Exactly Jacob

It’s happening.

Oh shit, it’s actually happening.

The moment Jacob has been waiting for ever since whenever it was he started waiting for it.

To see that face again.

To put himself in front of it one more time.

And there it is.

Next in line. 

Quick, he pleads to his brain, what’s his name?

What is his name.

-

This was a torturous lapse because he was an age-appropriate dreamboat who drove Jacob into a blood pumping middle school crush spiral after he came into the shop that first and, until now, only time. And name recollection was one of Jacob’s superpowers. He searched the man's face and the alphabet, desperate to unriddle the cipher before time ran out.

Adam.

Brian.

Ben -

Early-mid forties. Stocky. Bulky. Autumnal. 

An independent gallerist or a landscape designer or a - some other kind of thing that is sturdy and utilitarian, but also creative and neatly trimmed like his stony, manicured hands. He carried a backpack, not a briefcase. He wore a crisp, clean outfit from the cover of a Todd Snyder catalogue. Ready to make a good impression on an important client, but still able to jump into the fray, if needed - to hammer a nail or load a truck or something. His arms were big. But not muscular. Not, like, ripped - thank god. Like two surprisingly firm couch cushions. To be held in that wingspan. To be broken in half by those beefy, burly -

Chris.

Daniel.

Dan -

Quietly handsome. Big, brown, patient eyes. Glancing away and then right at your soul and then away again. Like he knew the power of his gaze and didn’t want to abuse it. And he ordered something normal. Not a black coffee in a mug, which would’ve been fireworks. But some other type of quietly handsome, patient eyed kind of thing. Like truly unfussy. 

Tasteful. 

Classic. 

Cappuccino. 

He was such a cappuccino. Mostly serious, but with a hint of fluff. A minimalist decadence. 

Eli.

Eliot.

Frank?

“Hi there.”

“Hey.”

“What can I get for you?”

“Uh. Just a cappuccino for here, thanks.”

Jacob couldn’t help a smirk as he tapped the CA on the periodic table of menu items.

Greg?

George.

Henry -

Working in restaurants and bars and, mostly, coffee shops for the entirety of the two decades he’d been in New York, Jacob developed certain strategies for patron flirtation. Not endowed with the mechanics for eyelash batting or pec flexing or unadulterated personality oozing, he had to hone a sleeker skill set. 

One wrapped in a comfy quilt of familiarity. 

Built on a single, simple, seemingly innocuous question -

“It’s Henry, right?” 

Casual. Confident. Not really asking, already typing in the name.

And Henry blushes and says, “You remembered.”

And Jacob doesn’t say something shameless like, “How could I forget?” 

He just gives Henry a coy smile and a closed eye nod, like of course, and says, “We’ll call your name when it’s ready, Henry.”

And so Henry is leaning in.

To see Jacob. Someone he already saw, but who is now a kind of brand new. 

On his mind and infiltrating his thoughts and his plans for the future.

And Henry will ask him if he wants to maybe hang out sometime and Jacob will say sure and then he’ll write his number on an already stabbed receipt because he’s not digital, he’s a classic, too, just like cappuccino Henry and Henry will like him even more for that and the tangible connection to their connecting and this beautiful scrap paper memento that he can hold and cherish and he won’t be able to contain the exhilaration of this spark so he’ll ask Jacob when he’s done with his shift and Jacob will tell him I’m done at 2 and then Henry will wait and pretend to read a book but really be peeking up at Jacob the whole time and they’ll leave together and have a walk and a talk and maybe a kiss and maybe Jacob’s apartment will finally see someone naked other than Jacob.

Jeff?

Not Jeff.

Luke - 

Ugh. But Luke will never incorporate Jacob into his future plans if Jacob can’t remember his name and do the smile and be so cool and enigmatic and major boyfriend material. 

No. 

Oh no.

Tragedy.

Because instead, Luke will go pick us his cappuccino from Aaron.

Aaron, who will call out his name with that smoldery bravado he has and flirt in that way that is so itchy and enviable and Luke will see the standard fare handsomeness of Aaron and they won’t need to communicate with words or exchange numbers because they can just intuitively know how to find each other in that secret society way that gay men who are actually good at being gay men do that Jacob has just never been invited to and they will have lots of attractive people sex and Jacob will hear all about it when Aaron comes over to talk to Jacob about all of the everythings that Aaron talks about when he comes to Jacob’s apartment and never stops talking about all of himself and all of the other anythings that pummel his brain.

