Tuesday Night Cardio - Noaa Rienecker
I’ve got half an eye in the pizza place and half on the walk signal and the other one on a girl who lives across the bay. Caffeine and sleepless and there’s a trio of teenagers behind me talking, kinda serious, peppering “bro” in all the cracks like a nervous tick. Says something like “where you gonna stay tonight? You ain’t goin’ home, bro” and I step into the crosswalk and see a man walking toward me with puke or something all down the front of his dirty corduroy coat. Just as I see him another wet yellow missile of whatever it is shoots out of his mouth and I look down and keep walking.
The kids walk the same direction and I vaguely tune in and out of what they’re saying but my mind’s on work and on E.E. Cummings and on I gotta piss and on the steely haze over Oakland today and on the girl across the bay and on no sleep and on caffeine. Gotta piss keys in the lock what’s the time hey darlin. “Hey buddy!” I chirp at Ryn as she steps out of the office, smiles as we pass. I blink and my hands smell like witch hazel and tea tree oil and there’s paint on my shirt and I want to go back to the cafe next to the office and finish that order.
Gotta piss again. Coffee shop’s gonna take too long, I see those kids again, one of them seems to recognize me. I go pee in the studio and come back and set up my laptop near the taps next to the register. The kids are inside now too, looking out of place, three black boys, oldest one probably no more than fourteen, milling around aimlessly in a sea of laptops and their pet millennials who sport septum piercings and ironic tattoos. Safety pins and black lipstick. Thick rimmed retro glasses, doc martins, ugly sweaters. The back wall is split in thirds, a permanent mural, some featured local art and an array of large screw-in hooks forming a vertical bike rack. The two baristas behind the counter get back to a chess game in the lull between waves of customers. The kids are coming in and out. Betsy DeVos Confirmed on my news feed. Charles Mingus overhead, a little louder than normal. One of the baristas asks the other about a beer they have on tap and I kneejerk answer her question, unsolicited. I get a look and I know nobody asked me so I stuff my big head back in Amazon and google sheets, fuckinghumidifiedcorkblockyogabullshitmotionsensingtoiletHEY
“HEY! STOP! STOP THAT GUY!”
I know exactly what happened and before I can even think about it I’m out the door full sprint after that fucking little prick, he’s hauling ass with her laptop under his arm as fast as he can, his buddies trailing behind, slipping down bungalow sidestreets into the dusk. There’s two or three other guys running with me and the lady who’s not much taller than the kid who lifted her computer. Muscle cars and concrete ragged gasping spraypaint murals everywhere. He’s thirteenish and made of pure adrenaline and I feel his advantage within seconds but I push hard, hoping he’ll burn out first. I’m wearing attractive boots. I don’t know what I’ll do if I catch him, luckily I don’t. The do-gooder ahead of me loses steam and I follow suit in another ten seconds but as I do, there’s a car chasing the kid around the corner past the school, angry woman in the backseat screaming oddly polite threats.
I give up and turn around and I feel great. Laughing, scratchy phlegm coming up my throat, I spit out a yellow missile. We’re four blocks or so from the cafe, and I meet the woman’s boyfriend as I walk back. I’m realizing I left my laptop sitting there on the bar. We’re exchanging rapid did-you-sees and I-thoughts when a bicyclist pulls up and tells us they ran the kid down, he gave the computer back and there’s already cops. We make our way back and I feel clear and awake. The boyfriend buys me a beer, which I drink over my miraculously still-present laptop.
I’m in and out of work again, two sweaty sister yoga studios on either side of the cafe, pseudo-spiritual sorta-gyms full of people who have a lot invested in laptops, including me. The cops stick around for hours. I’m asked if I could recognize the faces of the other kids. Nope. I say I hope they’re not harsh on the one kid and I mean it. I want pizza. Dried sweat feels like I been dipped in wax. I wanna tell the girl across the bay everything and I wonder what the first half of that kid’s day was like.
The kids walk the same direction and I vaguely tune in and out of what they’re saying but my mind’s on work and on E.E. Cummings and on I gotta piss and on the steely haze over Oakland today and on the girl across the bay and on no sleep and on caffeine. Gotta piss keys in the lock what’s the time hey darlin. “Hey buddy!” I chirp at Ryn as she steps out of the office, smiles as we pass. I blink and my hands smell like witch hazel and tea tree oil and there’s paint on my shirt and I want to go back to the cafe next to the office and finish that order.
Gotta piss again. Coffee shop’s gonna take too long, I see those kids again, one of them seems to recognize me. I go pee in the studio and come back and set up my laptop near the taps next to the register. The kids are inside now too, looking out of place, three black boys, oldest one probably no more than fourteen, milling around aimlessly in a sea of laptops and their pet millennials who sport septum piercings and ironic tattoos. Safety pins and black lipstick. Thick rimmed retro glasses, doc martins, ugly sweaters. The back wall is split in thirds, a permanent mural, some featured local art and an array of large screw-in hooks forming a vertical bike rack. The two baristas behind the counter get back to a chess game in the lull between waves of customers. The kids are coming in and out. Betsy DeVos Confirmed on my news feed. Charles Mingus overhead, a little louder than normal. One of the baristas asks the other about a beer they have on tap and I kneejerk answer her question, unsolicited. I get a look and I know nobody asked me so I stuff my big head back in Amazon and google sheets, fuckinghumidifiedcorkblockyogabullshitmotionsensingtoiletHEY
“HEY! STOP! STOP THAT GUY!”
I know exactly what happened and before I can even think about it I’m out the door full sprint after that fucking little prick, he’s hauling ass with her laptop under his arm as fast as he can, his buddies trailing behind, slipping down bungalow sidestreets into the dusk. There’s two or three other guys running with me and the lady who’s not much taller than the kid who lifted her computer. Muscle cars and concrete ragged gasping spraypaint murals everywhere. He’s thirteenish and made of pure adrenaline and I feel his advantage within seconds but I push hard, hoping he’ll burn out first. I’m wearing attractive boots. I don’t know what I’ll do if I catch him, luckily I don’t. The do-gooder ahead of me loses steam and I follow suit in another ten seconds but as I do, there’s a car chasing the kid around the corner past the school, angry woman in the backseat screaming oddly polite threats.
I give up and turn around and I feel great. Laughing, scratchy phlegm coming up my throat, I spit out a yellow missile. We’re four blocks or so from the cafe, and I meet the woman’s boyfriend as I walk back. I’m realizing I left my laptop sitting there on the bar. We’re exchanging rapid did-you-sees and I-thoughts when a bicyclist pulls up and tells us they ran the kid down, he gave the computer back and there’s already cops. We make our way back and I feel clear and awake. The boyfriend buys me a beer, which I drink over my miraculously still-present laptop.
I’m in and out of work again, two sweaty sister yoga studios on either side of the cafe, pseudo-spiritual sorta-gyms full of people who have a lot invested in laptops, including me. The cops stick around for hours. I’m asked if I could recognize the faces of the other kids. Nope. I say I hope they’re not harsh on the one kid and I mean it. I want pizza. Dried sweat feels like I been dipped in wax. I wanna tell the girl across the bay everything and I wonder what the first half of that kid’s day was like.
