In soiled jeans and rat-colored hoody, carrying a Warcraft paperback, he announced his entrance with a too-loud “Hello” and plopped into the leather club chair.
Randomly paging through his book, jotting in its margins, he muttered, returning the eye of all who glanced his direction. Machine oil funk infused the espresso.
“Can I show you this?” He offered a fragment of heavy, asphalt-embossed paper with NUMBERS carefully hand-lettered below a heading saying the same thing. “People working there wear yellow hats, like gangsters. See this? The 82? That’s the year I was born.” A troubled humph suggested this coincidence carried an unstated significance.
In time, an uneasy bargain was struck: his mumbles quieted and the others were more guarded with their glances.
Then, sitting forward, he retrieved coupons, receipts, and cards from a clear, resealable bag. He checked one and flicked it onto the ottoman. Then another. This one tossed on the floor. One paper after another he rejected, but not all of them.
He dropped the now partially-depleted bag, stood up, and shifted to a wooden chair at the square table with the wheelchair symbol. Removing the lid from his coffee cup, he set it aside, upside down on the chair beside.
And then he left, walking out the door, leaving the half-empty cup, the upside-down lid, the scattered papers and the baggie. Having shared his confusion, he abandoned his clutter.