The Yelp

by Chase Compton

  They would shake their heads and tell me I had imagined it all. This, also, infuriated me to no end, as I was convinced they hadn’t a clue what was really going on. I wished that they could have seen the way he looked at me as we lay on top of each other everywhere we could possibly recline in Manhattan and beyond. I wished I could show them the way we used to laugh and eat and make love and (quite literally) skip through the streets of SoHo together.

  I wanted to show everyone that it was indeed love, and it had happened, and it meant the world to me. And it was still happening—everywhere I turned, memories of Him. A war zone. A minefield of memories.

  I sat in my underwear, shivering and manic. I needed to find a way to let Him, and the world at large, know that this love was not an illusion. It was real as shit. It had rocked me. How did everyone not know that I had found my soulmate? How did magazines and newspapers and Barbara Walters not want to interview us about how we managed to find The Greatest Love of All Time? I felt like we deserved a medal or a trophy for how perfect and beautiful our happiness was. How did he not cherish this romance the same way I did? It was everything. I was there. I saw it. I lived it.

  I had to get it out, so I did the only thing that I knew how to do. I wrote it.

  I’d always written in my life, but for the first time ever I felt like nonfiction was more unbelievable than the greatest of love stories. Eat your heart out, Juliet. My man’s twice the lover than that Montague dump of yours—and mine’s actually real. He was flesh and blood, and he lived on this island with me, and we ate sandwiches together and did it in the butt.

  I began to write the story of the rise and fall of the love of my life. I assumed that I would send it to Him one day in a beautifully bound book, and he would then realize that he had thrown away the greatest love he’d ever known. That was the plan. Or, of course … I could Facebook it. I could share our story with the whole world in the click of a button. Maybe if all of my friends and his friends and our mutual friends knew about our love, then it would be validated and real and he would come back to me.

  I immediately knew that was crazy and stalker-ish and immature and totally wrong. If he didn’t want to be with me, then that was his choice. All of our friends didn’t need to know that something born of such love dissolved into such a mess. At the same time, I wanted someone to tell me that I was right. I wanted someone to tell me that it was love, and that it was real. I needed to get it out there into the world, and hopefully the world would understand me and the sad, blathering fool I had become.

  I could retrace every single step of our relationship. Manhattan had become a map of memories, and every single bar and restaurant and park had become like a pin drop on it. Our story had happened in 3D, and the stage we had played it on was this great big island filled with millions of other people’s “pins.” I had to take a moment to force myself to understand that this same thing was probably happening to every other heartbroken weirdo in this city. I wished that there were a meeting place, like AA, where all of the heartbroken masses could congregate and hide away from those dreadful pins. I wondered if I could go someplace and just be listened to.

  I don’t know how it struck me initially, but I pulled up my laptop and began to write. Hungry as shit and in a frenzied fit of desperation, I could only think about eating at my favorite restaurant that I used to go to with Him. It was Café Mogador, in the East Village. I didn’t know what to write, and I didn’t know what to feel, but I began to write my story starting with where it was the happiest: breakfast.

  It was that day that I wrote my first review on Yelp.

  I’d known what Yelp was for years, and I had always hated it with a fiery passion. It was a waiter’s worst nightmare. I remembered how my old boss used to read Yelp reviews daily and bring the spite and vitriol of the world into shift meetings every night before service.

  “So this woman said her waiter wasn’t nice to her and forgot to bring her ketchup when she asked for it. If you can’t even bring ketchup to someone who asks for it, then you don’t deserve a job here,” my boss would say.

  I’d sit there in pre-shift and shake my head, remembering exactly who the woman was who had written the ketchup review. She was a bitch. And her child spilled a soda on my shoes. And now she is exacting her bitchy revenge by being an anonymous bitch on Yelp, and it was ruining my shift. The Yelpers were my enemy, and I loathed their self-entitled bullshit.

  Yelp was full of critics, and I found criticism to be often … well, mean. People were always so quick to say everything that they didn’t like about a restaurant or bar, and those were the reviews that always got the most attention. No one ever got a raise for that Yelp about how the waiter brought a fork when they dropped theirs on the ground. It was a forum for whiny little brats with no voice in the world and people who needed validation. When people didn’t have anyone to talk to in their “real” lives, then they could just bitch and moan into cyberspace and have other bitchers and moaners bitch and moan with them. And I thought to myself …

  Fuck. That sounds delightful.

  Yelp: the sound a wounded animal makes.

  Café Mogador

  Category: Moroccan

  Neighborhoods: East Village, Alphabet City

  You may wonder how it is even possible that a man of thirty-one years of age has never eaten an egg. It’s just the strangest thing, and I know I’m not normal. Everyone eats eggs. Me—I’m just all sorts of terrified.

