A View Acute
As people wait behind me, Jesus takes my coffee order. His real name is Francesco, but I call him JEEzUUs for his God-like hair and his having saved my life one time. Also, he runs one of the world's best coffee places. A holy pursuit.
This is in the square of a once-obscure Amsterdam neighborhood built between the wars for "the workers." Now, of course, a one-time lower-middle-class burb is over-run with families buying in for more square footage and the benefits of a life that still aims to be free of rich people and posh sensibility, no matter how much it costs.
The cafe is a well-sized triangle. On Wednesdays, moms gather with prams in tow. Thursday's is more the dads. But someone always toddles these vertices.
Not seeing that her mom joined a friend on the couch of the hypotenuse, a three-year-old I am watching stands up from her play and walks my way until a "wait, where did mom go" look of curiosity causes her to stop for a moment before she turns on the balls of her feet. In her pause, we smile at each other. She sees I am not mom. I am reminded, again, of never being a dad. Her pivot is easier for her, I suspect than for me.
In this neighborhood, everything is two stories tall, except the theater, the three-story facade of which forms one side of the square on which the cafe sits. From that direction the five-year-old daughter of his business partner walks in, her dad standing outside to talk to a regular.
Meanwhile, Jesus brings me my flat white,
Who are you today?
I am Mr. Omicron.
What does that mean? Asks Jesus.
I have no idea.
We talk briefly about the choice to name this variant, reported when everyone is so tired of being tired, as if after a character from a science fiction horror movie. But this joke was old on day one.
There's nothing you can do about it, he says.
Well, there is nothing I can do about anything I say.
Its strong.
Omicron?
Yes, a strong stream.
So what do you? Swim against the current?
Float says Jezus. Always float.
He goes off to tend to his business partner’s daughter who is now sitting at the bar.
No one is walking on water here, but from her perch, she can see the banana bread, the apple tart too.
And she knows how they taste, if not what they cost.