So Jacob has to remember.

Mike.

It’s Mike.

Definitely.

It’s definitely not Mike.

“Do you have a milk preference?”

“Oat, please.”

Jacob and Aaron are friends.

Well, kind of.

No, yeah, they are.

When Jacob and his ex broke up -

When Jacob got dumped one Sunday morning by his partner of ten years a week after he decided to quit his job, he got, like, dizzy.

Mind dizzy.

Like past, present, and future life choices dizzy.

He went to the shop that afternoon more to escape the mean prank his apartment (and the whole of his life) had become than to seek employment, but as the cozy chaotic hum of grinders and steam wands and clanging plates and murmuring conversation wafted over him in a sonic aroma, he found himself floating back up to the counter asking if they were hiring.

And so he was a barista, again. 

Or, a barista - still? 

A super cool 40 year old barista.

Ok, fine, 41.

Aaron, at 34, was not younger than Jacob by actual generations like his other coworkers who were being born as he was starting and finishing college. But while Jacob aged by the minute, Aaron was just so oversaturated with that kind of trademarked eternal youth older people joke about bottling up. 

And he owned it like an easy breath.

A carefree kind of charisma that is equal parts gnawingly immature and arrestingly brilliant.

And Jacob felt its repulsive intoxication leering at him anytime they were together.

Taunting him.

Teasing him.

Sticking its tongue out, all sexy and absurd.

He wanted to scream at Aaron - “I was like this once, too, you know!”

To tackle him into the space time continuum and travel back to 2009 when Jacob had hair past his shoulders and cutoffs and tank tops and his freckles were adorable, not concerning, and he would say yes to anything anyone offered to put in his mouth and he wouldn’t think about tomorrow and he would drink cheap scotch from paper bags in McCarren Park and dance drunk and sweat soaked at Sugarland and make out with strangers and end up on the roof of an illegally converted factory loft off Jefferson and smoke rolled cigarettes and bike everywhere without a helmet and not have enough time to shower and must have tasted so filthy, it was good.

But demanding someone see you as you were before is just a way of proving how sad you are now. 

So Jacob swallows the sweet saltiness of his once was and lets himself be rigid and responsible and get enough sleep and drink enough water and floss his teeth and all the other things he assumes his younger coworkers see when they look at him. Knowing if 2009 Jacob walked into the shop today he would be a sparkly, haloed fascination. And Jacob would envy the way they squinted at him with furious astonishment as he took his mug of black coffee outside, no matter the weather, to pull out his pouch of Drum and seal up the sticky tobacco and suck on it like it was healthy, while reading something Beatnik or Foucauldian, pages wilting in the snow, framed by the picture windows like a tumblr post soundtracked by Beach House or Yeasayer.

He tries to imagine the way Aaron would look at Jacob.

And how it would be different from the way Aaron looks at Jacob.

Sigh.

Nate?

Nathan.

Patrick -

Patrick would swoon Aaron.

Everyone swooned Aaron. Heads comically turned in his direction like a compass finding North. And there he would be, perpetually facing forward in a lax, existential bliss. As Jacob melted like a forgotten candle in a room lit up by electric futurism.

And really Jacob wasn’t so delusional in his bitterness.

He understood his place.

Understood this was the natural pecking order. 

The circle of life in the savanna of queer sexual desire in New York City, where Aaron existed as both predator and prey, but Jacob was neither. 

Jacob was like a fly apathetically swatted away by an elephant's tail or an old acacia offering shade and respite, but mostly for the birds. 

But there was also an element of skill-based spatial circumstance at play here.

Aaron, you see, was a terrible barista. 

And Jacob was good. 

Ok, fine - Jacob was great.

So, Jacob was always on bar and Aaron was always on register.

And everyone would come in and meet Aaron first. 

And be undone.

By the time they got to Jacob, their eyes would be permanently locked on the prized pony who took their order.

