go back to work the next day. Liked you too much to ever tell you I bet. Heard he used to bunk in the alley behind the shop ‘til the manager caught him one day. Sweet talked his way out and somehow landed himself a job. Guy’s just like any of those old bums on the subway, except he can come here and brew a few pots of coffee before he goes to the tables and throws all his money away.”
Dazed, I set my coffee cake down on a mailbox and absent-mindedly walked away.

Once, Brick and I had stood outside on a smoke break on a particularly cold January day, on one of the many unlucky occasions when neither of us could produce a lighter and the manager was inside guarding the supply drawers. Brick had asked several people passing by on the sidewalk and they’d all scoffed at him or ignored him entirely. He’d just sighed and shook his head, then said, “You try, kid.”
Sure enough, the first person to walk past, a smartly dressed woman in a tight skirt and blazer, stopped and handed me a gold Zippo engraved with ornate daisies. She smiled and waited patiently as I held my cigarette to the light. I was about to pass it to Brick when I realized she hadn’t noticed him, and at the sight of him began to frown and opened her mouth to object.
“It’s all good kid, I’ll light mine off yours,” Brick said, adding a polite “Thank you” to the woman. She muttered, grabbed the Zippo and began to stride away rapidly, dodging a taxi to cross the street about ten yards up. I turned to say something to Brick, but to my surprise he was just standing there smiling. “Nice lady,” he said, and before I could object, he added “World just turns homie.” I shook my head and held the lit tip of my cigarette to his.

© 2018