Coffee at JJ's - Ch. 2, Part 1

   After a few minutes one of the men calls out, "Hey, what're you doin' over there? Filling out your census form?"
   Since I am the only other person in JJ's, I raise my head and see a man smiling at me. His dark eyes are open and frank, and his guileless grin seems to invite a friendly response. I wave in return. He wears a gray, unpressed polo shirt and a pair of worn Levis. A dark green baseball cap that shows several years' wear covers his head.
   "You workin' on your census form?" he repeats, probably thinking I didn't hear him.
   "No," I answer. "No, it's a book I'm editing."
   "Oh, yeah? What's it about?"
   Before I can answer, he adds, "Why don't you come sit with us? Don't be a stranger."
   He waves me over with one hand. The other three men are studying me, quietly waiting to see how I will respond. I nod and stand. With coffee, donut and manuscript in hand I walk to their table. The man who has spoken stands and motions me to an empty chair.
   "Come on, sit down. Join us. I'm Greg. My friends call me Greg, but you can call me Greg." He smiles and holds out his right hand.
   Taking his hand in mine I tell him, "Greg? Hi. I'm Chuck. Mind if I call you Greg—or would you rather be called Greg?"
   He looks at me for a moment, blinks and then sounding pleasantly surprised says, "Hey, you're all right. Sit down."
   Greg's grip is strong and his smile genuine. "Let me introduce you to these bums," he adds as we sit. "This here is Jake, that's Toshi, and that's Rudy. Guys, this is Chuck."
   Tilted back in his chair, a blue LA Dodgers cap low on his brow, Rudy says, "Hi, Chuck." His hair is almost completely white. His voice is noncommittal, his eyes wary. He sits there with his arms folded, watching me, neither smiling nor frowning.
   "Hey, Chuck," Jake says cheerfully. "How ya doin'?" He wears a dark green woolen cap that matches the color of his T‑shirt. Jake has vigilant, intelligent blue eyes, fair skin and a bristle mustache of a ginger shade. Heavyset but not overweight, he seems to be in his mid-fifties. Maybe a decade younger than me.
   Toshi, a short, wiry Japanese who appears to be in his early eighties gives a brief salute as I sit at the table closest to his. I learn later that his first name is actually Hitoshi, but since everyone calls him Toshi, I do too.
   "So," Greg goes on, "what're you working on?"
   I hold up the title page for them to see, and Jake leans in.
   "Your Memoirs," he reads aloud. "How to Write, Edit and Pub—" He stops. "You're writing this?"
   "Yup."
   "You're a writer?"
   I nod.
   "Maybe he should write about us," Toshi says, eyes twinkling mischievously. He is one of those rare men whose eyes really do seem to twinkle when he smiles. Energetic and alert, Toshi is not the type to let age slow him down. I like him immediately.
   Rudy looks to be of Mexican descent, like me. He is about my age, clean-shaven and serious. He has the eyes of someone who has seen too much suffering in others.
   "So tell us about your book," Greg says, and all four men listen politely as I briefly explain that I am working on a "how-to" book about memoir-writing.
   "You know," Jake says, "I been thinking about writing my memoirs. I got some interesting stories."
   "Everyone does," I agree.
   Toshi adds, "I could tell you some pretty interesting stories about how I grew up in East L.A."
   I look at him.
   "Yeah," he goes on. "After the war, when we got back from Manzanar, my dad opened a bicycle shop on First Street and Fickett, in East L.A. He was always fixing the bikes of the kids in the neighborhood. Most of them were Mexicans, and we were Buddha-heads, but nobody cared. Trouble is, those kids never had any money so my dad never charged them anything."
Read Part 2 of Chapter 2 Tomorrow