Hello my friends. I am sorry I have been away so long...writer's block perhaps. The sunny side is still there. Still like nowhere else in the world. Nor are the customers. Or maybe everyone is like our customers. There is a man who comes in, let's call him Allen. He is a member next door, as are many of the most interesting and sad people I will write about. He is maybe in his late fifties, early sixties. He looks much younger. He attributes it to a form of meditation he has done since his early twenties. He never tips. In fact, if his bill comes to $1.99 and he pays with $2.00, no matter how busy we are, or how long it takes, he will wait for his penny.
Allen is madly in love with a women named, Jan. She is much older, in her seventies and in poor health. She is in a nursing home. Her family does not like Allen. He is on a fixed income and can only come up with bus fare to visit her every couple of weeks or so. But he does, faithfully. Allen is a writer of sorts. He writes about his life with Jan. Their love, their children. The art classes they share. The kind of van they drive. Their home. Allen and Joan have never had any life other than their visits. They have not lived together.
He writes the same story over and over. It is so beautiful, and tragic. It breaks my heart and takes my breath away every time I read it.
I used to ask about his latest version every time I would see a new folder in his hand as he sat at the counter. But I have stopped. It got too sad. But Allen is not sad. He sits at the counter with a small Mona Lisa smile on his face, because he doesn't feel like it is a story. Maybe the reason he writes the same basic thing over and over is because he believes it or thinks if he writes it enough it will become true. What ever it is, it is like a balm for his soul.
Maybe the next time he has a new folder in his hand I will ask him about it...maybe even read it.