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Geno's Cafe
304 Union Street
Torquay
UK
TQ2 5QZ
The Beatles - Hello Goodbye
I used to spend half an hour of most days in here. To fill
the gap between returning from University and picking my wife up from work, I'd
come in, drink coffee, smoke a couple of hand-rolled
cigarettes, read a newspaper and scribble stuff into my notebook; some of that stuff would get
turned into nodes, some into daylogs, some would
sticks in my head and come out somewhere else. Most of it, ended up in the
bin.
The Doors - Light My Fire
In the far left
corner of the cafe sit a couple in their late twenties, either side of a table
against the wall. He's chain-smoking Benson & Hedges whilst she's
shovelling a fry-up down her face. Their kid sits on a pushchair to the side.
He's taking the tomato sauce off the table and throwing it to
the ground. She picks it up and replaces it, but always within the kid's reach.
By the window on the right hand side of me sit two girls -- about twenty at a
guess. They're drinking milkshakes; one chocolate and one strawberry.
They're talking about money -- or the lack of it -- and deciding what club
they're going to go to for Jenny's birthday. Jenny, it turns out, is chocolate
milkshake girl's little sister.
John Lennon - Mother
Then, about six months ago, they opened a new coffee shop
further down town. It lured me. The new shop had good
coffee; Geno's has filter stuff that's been sitting in the pot for too long.
The new shop had sofas; Geno's had unconfortable chairs that are attached to the
tables. The new shop had a loyalty card that gave you your tenth coffee free. The new coffee shop was posh -- it had italian
music drifting through the air...
Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge over Troubled
Water
The girl with the
fry-up smiles as Art Garfunkel sings out the first chorus and informs her
partner that this is one of her favorite songs. "Yeah. One of Elvis' best," he replies -- loud enough to inform the whole cafe
of his level of knowledge1. She doesn't say anything. But she smiles again; the
sort of smile that suggests that she knows he's wrong but he says that sort of
thing out-loud in public all the time and it's not worth contradicting him. And
she's right. What would be the point? I still wouldn't have been able to let
it go myself, though. Another couple come in. They order food and sit on the
table to the right of me. He's big. He has muscles and a skinhead. He
actually has a tattoo of an anchor on his arm. She's trying to look posh but
isn't. She's immaculately dressed in cheap clothes, and she has painstakingly
applied perfect makeup on a well work-worn face. She trys to talk in a
well-pronounced voice, but fails to cover up the underlying Devonshire
accent.
The Beta Band - Dry the Rain
...but Geno's has a stack of CDs somewhere, from which music
is being played at random. Not
only that, but it's generally good music; not some undefined pointless
fake italian-style muzak. It has people, and they do
odd things. In the posh coffee shop, smoking
is restricted to three tables at the back. They always packed and you have to
share a table. That's alright for a quick cup of coffee and a fag, but you
can't spread out a broadsheet and -- more importantly -- you can't sit there
scribbling stuff in a notebook.
The Beatles - Get Back
A plastic tomato
sauce bottle skids across the floor, and comes to rest under my table. Across
comes the girl from the corner to retrieve it. I bend down to pick it up for
her and, as I come back up, she quickly glances away from my notebook. I hope
she didn't manage to read anything. She thanks me and returns to her table
where her partner is already getting up, and they leave. One of the staff comes
out and sits on the table nearest to the counter and takes a pre-rolled
cigarette out of a Golden Virginia tin. The other one delivers the second
couple's food. He has fish and chips, she has -- what looks like, from here --
lasagne and chips. She destroys the reminants of her pretensions by drowning it
all in an inch-thick layer of tomato sauce.
R.E.M - Everybody Hurts
So I'd been persuaded that I liked good coffee. I was a
coffee connoisseur. None of your Necafe for me, thanks, I want only the proper
stuff. Well, bollocks. I couldn't give a shit about the coffee. I
couldn't
give a shit about the sofas, the loyalty card, the fashionable decor. I like to
be able to get a table to myself, to be able to see the pre-rush hour traffic
through the condensation-soaked windows, the people dashing in from the rain. I
want to be left the fuck alone with my thoughts, my newspaper and my
notebook.
Radiohead - Just
Tatto man and
partner are discussing what DVD to get on the way home. She wants Wimbledon
because her friend told her it was good. He wants I, Robot because "it's got
that Will Smith in it." The girls have moved on to discussing strawberry
milkshake's boyfriend's upcoming court appearance. The quiet is split by my
mobile phone ringing. After a brief conversation, half-whispered, facing the
wall, I get up, collect my tobacco, rizla and car keys.
Simon & Garfunkel - El Condor Pasa
I'm leaving now, but I'll be back. Tomorrow at about 4.30,
I'll be here again. I'll sit at the same table, drink shit coffee and scribble
more stuff in my notebook. I wonder if that bloke would think this is Elvis
too?
Thanks to DejaMorgana who informed me that "Elvis does in fact sing a hell of a good version of Bridge Over Troubled Water." Bugger. Well, this was definately S&G so I'll stay smug(ish).
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