Mark pours two cups of coffee and then tips some creamer into one of the cups. He speaks deeply and dramatically as he pours, “I pour the thick white liquid into the black liquid and it sadly falls to the bottom of the cup in heavy fat droplets.”
I stare at him, “What is wrong with you? Why are you all Vincent Price of caffeine?”
“I am being poetic. No reason you have to be the only one around here who gathers up words. I have black liquid and fat droplets.”
I pour some creamer into my own cup and return the creamer to the fridge, “OK, first? Coffee is not black, it’s brown . . . and before you say anything, there are perhaps a dozen interesting ways of saying brown that do not include saying the word brown.”
Mark sips at his coffee and then eyes it carefully, “Oh yeah. I meant to say brown.”
“Castaneous, maybe.”
“Casta what?”
“Castaneous. It means chestnut-colored.”
Mark stares at me for a minute, “OK, there is no way you just pulled the word castaneous out of thin air. You got a word-of-the-day calendar around here somewhere I haven’t noticed?”
“Smart-ass. I have words, babe. I have vocabulary.”
He waits.
“OK, fine. I saw it used on a website describing horse colors the other day. Doesn’t mean it’s not my word now.”
He laughs.
“Also, you used the word liquid twice in the same sentence. It comes off as less poetic and more science-experiment. Pour the thick white liquid into the black liquid. See? Science experiment. Also, why is the thick white liquid sad?”
“What?”
“You said the thick white liquid sadly fell to the bottom of the cup . . . which, by the way, is not my experience. Creamer tumbles to the bottom, but then it whirls back up to the surface and starts dispersing. Saying that it falls sadly to the bottom of the cup suggests to me that the creamer just puddles and wallows at the bottom of the cup, all melancholy.”
“Have I mentioned before that you think too much, Kris?”
“I’m just saying that if you use a word of emotion, there should be a reason for the word. Is the creamer really sad? Or is it the man pouring the coffee who is sad? Is he looking to read his fortune in the swirling dance of the cream against the dark unknown?”
Mark says nothing.
“Like that Carly Simon song where she has a dream there were clouds in her coffee. Did you know I always thought that was a happy moment in that song? I thought the billowing milky dream-clouds represented her ability to get out of that shitty relationship and reach for the sky, but someone told me not so long ago that what she meant was that even her dreams were portents of doom.”
“Uh huh.”
“That was actually a really annoying revelation, because I have been drinking coffee for more than 25 years always thinking that my creamer clouds were a sign of hope and possibility. Stupid Carly Simon and her vain loser boyfriend.”
“Uh huh.”
“That same song also has another irritating lyric in it. It says . . . You had one eye in the mirror and . . . you watched yourself go by. I love that lyric, because I just SO see that self-centered man of hers at the club, checking himself out in the mirror as he walks, all the women dreaming that they would be his partner.”
“And?”
“OK, so one night back in law school, I am out at the bar with some friends, and this song is playing and I start singing it and then this guy across the table leans forward and says, “gavotte,” and I am all “What the hell are you talking about?” and he says, “He doesn’t watch himself go by he watches himself gavotte,” and I am all, “That is so insanely wrong that I feel sorry for you,” and then he laughs condescendingly and then I tell everyone at the table what an idiot he is because who ever heard of the word gavotte and no way Carly Simon would fuck with me and have this man of hers gavotting because that would be just incredibly sesquipedalian of her, seeing as how the song is supposed to connect emotionally with the listener . . . who the fuck uses a word like gavotte in that situation and also I am annoyed at not actually knowing if gavotte is even a word.”
“Sesquipedalian?”
“It means someone who uses big words for no good reason.”
“Words like sesquipedalian?”
“Oh, hush up.”
Mark fake ponders for a second, “Or like castaneous?”
“Shut up. Anyway, guess what? Gavotte is a word! It’s an old formal French peasant dance. Not only is gavotte a word, it is the word used in the song. Not “go by” but “gavotte.” What the hell? ANNOYING. Stupid superior law-school classmate.”
“You are ridiculous.”
“Carly Simon is an asshole.”
“Seriously ridiculous.”
“So why is your creamer sad?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because you chose the word and words have meaning. Oooh . . . maybe you were imagining the story of a man who is heartbroken at his inability to have children. Maybe the creamer reminds him of another small bit of thick white liquid sadly resting at the bottom of a specimen cup.”
Mark sets his cup down, “Or maybe not.”
“Come on, babe. Give me another bit of your poetry. You are making me happy.”
He thinks for a moment and then, “Sunlight glinted off her eyelashes in the frosty dew.”
I giggle hysterically, “Really?”
He protests, “I like that! What’s wrong with that?”
“Here’s what I imagine. Your name is Demetrius. You are murderous and insane and also a bit arty. You have killed a girl and then submerged her body in an enormous clear lucite container you have fashioned in our back yard and then filled with ice-cold Mountain Dew soda. The girl is nude because otherwise there would be no point to the soda display. As the sun comes up, you have just finished slowly lowering her body into the clear lucite aquarium of death and lemon-limey goodness, and you watch as the bubbles of carbonation collect on her skin and on her lips and on her hair. You are particularly entranced by the way the tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide gather and align on her individual eyelashes, and as the sunshine sparkles onto your masterpiece of homicidal installation art, you are moved to poetry.”
Mark speaks with his deep dramatic exaggerated voice, “Sunlight glinted off her eyelashes in the frosty dew.”
“Exactly.”
Mark stands, “More coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
He takes my cup and walks into the kitchen, and I call after him, “Why are you talking like Vincent Price, anyway?”
“Halloween.”
“Oh. Geez, babe. How on earth was I supposed to make that connection?”
Mark laughs, “Yeah, I know how difficult a time you have with unexpected connections.”
Annoying.
He brings my coffee to me, “Wait. My name is Demetrius?”
Ahem.
