hi i'm just one person

ducking in from the rain, beneath the rumble of trains overhead, I’m seated at the counter of Court Square Diner - where the low clacking of thick dinner plates are abound in every which direction and the coffee is bottomless for a buck twenty five. the staff are clad in smart blacks, men in polyester shirts and ladies in much the same, all buttoned to the top with a waistcoat. a display cabinet of lavish cakes, already sliced up and half had at ten in the morning, stares me down from the other side of the linoleum and it makes me wonder if they’ve been there overnight or if the lively folks here in Long Island City eat cake this early in the morning. it’s not really possible for me to deduce, as Court Square Diner is open 24 hours a day and has been in operation since 1946. but how old could these cakes be, really?

from the man in charge (presumably, judging by his wisened charisma and salt and peppered hair more than, say, a uniform differentiating him from the many other servers) i order the corned beef hash with house fries, eggs done sunny side up, and white toast. i don’t know what this means exactly but he gives an approving nod to the pad he’s using to jot this down on. the guy next to me orders a greek omelette and reaches across me to swipe the communal hot sauce. the meal is hearty, fatty, monotexual and pretty delicious, and after a few hungry mouthfuls i silently agree with my fellow neighbours sentiment as i reach across him to grab the hot sauce back. it is a shiny bottle of cholula, which i’ve never had, and it is really very good. the older man dashes back to my side of the counter and tops up my half full (half empty?) mug of cawfee and then picks up a ringing phone by the register.

‘Waffle?’

he hangs up after a few minutes to report to the regular sitting on the other side of me that the woman on the phone just barked WAFFLE at him

‘What, no address?’ he replies

-

the rain has gotten meaner, and looking out i can see the rain hitting car roofs, i can imagine the sound - but in here it is not only dry but maintained to a cool 22 degrees or so to go with your steaming black coffee. in this way, with it’s perfectly pristine vintage fixings and spotless chrome details framing the doorways and windows, Court Square Diner makes me feel like a sort of lone travelling space ranger, and embarrassingly i realise that i might as well be. i one-handedly slice through my delicious meat mush with a fork and lavish in the serenity that only a well oiled chaos machine such as this one can give me when my phone screen lights up.

i frown at this and think about how i can’t get a straight answer from my mother about my birth time

i turn my phone over and eat some more beef and potatoes and eggs, knowing that god! i’m trying to.

-

i stack my plates up and they swiftly disappear, my coffee gets topped up again and then it nearly topples me over and i realise i need a cigarette bad and now. i roll one up and place it behind my ear while awaiting my opportunity to let my trusted server know, but before i even finish my sentence he remarks that he wants one too.

‘is your break soon? have one with me’

‘nah its in two hours, go have one for me and i’ll look after your things’

i tuck my umbrella under my arm and make my way. outside the street corners are beginning to flood and i sneak beneath the stairwell leading to the train overpass. people hiding in ponchos scuttle over me, pass me. a man holding target shopping bags breaks into a light jog to cross the street and i’m reminded that i need to go in to buy a bigger suitcase before i leave for Virginia on thursday. everything i have fits into my current bags snugly, but i’ve been mentally blocking out the idea of shopping due to this. it did occur to me that i could always just shop and buy a bigger bag after the fact, but for some reason this order of events just doesn’t sit right with me. i suppose i’m actually a very precautious person, boring maybe. this morning i read aubreys new substack first thing, about a wild and scarcely able to be recalled evening at the helmut lang NYFW afterparty that he had snuck into. it seems like most of his time here in the big apple had been much of the same, and i wonder if in contrast that makes me a bad visitor - a boring one. i’ve spent my whole trip with friends on their couches, in their beds, avoiding large crowds, sitting in diners. i wonder what aubrey thinks of it all, of me. i toss my cigarette butt into a puddle and start back inside, shaking my umbrella dry

‘I enjoyed it even more than I usually do, just for you!’

with remarkable slight of hand implying years of lived experience in hospitality he reveals to me just a quick flash of a box of Marlboros, that unmistakable shiny apple red.

‘Just for that, I’m going to sneak out back’ he reappears thirty seconds later ‘Thank god for the garbage room, I got three drags in’

we share the usual smokers solidarity small talk (SSST) before i ask him for his name, andrew. i return the favour and he gives me a strong, firm handshake. im really enjoying my time in New York.