Breakfast - a Love Story

I didn’t yet know that he didn’t spell his name with an “h” in that space that always seemed random to me, nor that his version of Jon wasn’t short for anything. I didn’t know that he thought I was absolutely, certifiably insane when he took the keys to Arrow––all steel frame, Vette engine––and drove it to South Bronx.

He ordered coffee, fingers skimming over the greasy outside of the menu.

I didn’t know that when he got to her place, the girl I was trying to save from bruises on her country-fed face, he was greeted by four pits and dog shit and a pissed off boyfriend. I didn’t know this man sitting across from me at Scotty’s on 38th at 4:12 in the morning.

I didn’t need to tell the man with the black mustache who served me–who always served everybody–what I wanted. Home fries, two sunny-side-ups, wheat toast.

Jon without the “h” drank his coffee, eyes on my hands, and then my face. “You know she’ll go back to him, don’t you?” His voice was low, pleasant.

I didn't. I shook my head. He smiled.

The man who called me Kakamaka refilled our coffee. I mashed my egg with the toast, soaking up the sun, chasing it with coffee - stale, burnt–always.

“They always go back…. You’ll get hurt, I think. People like you always do,” he said softly, eyes big, warm, brown, looking at me unblinking, but not in a way that made it uncomfortable. And then, for a flash, it was.

I turned away, eyes glancing at the scenes of European streets rendered in that annoying 3-D. A Prussian roach marched into the second story window of the one of Venice. Brown eyes fixed on the roach and we laughed. The roach left that window and moved on, one storey up, the window smudged charcoal.

I didn't yet know that she would go back. I didn't yet know what Jon without the "h" and I would become.

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