Business in Brooklyn

Brooklyn sure had changed a lot, I thought to myself, after coming up out of the subway on Flatbush Avenue. "Jeeps---" I said, noticing the obvious at last, "it's got a skyline now." The old Williamsburg Bank Building had rivals alongside it now, a whole cluster down Flatbush Avenue towards downtown Brooklyn.

I had arrived about twenty minutes early. Zeke had texted me that he would set out by Uber from his place in Fort Greene, once his meeting was over. With some time to kill, I wandered around the neighborhood, past the usual row of bars and Modell's Sporting Goods, and other discounters one finds in every neighborhood of the city. A light rain started, and I took refuge about a block from the rendezvous point under the giant roof that overhangs the outdoor plaza in front of the basketball arena, where the professional basketball team of Brooklyn plays their games.

Getting a sports franchise back in Brooklyn, even a basketball team, was a big deal to some people, on the idea of giving Brooklyn its own identity (in the post-modern Pop Culture sense to be sure). The great irony for me was that the arena had sold its naming rights to the exact British bank that I had worked for at 222 Broadway. In those days the bank was well known in Europe but hardly known at all in the United States. The initiative in 2000 that they employed me for was to help propel it a greater market share. It felt awkward that somehow all that had succeeded, despite my not really giving a hoot about it all.

Zeke texted me he was running behind, so he suggested I go inside to the restaurant if I wanted, which I did. It was just getting started. Hardly anyone there at that hour of mid morning. Small and cozy. A woman, obviously a regular, was chatting up the one guy on duty.. It was hip and comfortable. The tables were nice thick varnished wood. I sat in the booth by the window and ordered some coffee, telling the benevolent slacker waiter that another person was coming. It was all cool.

When the coffee came I poured cream into it, and took a sip, then took the turquoise plastic tube, took the top off, and shook it upside down to the empty the contents onto the seat next to me.

I liked to take the posters I had made out of the tube as much as possible, so they wouldn't acquire a permanent warp. I found they relaxed well to almost flatness after a half hour. I wanted them to look as nice as possible when Zeke arrived.