Standard Measure
by Harmony Button

When I was living in Rochester, I had three standards for measuring a man: my brother, my music, and Cibon cafe.
My brother is a good standard of measure because he resists inflation. He doesn't tolerate most people, and he likes even fewer. When it comes to being critical of my potential dating pool, nobody has higher standards.
Music was another no-brainer. Taste in music is one of the singularly most telling qualities, far more potent than whether he eats sushi or not, if he's ever been to europe, or even what kind of pants he has on. Talking music is like having sex: if its good, then there's at least the option of pursuing a meaningful relationship. If it's bad, you know better than to bother.
Cibon was a less intentional standard of measure. It just turned out that it was the place I always picked. But honestly, where else are you going to meet up in Rochester, NY? Starbucks? Yeah right. So here's what you do:
Meet him inside. Be there first. Take the big table by the window, with the oversized pillows. Sit cross-legged in the corner. Order a mug of gunpowder green tea. It's bitter, and clean. Let it steep and steam, but don't touch it, yet. Open the paper to the weekend section and let him find you.
If you're lucky, he'll parallel park outside on the street. That's always good to watch. But chances are, he's going to park in the CVS lot across the way, where there are big signs that say that all non-CVS customers will be ticketed and towed. Note if this makes him nervous.
Then, keep these things in mind: does he sit across the table - the wide, wide shipping dock table - or does he sit on the same side as you, angled on the corner with pillows pushed away? Does he play with the candle? When you laugh and it goes out, does he ask the girl at the counter for a new match? Does she linger over him, appreciating his ears, his concentrating mouth, his steady hands?
When he orders, is it hot chocolate, and does it have whipped cream? While he lifts it to his lips, does he glance up at you, mouth-tucked asymmetrical in guilty pleasure grin? He has a weakness for sweet things, he says. Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe it is coffee in his cup, fair-trade black and unadulterated. These things matter: the placement of the used stir-spoon; the first sip; the way his jacket slides off the bench and to the floor.
If the Iguana-man is at the bar, see if your boy notices. If he does, see if he says anything. If the girl with the tattoos is working that night, does he look at her arms? Does he look at her face when she picks up his coat? When he comes back from using the bathroom, does he mention what it says on the door to the basement? If he does, do you tell him about the time you took a wrong turn down there and what it was you saw?
Does he pause to ask the man collecting empty glasses for the name of the album playing in the background? And, at that point, are you eating Italian ice out of an excavated lemon? If yes, then how hard do you laugh when he cuts a face in the empty rind - or is it you that's doing this, carving a mouth with the spoon?
There is an elderly woman with bright lipstick. She sits right next to you, hands in her lap, a goblet of chardonnay on a tiny round table like a gem on a podium. She's very still; chin raised, eyes bright, taking it in. She's listening to him talk to you. She's watching when he plants his elbows on the table and tells you something that he loves about you. She's listening, but does he say it anyway? Does he say it softly, to the dregs of chocolate in his mug? Does he say it honest off-hand casual; say it because he wants to - because it's true?
Outside, with the world gone blue and raining (always raining), are the eaves streaming water thin as cappuccino, light as cooling tea? Afterwards, on the sidewalk, in the parking lot, do you loiter under signs that say "No Loitering" at midnight, keys in hand and shivering, while words and thoughts hiss quick as sugar through your mouth? Is there something percolating, settling around your mug-warmed hands, your gunpowder teeth, his never-mind-the-aftertaste and caffeinated lips?
I don't know what they would be playing in the background at the moment he asked: probably something indie-jazzy but not St. Germaine. He would like it. The man I'm thinking of, I mean. I know this, just as well as I know that my brother would approve. This one has not, in fact, ever been with me to Cibon, but I've looked for him in every man who ever has. Now, no matter how appropriate the jazz nor how perfectly the man-who-is-not-him sips his drink, no matter how long and post-rain wet the midnight loiter after, I'm always left imagining: craving water, wide awake, alone.