true story

He Never breaks his stare. He sits facing forward nothing moves his gaze other than when someone walks up from behind him through the door. Even then, it is only a slight glance over his shoulder. It's 110 degrees outside the Starbucks and he wears a beanie covering his bald head. His weathered wind worn face and down turned lips match his tan exhausted aviator glasses. He doesn't walk he saunters slowly to the counter to fill his stainless steel coffee cup. He wouldn't be caught dead holding a starbuck's cup in his hand but he was content with dark and strong liquid in his steel cup. If I had not seen him go to the counter I would have assumed it was whiskey. He is clearly over 60 but his shoulders are square and strong, still a formidable force in a fight. Looking at him from behind you would think he was 30 and fresh out of prison, stuck in a cell with nothing to do but push ups. His muscles were not enhanced with steroids, he just had the look of a strong man, every movement is slow and seems calculated. This man looks like a killer.

After a few minutes of awkwardly sitting near this man, trying to look un-weak a middle aged father with his socially awkward kids come walking in. The father looks like a typical nerd. He has an awkward mustache reminiscent of Tom Sellick during the 80's and wears the matching short shorts with a Hawaiin print shirt and big square reading glasses. You can't fault him for this look, no one apparently told him the 80's ended over 20 years ago. But either way you can tell that he is a good provider for his family and well meaning, just completely disconnected from that fact that it is 2011 and that much upper leg being shown on a man in a Hawaiin print shirt is no longer in vogue. The boys 16 or 17 with curly red hair and curly brown hair walk in trailing dad awkwardly through the nearly empty store. Halfway through dad tells them to wait there and they both comply. As the dad walks up the counter, striding forward in all his Magnum PI glory his sons stand awkwardly in the very spot he told them to stand. They are unsure of where to place there hands. In the pockets or out of their pockets, at their side or behind their back. One of the boys points to a cup and mumbles something to the brown haired one who looks at the cup but doesn't move his head so as not to be noticed. There are over 20 chairs available but they sit in none of them because their dad did not tell them they could.


The man just sits, his gaze unchanged as if the annoyingly unmanly youth stand directly in front of him don't exist. I'm not even a biker and I felt compelled to somehow harm them just because it looked so easy. But the biker just looked annoyed, he lives in a world of people whom he rather slap around than speak to. But, there were just too many of us who deserved to have our asses kicked so instead of kicking all of our asses he just slowly stood up and went outside to smoke. He lit the cigarette and set his elbow on the table. He took one slow draw on the cigarette, his hand barely moving at all as it came towards his mouth. The smoke slowly billowed out of his mouth moving as slow and calculated as the man himself.

As I sat and watched him from my leather seat in the corner of Starbucks Pandora played a Ray Lamontagne's song "Lesson Learned" that was reminiscent of an old tragically romantic western song. I envisioned this biker as a young man, happy but tough, losing a love, and becoming the hardened man that sat before me today. I wondered what it would be like to be this old, weathered and angry man who sat before me today. What happened to him that made him who he was today. After he finished his cigarette he came back inside to finish his coffee. He sat near me and I contemplated starting a conversation with him. Just to see what would happen. After a few moments, I gained the necessary courage and asked him if he rode his bike in this kind of weather often. The question was awful but I didn't know where to start. He sat motionless for a good 10 seconds that felt like an eternity then his eyes slowly looked in my direction while his head remained motionless. When his eyes acknowledged my question I realized I should not have spoken. His glance confirmed he would kill me if I spoke again and so I remained silent as he slowly stood and sauntered out the front door to his Harley.

Lesson Learned