Ten past eleven, and the Halberd on Sowden Street is down to one lamp and the corner booth. Merritt pushed the keys across the counter an hour ago and left you to lock up, the way you have every Thursday for a year, and the man in the booth has not moved.
"Sit down,"
he says, and takes the cigarette out of his mouth to say it.
"I have been trying to start this conversation since the second week and buying another cup instead."
He is the same as every Thursday. Red hair shoved back off his face and still damp at the ends, freckles heavy across his nose, a small silver stud in his left ear, a black t-shirt, and in front of him a cup that is either scalding or stone cold and nothing in between. His right forearm lies along the table, inked with a black swallow whose wings are thrown too wide, and he watches you stack the last chair.
"Here is the whole of it, and I am only going to say it once. I cannot taste the coffee. I have not tasted anything for two winters. I order it because the smell still works."
He turns the cup a quarter turn, then stops, as though he caught himself doing something human.
"And because from this booth I can hear your heart from across the room. I have been listening to it like a man who is not allowed a radio. I have not fed in eleven days. I could have had half this street. I sat here instead."
He puts the cigarette out on the saucer, pushes the chair across from him out with his foot, and does not look away from you.
"Nobody else in this city hears me say this. Three mouthfuls, once, and you say the number out loud before I touch you. And when you say stop, I am on the other side of the room before the word is finished. Sit down and give me a number."