Grass is Dead on the Other Side (eBook)

2

The lettering on the Grand Cafe’s sign was battered by years of rainstorms, wind gusts, and grit kicked up by innumerable taxis and buses incessantly speeding by. The “r” was faded, the white background was more brown than anything. Smaller words reading “Coffee – Breakfast – Lunch – 24 hours” were barely legible. Outside the door, amidst the cigarette smoke and putrid odors rising from a grate leading to the underbelly of the city, the world was a dizzying myriad of horns, engines, sirens, dogs barking, business men and women speaking dramatically into their phones, a metropolitan opera of chaos.

Opening the door and stepping inside, however, was a different world completely. Chaotic in its own right, to be sure. Clattering dishes, rushing waiters, a chef heard yelling from the kitchen, chatter across all the tables, and somewhere a small child making just too much noise to be cute. Faded autographed photos of celebrities hung on the walls. Each of them a different obscure TV star, looking jaunty next to the old Greek owner and a sandwich in hand. Smiling into the camera, forever. Staring out at each and every customer, at everything, every day, ever observant.

Even with the noise, Cyn loved this place. It’s that hole-in-the-wall cafe that’s only found in a big city and no one knows about unless they live there. She had lived a few blocks away when she was young, but the neighborhood was completely different then. The dingy cafe was much more appropriate to its surroundings. Although, Cyn thought, it wasn’t completely fair to call the cafe dingy, the interior was fine. It was just the exterior, resiliently run-down despite the ever-gentrifying neighborhood around it.

Old brick apartments in the area had been torn down when Cyn was in high school, replaced by modern steel and glass towers by the time she’d been married. She never would have imagined, while running down the street in her youth, that she’d be back again, but this time for work. Cyn’s office was just a couple blocks away from the Grand, and twenty-two floors up in one of those new towers. Through all these years, the hustle and bustle of the Grand was Cyn’s refuge. It had literally been decades since she first pushed the glass door open, and in all that time the coffee still tasted the same. There was nothing else as comforting in Cyn’s life, nothing else as resilient.

It was a Monday in March. Clouds dominated the sky, hanging low over the rushing multitudes on the streets. The tops of the skyscrapers hidden; far-off jetliners heard but not seen. Cyn, walking down the sidewalk, was the image of success in the city. Her coat, a brilliant red, stretching down to below the knee, with a black leather handbag on her arm, stood in contrast to the dreary gray ceiling covering the world. In a big city, the swarms of people become just one large mass on the street. Not one individual is discernable from the rest. In a way, they are all one person. A crowd unites people like that: it takes away the unique quality owned by a single person but throws dozens or hundreds or thousands of minds, mannerisms, looks, and backgrounds together into one. It takes a lot to stick out, to be the visible needle in the haystack. To turn heads, a person has to possess a quality unlike the rest. It’s an attitude, an energy that emanates out and across the entire street, down the sidewalks, hitting every person within eyeshot.

Cyn didn’t even notice people looking anymore. She’d stopped noticing long ago. The fact of the matter was that while she may stick out to those she passed, it remained that the rest of those around her didn’t even appear on her radar. Not out of any malice toward others or a sense of haughtiness, however. In a big city like this, a woman just does not have time to make eye contact or shoot a smile at any random person walking by. Moreover, being New York, chances are that the other person wouldn’t even smile back anyway. That’s just the way it is. Cyn thought about this often but felt satisfied in the knowledge that she always looked cashiers in the eye and at least put her phone down when buying something. She tipped well and was almost never late for appointments. That certainly makes her a good person, or at least not a total bitch.

Cyn’s black shoes made a slight clip-clop noise as she briskly marched down the sidewalk. The shoes make her sound a bit like a horse, Cyn thought. Too bad horses don’t look half as good as me, she thought a moment later, chuckling to herself.

Cyn stepped through the doors of the Grand clutching her coat around her tightly, letting it loose once the door had shut behind her and the blanket of heat washed over her. The Grand was always perfectly warm on a cold day.

