He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
~Michel de Montaigne
Ask any writer where their material comes from and the honest ones will tell you it’s from a lifetime of eavesdropping. Sitting in a coffee shop you can land like a paratrooper in the middle of the life of a stranger and find out more than you know about your best friend. Whatever you hear yourself, you have on good authority, I figure.
Sometimes you get only hints and have to construct the story yourself. Like the time I sat near an apparently former priest and an older woman breakfasting together. I got an earful about “that business” that caused him so much trouble in recent years in the church. I pegged her as a former parishioner, based on the delicate balance between devotion and flirtatiousness that ran between them.
Would that I’d had the opportunity to spy on the formerly up and coming Miami priest Fr. Alberto Cutie instead. He was seen making out on the beach with a comely parishioner. He apologized, resigned, and soon married his love. He just missed his calling the first time around, apparently. He has fleshed out the story in his new talk show and book called Dilemma, so there’s little mystery left there.
Back in the coffee shop, I had no such help. She was the listener and he was the talker, and they conversed carefully, as if in code, using vague references and generalities. Since they weren’t providing the specifics I craved, I had to run through a series of “what-ifs” until I came up with my own.
Was he a pedophile priest? No, too obvious. Maybe he’d covered up for another one and got caught in the crossfire. Maybe he had seen this companion through a crisis, and her loyalty caused her to give the bishop a piece of her mind in his defense. Maybe he refused to be sent away for reprogramming. And she defied the authorities and kept up contact with him. How’s that?
Thanks to eavesdropping, I do know for sure what it’s like to get a job in Hollywood. Last year I spent a Happy Hour at an upscale L.A. restaurant. While Dr. Drew of TV therapy fame sat at the bar head-swiveling to see or be seen, I concentrated on the group of three behind me. My husband kindly switched seats so I could zero in. Two name-dropping producers (“Harvey”, “the Network”) chatted with a young woman in a simple dress and heels, no hose. It all sounded like platitudinous cocktail talk, and I was drifting and about to actually talk to my husband when I heard The Ask. “”If you think you’d like to work on the project, we’d like to see it work out.”
What project? They’d been talking about how hard it is to stay in the good graces of former coworkers. It must have been code again.
“Yes, let’s have your people work it out with my lawyer,” she said. And she stood, shook hands, and was out the door. No gushing, no thank you for the opportunity, no money demand, no air kisses.
In my extension of her story, she jumps in her car, drives around the corner, stops under a palm tree and dials her boyfriend or her mom or bff and screams, “I got it. They want me. Omigod!”
Yesterday at the airport I had to work harder than that. I sat within range of a casually dressed middle-aged couple – shorts and a Hawaiian shirt for him, modest sundress for her – who chatted amiably about hometown stuff. They were on their way to Washington D.C.
A stocky man strode up and stood too close, right between them. He was dressed to kill in a blue blazer, yellow tie and lapel pin the size of a dime. Try as I might, I couldn’t read it, but you could tell it was saying something significant about him.
Right away he took a phone call and talked for five minutes at a volume just loud enough for passengers three banks of seats away to look up.
“Are you telling me that law enforcement officers failed to pursue their investigation?” he yelled into the phone. Pause. “You need to run this down for me.” Pause.
His ruddy cheeks glowed, a fine contrast with the yellow of his sideburns and moustache (think Yosemite Sam) and his tie.
“If the officers are going to be charged with any impropriety, I need to know it.”
Now that’s an episode of Law & Order right there.
But he was only beginning. Off the phone and still hovering over the couple, he addressed them in turn. It emerged that they were going to the same place for the same event, and that Mr. Important was in charge. He pointed his finger in her direction.
“Now Louise, you are just going to have to be satisfied on your own. It may not look like it when we’re at the bar at 11 at night having our beers, but we are Doing Business.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Bob,” she said, seeming to bask in his attention. “I haven’t been to D.C. in 15 years. I have a lot to explore.”
Her husband and his Hawaiian shirt were shrinking by the minute in the face of this windbag, and his wife’s engagement with him.
“And you, Jim,” Bob said, leaning even closer, “You will see just how hard we work at these things. It’s not a vacation, that’s for sure.”
Bob’s jaw tightened as he shot a glance at his wife, who continued to smile adoringly at guess who.
Damn. Boarding started, which allowed me only a moment to spot a crocheted cross dangling from Windbag’s roller bag. If only I’d had another ten minutes, I might have learned enough to put it in context .
After the flight, I witnessed the three of them walking through the terminal. Bob, still talking, strode along in between the couple, and took Louise’s elbow. Jim looked straight ahead. Questions presented themselves.
Would Louise secretly slip into Bob’s room while her husband was laboring at the bar? Would Jim finally punch his boss in the nose for his various humiliations? What was their business in D.C.? And why was he so LOUD? I was tired, so I settled for my best guess, that it was a plain old business trip and the nice couple doted on the overbearing boss to stay in his good graces. Not everything has to be a drama.
My final example is the most cringe-inducing. I waited in an upscale coffee shop for a writer friend for our monthly meeting when I heard one of those shrill voices you can’t ignore. It belonged to a woman I almost knew, who was married to an acquaintance of mine. Theirs was one of those matches that makes you wonder – the modest bookish man and the tight skirt-wearing, attention-seeking athletic woman.
I quickly gave up trying not to listen, as it immediately became clear that this was one intimate conversation, with her sister. There were many complaints – not enough time to train, being neglected while he was out of town, a lack of understanding of her needs. Her sister, probably working from a lifetime of listening to such, said little. I felt humiliation on his behalf, and sadness that he had to live with this resentment every day. And of course, a small recognition that she might know her marriage better than I did.
If it had been an episode of ABC’s What Would You Do? with John Quinones, I would have been expected to stride over and denounce her for inflicting the details of her marital dissatisfaction on a roomful of strangers. Luckily, my friend showed up and I switched my attention to my own business. By the time I left, the complainer was gone, her table cleared and waiting for the next occupant.
I know the outcome of this one. I heard several months later that the couple was divorcing, which maybe was a relief for all concerned. Easy for me to say, but I know now that better days followed for both. Was it a thrill to be inside this story as it unfolded? Decidedly not. I definitely prefer the ones I make up myself.
I don’t know how much actual knowledge I gain from my listening, but it is fun to practice attentiveness and give my imagination a workout. The next time you are offered an eavesdropping opportunity, I say seize it and let your inner storyteller out. It beats playing Angry Birds.
