Why I called my blog "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"

I'm a Hemingway fan.  His curt, close-cut sentences and laid-back stories that deal with everyday life always appealed to me.   I started thinking about "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," just because the title sounded cool originally.  The more I looked at it, though, there were definite ties between me, this project, and that Hemingway story.

Here's a link for you who haven't read it:  http://www.mrbauld.com/hemclean.html

Late-night coffee joints are my second home.   When I re-read the story, I realized why.

I've been on both sides of the bar in the story.  I've been among the last to leave only when my late-night joints close, and I've been both waiters: the one that's trying to chase out customers after a few final drinks, just so that I can go home, and the one who knows them and why they're there.

Staring into a glass on the table that I sit at night by night really makes it harder to leave at last call.  I'm at home at these places.   I know people there, if only by how they look.

There's Mandolin Pirate who walked in one night with whiteface makeup and lavender tunic, complete with stovepipe hat. He was carrying a mandolin case.   Giant Transvestite was ordering coffee one night when I arrived.  All I remember are his sequined stiletto heels and fishnets that ended at his hips, at my eye level.  Hobbling Reader was always there when I was, perched over his cane slowly shuffling across the floor.  An endless stream of English cigarette butts would fill the ashtray as he paged through his pretentious novels.  His wispy blond hair and stylish glasses masked his broken legs.  If he was sitting down, it was impossible to imagine that without that cane sitting next to him, he couldn't move.  And of course, the Feauxhemian Crew was a permanent rotating fixture, dressed up in knit caps, overly tight jeans, gaudy sun dresses and dirty flannel.  They always laughed too loud, stayed too long, and never tipped.

These were my friends from afar.  We all knew that this was the place we went to when we needed a light for the night.  We still need the cafe  just as much as they need us.


And I could help when others needed a place to go to.  This time, I was at a different bar with different clientèle, mixing drinks and trying to be happy.  They were kind, older men, happy to get away from the rush of capitalism to play a round of golf.  I was a college student, the same thing as a grade schooler to these older gents in Weejuns and twill pants.  I knew them and their lives, their jobs, their friends.  Dennis's wife was in the hospital because of a stroke.  John had gotten hired to finish the plumbing in the country club.  Doug had gotten kicked out for unpaid dues, but his friends kept bringing him over.   They needed this place, isolated from the world, just as much as I needed mine.

 There were days when I didn't care.  The doors would get closed a few hours early, I would go home and sleep.   My imagination would run those nights, picturing all the lonely men finding the doors to their clean, well-lighted place locked.  I can see myself in their shoes, now, annoyed with a bartender-less bar and dark hallways.

(...)

I'm learning to like my new, digital place.  It's always open, the lights are always on.  I can come here whenever and talk, and stay as long as I please.  It's what I plan on doing.