a Friend to Lean on

I rolled up in front of my favorite cafe in Hightstown, New Jersey. It looked like it was going to rain and the rusty old bike rack was far enough away from the door to really get myself drenched if things got bad. So I leaned my Shogun on the shiny new street lamp just in front of the door.

Ned, who owned the cafe, was out there too, on the sidewalk, adjusting signs or some such nonsense. "Use the bike rack, Aaron," he said. "They just painted those."

"Uh huh," I said. I felt him watching me as I did as I was told.

Then I went inside and plugged in my laptop and I felt I was being watched in there too. It was rather obvious that I was setting up to live there for quite some time. And all I bought was a cup of coffee. I would have bought less if I could have gotten away with it.

I wasn't exacting my revenge for being publicly humiliated about parking my bike on the street lamp. Not necessarily. It was a necessity thing. I still had a paper due Monday and still hadn't started it.

I needed to make sure my paper was in the way. Not just in my personal way, but a real problem for as many people as possible. I had to feel people watching me, like I was a prisoner in one of those good old-timey panopticon prisons.

If I had tried to keep it a secret and do it at home, where nobody could see me, I would have had to ask for an extension.

And then for an endless string of extensions.

Without getting in the way of a whole business, I would start down a self abusive path that could only end in academic suspension. Possibly incarceration.

Again, I needed to be watched and that need was stronger than my sense of friendship. It was also stronger than the notion that you have to buy things in order to justify your seat in a coffee shop.

After many hours, I thought I would force him to close his shop and I was okay with that. The only thing that mattered was doing my paper.

Of course, my paper was only as important as it was dangerous to his livelihood. That is to say, once I was done, I would never read it again. Probably nobody would ever read it. Not even my professor.

He made a sweep of the front, collecting empty cups as a group of teenagers left. "Refill?" he asked.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm so broke. I'm wrapping it up." That was a bold faced lie.

"I can tell you're stressed out about something," he said. "Tell you what, it's on me. Just cream, right?"

I was still upset. "No, mostly coffee."

He laughed, which softened me a little. Ned had a rough sense of humor.

Outside it started to rain and then it really came down, just as I had feared. The street lamp became wet and it looked slippery and cold as ice. I thought you couldn't possibly lean a bike on that. It would slip right off and fall over.

The bike rack, on the other hand, was all rusty and such. It had just the right kind of friction. The kind my Shogun needed to lean on in order to stand up.

Of course I had money to pay for my refill, so I walked up to the counter as Ned poured. I put my last two dollars into the tips jar. "Look what I found."