Downtown Madmen

The cafe is a safe place.  Patrons leave their electronics sitting on tables while they visit the restroom, stand in line at the counter or visit their acquaintances at far off tables.  One older regular without a moment  hesitation steps out the door to run errands downtown and stand in a long line at the post office, leaving behind his laptop computer set on top of a strange metal contraption which raises the screen and lowers the keyboard, all of it on top of a corner table which he must claim, I figure, early in the day.

On Thursday last week, I was sitting at a table against the back wall with my friend Roger, telling him jokes that I had found in a book of World War I memoirs, which were told by Hungarian soldiers marching to the Eastern front to be slaughtered in the battle of Rava Ruska during the early days of the war.  The jokes sounded fresh maybe because they were Jewish jokes, the characters in them invariably named Cohen and Weiss.

Roger, another avid reader, who unlike me reads mostly non-fiction, popular science and history books (we like to recommend books to each other and never reach for those recommendations)  but does not treat fiction with disdain as many science obsessed people do these days, was telling me about the languages of New Guinea, dozens or hundreds of them,  still unclassified and unwritten, and dying.

Noah, another regular at the cafe, then left his 17'' Dell laptop on the table near the entrance and walked over to join us.  He began to tell us about the growth of the Arctic ice in the past year or two, some 40%, he had read, all contradicting the disaster prognoses of the past decade.

A man shouting something outside was heard. I could see him from my seat, far out on the street, my companions could only hear him.  He was threatening to kill everybody unless the war was stopped, is what I could make out.  Then, a fire engine siren from the station around the corner sounded, heads turned again, the fire truck followed by an ambulance passed the cafe on the way to the disaster,  and the gentle hum of the cafe returned. Classical music played on the cafe speakers. The three of us continued talking.

A man walked into the cafe and sat down at a table near the entrance, his back towards the room.  I thought I recognized the shouter, but I said nothing.   After a few minutes he got up, approached the counter,  slipped a bill into the tip jar and walked out of the cafe.  We continued our conversation and then Noah returned to his table and his Dell computer. He raised his arms in a sign of frustration. What happened?

It turns out that the man, this mad street shouter, had eaten Noah's sandwich, picked up the dollar bill which Noah had left sitting on the table, and generously tipped the cafe's sandwich maker before going his way.