What I do to people who don’t love me
Carrie Hall “You don’t know! You don’t fucking know!” said Jerry Kummer. “Why don’t you try being me for fifty-five years? Then you might know something!” He was sidled up to the counter, red face, big coat, uneven stubble, hat with a huge pompom on top, drinking a Jolt Cola, his favorite drink. The label read: “all the sugar and twice the caffeine.” Outside, night was falling fast. It was so cold that the huge plate glass window was blocked white with ice and the only thing you could see were the lights of cars going by brightening the whiteness for a moment before they were gone. But inside it was warm, even hot, especially where Jerry and I were, steam rising from the espresso machine, the coffeemaker, the dishwasher. Jerry sat at the end of the bar, his regular seat, and shouted at the other regular customers as they walked in. No matter how hot it got, he kept himself bundled up for the deep freeze—never took off that goddamned hat. He was a wide man— not fat, so much as bloated like a balloon ready to pop, probably from his meds. His face, too, was swollen and flaky from psoriasis, which sometimes fell around his feet like snow. He had a bipolar disorder. I knew because he told me four thousand times a day. “I’m sick and tired of being frustrated and confused and manic depressive and living in Minneapolis!” he would shout at twenty minute intervals from the end of the counter. If there’s anything I learned from working at that place, it was that most people, no matter their supposed level of sanity, just repeated