She stopped, took a breath, and looked around. The line wasn’t so bad, except that old man is there again. She’d seen him once, the week before. He’d given poor Louisa at the register absolute hell over his sandwich.

“I believe I asked for grilled chicken, not this burnt shit!”

Cyn just looked at him for a moment. Why would he even come back after that? Does he just like making problems? Plenty of people like that in this city, no need to have them at the Grand though. Louisa doesn’t need that; she’s such a sweetheart. One of those people that works herself to the bone day in and day out, always wearing a smile despite taking the worst of the worst passing through for a bite to eat. Cyn got into line.

Waiting. Ordering. Waiting. Everything the same, every day. And alone. Cyn had been eating by herself more often lately. She thought about this each time she sat down too. There was Nikki at the office she could invite with her, but Nikki never had anything new to say. Her boyfriend was pissing her off, her best friend was pissing her off, her mother was pissing her off. Same story, different names. Then there’s Mark too, but he only wanted to go for breakfast, and he always leans so close when he talks. Who wants that? Cyn wasn’t trying to have Mark’s breath and teeth within inches of her own face when she’s trying to enjoy some coffee, which actually did smell good.

Cyn sat alone at a table in the corner with a glass of cheap wine and a cold turkey sandwich. She considered that some bottom shelf merlot wasn’t necessarily the most ideal pairing with a diner sandwich. Not that it mattered. She wanted to eat turkey, and she wanted to drink wine. It was the only logical course of action.

The Grand was always so busy. People walking in, people walking out. Cyn always pondered about the different people in there. Those with a place to go, those in a hurry, all very purposeful. Everyone’s got some big important job to get to, or at least they like to make it look that way. But really, who’s coming into the Grand who’s that important? That was one thing about the place that Cyn loved; you never saw some celebrity walking in to take a picture with the owner and get their photo on the wall. No lines out the door to get that special new treat that’s becoming a trend with everyone taking photos of it on their phones and adding a hashtag to it. Whatever the hell that’s all about. Beyond that, the neighborhood wasn’t going to bring any city bigwigs around. The mayor certainly doesn’t go to the Grand. Cyn wondered where the mayor did go when he wanted some diner food. She knew he must go somewhere; no true New Yorker can go more than a couple weeks without a bagel smothered in cream cheese and a watery coffee that somehow tastes better than anything at some expensive restaurant. Someone probably picks it up; maybe City Hall even has their own special delivery guy.

Then there were those that had nowhere to go. The old man in the corner, he was always in that corner. It was almost as if anyone who walked in knew that that was his seat, even if they’d never been there before. His energy hovered around it when he left and saved the spot for him. His ghost would haunt that seat after he died. Cyn didn’t fully understand that. She’d been coming to the Grand for years and always sat at a different seat each time. Louisa knew her, a couple of the cooks recognized her face and would nod to her, sometimes a smile. Nothing crazy. The relative lack of recognition at other places bothered Cyn sometimes. She’d even stopped going to one cafe in particular because the waitress insisted on asking how she liked her coffee every single time, after more than a dozen visits. If she doesn’t know how Cyn likes her coffee by now, then obviously she isn’t paying attention. Or she just doesn’t care. Probably both. But at the Grand, Cyn liked the anonymity mixed with recognition. It was exactly why she went there and so often.

Cyn’s mind wandered as she chewed on some turkey. Expressionless. Eyes off in the distance, looking at everything in front of her, seeing nothing at all. She came back to herself as she placed the sandwich down and picked up her glass. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Pulling it out, the screen showed a text from Rachel Work. Cyn didn’t know to spell Rachel’s last name. One of those long Polish names with a couple x’s and z’s. She decided it was just easier to label her as “Work,” since she’s from work. Made sense at the time. Cyn swiped her finger on the screen and read the text.

“Happy hour at Shiner’s! 27th & Madison – 6:00 p.m.”

Very matter-of-fact. The only notion of it appearing to be a good time is the exclamation mark. Then again, Rachel isn’t that exciting anyway. She’s alright, but Cyn probably wouldn’t hang out with her alone. Rachel’s really only good in a group. A...