The Beat Poets

The little coffee shop nestled itself between a health food store and K-Mart. It was dead during the day but at night it picked up run-off from the movie theatre and the casual dining restaurants from further down the strip. I don't know if I'd ever had good Chai but apparently it was good there and I thought it'd make me seem more cultured if I took her there on our date. Some nights they'd have a frizzy haired girl with an acoustic guitar playing covers. Sometimes she'd belt out a top forty bubblegum pop song with an ironic smile and the coffee shop would go wild, excited to be in on the joke. When we showed up they were having an open mic poetry night and Sonny was up on stage with his bass, badumba-ing a beat and nodding along with feeling.

I looked around for a spot to sit, the place was packed. On the overlarge, overstuffed couches sat groups of black-clad friends, nodding along with feeling, shaking their heads at the terrible truth-of-it-all, smiling at the images that invoked childhood memories, or talking politics, religion, music, art, life, death and ignoring the drama playing out ten feet from their eyes. A kid with a notebook sitting at one of the tiny tables got up and left, leaving half a tepid glass of brown liquid and a five-spot on the table. We sat down and my date smiled at me, I gave her a look like, "This alright?" and she nodded. The waitress came up and with a single move swiped up the cash and the cup and looked at us. I said, "How about some Chai?" and my date nodded. The waitress was off as quickly as she came, weaving through the crowd of people, ignoring the passing requests of the other customers as she retreated behind the counter.

We tried talking by leaning over the tiny table, faces only a foot from eachother, not wanting to shout but pretty much unable to hear otherwise. Someone had cranked up the speakers to get over the voices of the crowd, and the crowd adjusted for the speakers, and the badumba-dumba of the bass could always be heard coming from those low tones, drowning everything else out.

The waitress came back carrying two ceramic bowls with handles, hot and aromatic, the tops covered with whipped cream and cinnamon. People clapped for the girl on stage when she was done and they'd take a little break. Sonny came over to us a kneeled beside the table.

"Hey, folks," he said. He held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Sonny."

"Sam," she said, sliding her hand from beneath the table and gently into his.

"What do you guys think of this?" he asked.

"It's fun," she said. "You play here often?"

"Sometimes. It's not a bad way to make fifty bucks."

"No, I guess not," she said.

"Or maybe I should say, 'sometimes it's not a bad way to make fifty bucks.' It gets a little stuffy in here some nights."

"Yeah it seems pretty busy."

"No, I mean the poetry," he said, giving his might-be-a-joke look. "You hear that last one? Sheesh. It'll get better, tonight. That I promise."

"Sounds great," Sam said, detecting more meaning from what he said but not quite sure what.

"I'll talk you you guys later, this next hep-cat is going to make me work for it."

The next poet was a tall, lanky kid with messy dyed black hair. He faced toward the wall, showing everyone his back, and started reciting as Sonny plucked away at his bass. He mumbled in a monotone voice, occasionally shouting a word or two as his back tensed up, and relaxing back into the mumble.

A few minutes into it Sam leaned across the table. "Did he just say, 'My testicles'?"

"Yeah. I think so," I told her over the din.

She leaned back and crumpled her forehead, and nodded.

I was looking for an out and was trying to think of other places we could escape to when the place went quiet, except for the bass and the lanky kid. Every eye went to the door where Tommy Loeder and his gang stood, surveying the room.

"Who's that?" Sam asked.

"That's Tommy Loeder and his droogs," I told her. "The Beat Poets."

"Oh, are they famous?"

"Yeah."

"Are they going to perform?"

"They always do, but not poetry. For them, beat is a verb. Maybe we should get out of here."

Tommy was smoking a cigarette. He took a long drag and blew it disdainfully into the air. He walked slowly through the room, looking at every person, causing everyone to flinch. The other three in his gang stood at the door, blocking the only means of escape.

When he came by our table, Sam, who wasn't impressed, couldn't help herself. "You can't smoke in here," she said. "I have a right to clean air."

He looked at her, and then he looked at me, like, "You have anything to do with this, buddy?" I turned from his ice cold pale blue gaze, letting him know, "Man, I barely even know her." He took the cigarette from his lips, screwed up his nose, and sucked loudly from the back of his sinuses before slowly spitting a long, stretching teardrop of phlegm into the rest of her drink. That shut her up.

Lank up on stage was still going at it, oblivious to the circus taking place behind him. Sonny watched and played without misstep as Tommy got closer to the fated artist. He stood within arms length of Lank and listened to that dull monotone, the imagery empty, structureless, cliche.

"The cat is out of the bag!" Lank punctuated right before Tommy had him by the neck. He slammed the poet to the stage and several people screamed. Stop him! Oh my God! Call the Police!

Sonny kept playing, giving rhythm to the blows, watching it all as it unfolded right in front of him. With one hand Tommy held the kid down, with the other he punished him. He worked over Lank's face to the badumba-dumba-dumba and hit him on the stomach to the bumba-dum-bum. Lank tried fighting off the hold but he was no match to Tommy. Lank's legs curled up, trying to protect his lower part, and Tommy just pushed them away to keep working away at him. No one knew what to do. People kept screaming and yelling, some tried to run out but were stopped by the rest of the Beat Poets at the door. The whole thing took maybe forty-five seconds before Tommy stopped, leaving Lank gasping for air, his nose bloody, and groaning. Tommy whispered something into Lank's ear and he quieted down. Then Tommy got up, straightened his jacket, and walked out, cool and uncaring as ever.

The cops came and got details from everyone, but Lank, barely able to stand, begged them not to press charges. He said he wouldn't testify. He told the cops he was going home, and that they can leave him alone. Fine, the chief cop said, and we were all free to go.

When I took Sam home we stood awkwardly at her front door. There would be no kiss because she hated me. We didn't even pretend to make plans to call each other, and I left. She wasn't really my type, anyway.

Why?

I'm going to try the story-a-day thing for a while. This'll be an out for a lot of ideas that don't really stand on their own. This isn't "serious" work so I'm going to let it go free and sloppy, no editing. We'll see how it goes.