Patrick would have ample time to fall in lust with Aaron and for them to spend a raucous afternoon together and for him to become yet another body that Aaron could have whenever he wanted and then feel burdened by and then forget and all his energy would be spent and wasted and flush with the memory of Aaron and Jacob would be swatted away.

But today, because Jacob was covering for Martha on register, he had a rare advantage. 

A head start.

To snare Patrick before Aaron could work his hypnotic brand of messy debonair.

Peter.

Pete?

Robert -

“It’s Robert, right?”

“Yeah. You remembered.”

And Robert will see Jacob as the sincere and thoughtful and gentle kind of creature that he could build a life and a home with and when he picks up his cappuccino from Aaron, there’s no comparison because Robert knows he can find any number of men with all their eyes and hairs and body parts all working so great together, but Jacob. Jacob is different. Jacob remembered his name. Jacob looked at him. Like, really looked at him. And then Jacob was such chill vibes and full of knowing, wise energy and Robert will want to dive in and discover all of Jacob. But Aaron. Aaron is so immediate and right there and all heart and mind and fury on his sleeve and just exactly who he is and totally uncomplicated with his honeyed coyote eyes and teen beat hair and straight from the shoulder laugh and cartoon villain smile and, and, and shit.

Shit.

It doesn’t matter, does it?

Jacob can remember his name -

Sam.

Steve.

Tom.

And he can say it with all the dreamy, wistful, layered longing his siren song can muster.

“It’s Trent, right?”

And Trent will think, “Wow. That’s so nice.”

“What a sweet guy.”

“That lovely old bald barista just made my day.”

But it’ll never be more than that.

It’ll never be Jacob.

Because it will always be Aaron.

-

Aaron.

Aaron, who Jacob had now spent countless hours over the course of the last year curled up on his couch with talking about everything from witchcraft to work gossip to penis envy to Kylie Minogue to scary movies to religion to body dysmorphia tp literature to Satan to Alan Watts til the sun is going down and they’re opening wine and Jacob is making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and they’re giggling about the perfect wonder of juvenile delicacy that is a PB&J and it gets later and later and darker and darker and they lean in closer and closer and Aaron whispers to Jacob, “I guess I should go.”

And he goes.

And Jacob is standing at the door wondering why.

And why not.

And then there was the time Jacob forgot he had a check in with his professor -

Yes, Jacob is also a 41 year old freshman.

And so he shooed Aaron away to hide in his bedroom while he had the meeting.

And when it ended and Jacob went to get him, Aaron was lying on his bed with his feet up by the pillows like a teenager in Bye Bye Birdie.

And Jacob couldn’t remember the last time he saw someone else on his bed.

And Jacob had never been so nervous to be in his own room.

And Jacob lowered himself down in slow motion like he was getting into a boiling bath, hoping Aaron couldn't feel the frenzy of his heartbeat as he sunk his shoulder into the mattress and rested his head just beneath the pillows.

And as Jacob curled his knees into himself, Aaron turned on his side to match him in the opposite direction.

And they froze there.

Lying on top of the covers in a sort of infiniti shape.

Stuck in an upside down staring contest.

And the intimacy of it was so overwhelming that Jacob couldn’t breathe.

So he sprung up and asked Aaron if they should have PBJ’s and wine.

And so they had PBJ’s and wine at the kitchen counter, instead.

Aaron, who was everything Jacob didn’t want to want.

Aaron, who could have anyone he asked for.

But wasn’t asking for Jacob.

Which is how Jacob knew he wasn’t wanted.

Not really.

Not like that.

And Jacob was running out of time and running out of patience and running out of warm space in his heart and running out of letters in the alphabet.

So, like always Jacob should just give up, already.

-

“Can you remind me your name?”

“Zack.”

Of course.

“Zack. That’s right.”

And Jacob is awash with the sarcastic cruelty of fate, always putting him in the right place at the wrong time, as he types Z A C K into the POS and chews the insides of his cheeks.

And when he looks back up to recite the price of the oat milk cappuccino and their eyes meet again, Zack is staring him straight in the soul.

And it alights Jacob to a wild, unambiguous joy.

Not at all coy or enigmatic or chill vibes. 

Dweeby and embarrassing and raw.

Revealing all his cards in one clumsy drop of the hand.

