The hoary poet, in a stained pink shirt, sits in front of a cedar table with an empty cup of coffee. His hand presses hard a gold pen as if he were trying to extort a story from the small piece of metal, the sole remnant of better times. But the pen stays stoic and the words just don’t flow. The writer’s mind remains as empty as the white piece of paper where the unemployed poet was supposed to write a poem. A poem that James, an influential newspaper editor, an old comrade, had requested to his chum. Easy money James told his friend, not much, but it would pay for a few meals. After a couple of hours, the old man squiggles a few figures, stands up, storms out of the coffee shop, and throws the paper in a trash can. All his ideas are aborted at once, then, he eructs a nasty, expresso gas, his only creation of the whole morning, of the whole month.
