Jobless in Seattle, I frequented a coffee shop named Solistice, not because I liked their coffee but because of its front porch like sitting section, slightly elevated but exposed to the flow of traffic. One night while reading a Harper's Magazine an older man sat down at my table and asked me if I was an intellectual. We talked but he was hostile, taking me for someone I had no idea I was.

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He told me he was a genius and a playwright, busy staging a major production in Seattle but stuck outside for the night, a day too early to start his residency. He told me about what it meant to be a writer, reading Shakespeare, and writing everyday. Hard work, and I asked questions. At one point, after passive-aggressively challenging his genius status, he snapped at me: "You're the one who wanted to play chess."

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As it got late I offered him the couch of where I was living. I didn't like him, but enjoyed the attention and adventure of meeting a stranger at a coffee shop. We walked back and I asked him to read a chapbook that I had put together. Shaking his head, he said I needed a lot of work. He was tired and grumpy, and I suggested sleep. He let himself out in the morning.