And because Zack and his eyes can unlock all the secrets of the universe and he knows all of Jacob’s already from this one simple scan, he offers -

“I wouldn’t have expected you to remember, I just came in that one time.”

And Jacob blurts, “I know, but I’ve been hoping you’d come back.”

Eek.

Not that.

Not that stupid idiot kind of thing that is something Aaron would say and manage to make sly and feisty and effortlessly irresistible but coming out as the accidental atrocity that Jacob just burped up is odd and stalkery.

Jacob tries to swallow the words back into his mouth, biting at the empty air and choking worthless saliva down his throat.

He closes his eyes like that might erase it.

Erase him.

Pleading with all the Gods or The God or Source or whoever is listening or whatever has power, to let this one second ago sentence be reeled back into the infinitum of things Jacob never said.

How to die.

How to run.

How can it be so impossible for someone no one notices to disappear when they need to.

And Jacob can feel his pasty skin morphing to a lethal plum.

And he opens his eyes in apology and guilt and regret. 

And he is met with a curious, squinty eyed smile. 

Not the look of humiliating disdain he had rehearsed encountering.

Zack is smiling that kind of smile you try to hold back because it’s too treacherous of a truth. Teeth threatening to burst with abandon through your lips. But you don’t want them to be seen yet because then it’s over. Then it’s all known.

And he even bites at his bottom lip to suppress it or feel it deeper or flirt or something.

And now this person and this moment and this day is a kind of brand new.

And so Jacob returns the favor, freeing all of his teeth and telling all of his truths.

And they lose themselves in the effervescent release of this pleasing tension.

Stuck in a right side up staring contest.

Until the fingernail clacking and throat clearing of the following customer explodes their world peace.

“So, um -” Jacob stammers, coming back to life.

“Yeah?” 

“We'll call your name out when it’s ready.”

And they’re blushing like two boy band groupies on a sugar rush of butterflies and bubble gum.

And they un-velcro themselves off into their respective roles of customer and cashier.

And Jacob hopes they won’t liquefy and drain into the sewer system of ones that got away, as he turns toward the death stare of an extra sweet, extra hot, no foam demon monster.

“Hey,” interrupts Zack, reeling Jacob back to him.

And Jacob lifts his eyebrows to indicate listening, but is left without breath to speak.

He wonders if this is it.

If this is the cotton candy, Carly Rae rom-com meet cute he’s been waiting for.

The moment they remind each other of as they reflect on their decades of devotion.

And they’ll laugh about how Jacob wasn’t suave or mysterious or leading man because Jacob isn’t any of those things.

Jacob is Jacob.

And so he was.

And so Zack asked him out in that precise right then and right there because of his being exactly that.

Exactly Jacob.

“What’s your name?” Zack asks with all the husky, gravelly sensuality Jacob thinks he might, but never will exude.

“Jacob.”

“Jacob.” Zack repeats.

“Mhm. Zack.” Jacob affirms.

“Yep.”

“Cool. Hi Zack.”

“Hi Jacob.”

And Zack curls off to find a table. Looking back once, of course, for extra sweet, extra hot, good measure.

And before Jacob finally deals with the forthcoming large latte, he sets a porcelain saucer and the drink ticket down for Aaron at the bar.

ZACK

CAPP

OAT

STAY

He ponders it like art, then taps it twice for safekeeping.

“You ok?” Aaron asks, not looking at him.

“Huh? Yeah. Are you?”

“What was that about?”

“What was what about?”

“It just looked like - I don’t know.”

Jacob can see Aaron seeing him in the mirrored metal at the front of the ancient La Marzocco.

Something flickers in his eyes.

They lock in a second hand staring contest, both about to say something, but neither finding a thing to say.

Until Aaron shrugs out of it.

“So I wanna go to the Zen Buddhist meditation tomorrow instead of Church, I need a little Jesus detox.”

And Jacob feels his shoulders pulse and his molars clench.

Because he doesn’t want to do that. Doesn’t want to be trapped in the spin cycle of Aaron anymore.

-

Aaron.

Aaron, who never really asks Jacob about Jacob. 

Aaron, who took more than a day to respond to “Have you ever watched the show Devs?”

Aaron, who Jacob was going to church with every Sunday as part of a spiritual experiment he no longer had interest in, who he would take crosstown buses to group meditate with, whose container of “potion,” which was actually just Crystal Light they put a spell on, was still sitting in his fridge.

Aaron, who Jacob always said yes to.

Aaron, who, on each of the only three times Jacob had been the one to suggest a hang, declined.

First, to watch The Craft, which Aaron expressed interest in when Jacob said it was his favorite movie. 

Second, to go upstate for a hike, which Aaron expressed interest in when Jacob told him about his monthly solo excursions. 

And Third, just last week, so that Jacob could give Aaron his Christmas present - an obviously haunted teddy bear he found in a vintage bookstore while upstate for that hike Aaron declined, which was still sitting, immaculately wrapped, in Jacob’s closet.

To Aaron.

Love Jacob.

Merry Christmas!

Aaron, who was “Not now. Def soon :)”

Aaron, who was “Maybe next time :)” 

Aaron, who was “Leaving space for some creative energy :)”

Jacob was not going to keep participating in this one-sided, unrequited non-situationship.

Jacob deserved a Zack.

Jacob deserved a kind of a someone who thought about him when he wasn’t around. 

Who missed him.

Who kissed him.

Who would change his plans to hang out with him because them being together was the best time that could possibly be had.

Not Aaron.

Aaron deserved a “Maybe next time :)”

A “Def soon :)”

A “No :)”

Just. No.

No, Aaron.

-

“Ok. Cool. Yeah.”

“We can meet at the bus stop at 9:45.”

“Sounds good.”

“Sweet.”

And Jacob hangs his head in lovesick shame, perking up ever so slightly as he realigns Zack’s ticket like just so. Then, he plasters on a witless, puppy dog smile to appease the impatient masses and lumber back to his cafe counter reality.

“Hey, can you call this order for Zack?”

“What?”

Jacob about-faces to see Aaron hokily pointing from Jacob to the ticket, miming calling out the fated name. His eyebrows and eyeballs and corners of his mouth bouncing and twitching like a Kit-Cat Clock.

Jacob searches him, slightly dumbstruck, trying to translate.

When he hops on the wavelength, the blood drains from his face and his mouth slackens to an aching, predictable O. 

Because, right.

Because, duh.

Because they’ve been here before.

Aaron and his best buddy, Jacob.

“Oh. 

Yeah. 

Yeah, for sure.

So. 

You and Zack -?”

Aaron answers in the form of a wide eyed, tongue wagging, vulpine sneer of gleeful conquest as he sloppily pours a sickly gray stream of steamed oat milk into the pool of espresso, like in blatant mockery of the earnest love he knows Jacob dedicates to the craft of coffee making.

Jacob feels its sticky heat streaking down his body.

Burning a hole through the top of his periwinkle knit beanie.

Piercing the skin of his hairless scalp and dripping down the orb of his head.

He blinks its hot viscosity into his eyes and cries oat milk tears.

It trickles into his ears and invades his sinuses and his nose runs oat milk snot.

He laps it into his mouth and it fills his bladder and he wets his pants with oat milk piss.

It seeps into his skin and his pores ooze oat milk sweat.

He wipes it from his brow and sucks it from his finger, biting down to burst oat milk blood.

He seethes.

He hates.

He quells the rising pressure in his hands and his heart eager to smash.

To break.

To destroy.

To avenge.

To make ruin like he has been ruined.

To Sissy Spacek the fuck out of this third wave hellscape.

Watching Aaron set the insult of a cappuccino, with its leaking, muddled onion art, on the saucer and slide it to the center of the counter, then quickly turn away to pretend to be hard at make-believe work. 

All its divine potential obliterated by those vapid, idle hands.

And Jacob breathes deep into his mushy, milky belly. 

A reminder of life, maybe. 

Of sanity. 

Of control. 

An effort to keep the crushing storm welling up inside of him at bay.

Which he can do.

Which maybe 2009 Jacob hadn’t mastered yet.

But this Jacob knows too well.

So, instead of freeing the ouch from his lungs, he sinks it to the back of his throat and lets it mist calmly from his nostrils in a cloud of heavy, swollen, invisible heartbreak.

And he inhales manufactured maturity.

And he calls out with a convincing, Stepfordian, polished and shellacked and only slightly cracking generosity -

“Zack.”