  I can’t really explain it. They just always grossed me out. The first thing people always ask is, “Well, you’ve eaten cake before, right? That has eggs in it, you know.” In truth, yes, I do know. I know that there are eggs in cake. Eggs are in everything, and if I didn’t eat things with eggs in them, then I would surely starve to death. I’m not afraid of cake or mayonnaise or any sort of baked good, really. Just the egg itself in its natural form. Just like anything else in life, if it masquerades itself around in some unnoticeable vessel then I can happily stomach it. Tricking myself into things that I know disgust me has always been my forte as I am a classically trained masochist.

  Brunch has always been a nightmare for me. There’s never anything I want, and I often feel as if I’m letting everyone around me down. No, I do not want to share an eggs benedict with you. No, I do not want the burger every Saturday because it is the only thing on the menu that isn’t topped with a big white-and-yellow skull and crossbones. I’ll just have a mimosa, and sit there glaring at you (starving all the while) as you inhale your omelet and bitch about your boyfriend. I was never really a morning person to begin with, so this just adds fuel to the fire. Don’t invite me to brunch. You’ll hate me. I will single-handedly ruin your huevos rancheros.

  Café Mogador was “our place.” It was the scene of some of the best breakfasts of my entire life. Being madly in love, I would sit on the patio (which seems to be perpetually situated in springtime) and stare longingly into his eyes, wishing to fall into them like an endless cup of dark brown coffee. We were that couple. It’s kind of gross, I’ll admit to it. And have you ever seen someone try to use a knife and fork while holding someone’s hand? It’s like a one-handed clap, and it’s really kind of hard to get anything done. Ever since I first met Him, I knew that I would forever live on the patio of Café Mogador with Him. Days I’m not there, I picture my table going completely unseated. Surely my ghost haunts it, hand in hand with his ghost, eating ghost merguez as fast as we can.

  Every waitress at the Café is the nicest girl in the world, and the type of girl I would want to date if I were heterosexually inclined. They’re all the type of girl you would want to take home to meet your mom and dad. You know who this waitress is: the epitome of the East Village waitress, who wears sweaters year-round and is always in a delightful mood and seems genuinely happy to bring you more hot sauce. It’s good vibes, and it’s like a drug to me—that sense of calm and joy that a good meal with good company can provide.

  He’s my favorite dining companion
because everything tastes good when I’m around Him. He gets the Mediterranean eggs, and I get the halloumi eggs with a side of merguez—every time. It just feels right, and it feels like home, and it’s what I always want. He reaches over the table without asking and removes the two eggs from my plate and places them on his own. Happily, I eat my halloumi eggs without eggs, which is essentially a pizza if you really think about it: za’atar pita, halloumi cheese, and roasted tomatoes.

  Apparently I can do brunch without eggs. He takes care of it. And apparently I’m becoming a morning person, too. There is nothing in the world I would rather do than sit there on that patio and not eat eggs with Him.

  Von

  Categories: Dance Clubs, Dive Bars

  Neighborhood: NoHo

  I suppose that to truly understand the story of Him, you have to begin at the beginning. I know it’s repetitive, but it’s the honest truth. The beginning is always the best part of a love story because that’s where there’s still hope. Everything is possible, and the plot twist hasn’t happened yet. There’s not even all the good stuff that comes along with love to exalt yet. It’s just a meeting of two strangers in the world who have found each other and, through hope, start to build something that, hopefully, will change their lives.

  In a city like this one, it’s amazing anyone ever finds each other. There are so many of those theoretical fish swimming in this decadent, dirty sea. How does one begin to cast out their line and hope to catch a big one? How do you know when you meet The One?

  I had only seen pictures of Him. I’d found Him in the swirl of cyberspace, and all I knew was that he was beautiful, funny, and we had things in common. Things we couldn’t live without: kale and drop-crotch pants. That was all it took to get my attention—and the pixelated smile that jumped out from my laptop and begged, “Smile with me. I’m happy.”

  I asked Him to meet me on the first day of our contacting each other. At the time, we were both waiters who worked at restaurants in the same neighborhood. We were both getting done with work at the same time, and I suggested a drink at my local after-work watering hole, Von. For some reason, I just knew that I had to meet Him. Through an ongoing text message string that had lasted all evening long, I could surmise that he was the kind of person I wanted to surround myself with. That and that goddamn smile. Those dimples that looked like the largest of crescent moons just stuck there beneath his perfect cheekbones. I looked at the picture he had provided of himself on the website and felt as if I already knew Him.

  He walked north on Lafayette. I walked south. On the corner of Bond Street, we met face to face for the first time. I immediately understood why he was so hesitant to meet me on this very day: he looked like hell. Not planning on going on a date this particular evening, he had basically worn pajamas to work. And it was perfect.

  Normally, I would fuss and preen for the perfect first date. And I went on a lot of dates. I would wear the perfect costume and make a reservation at Indochine and have a nice bottle of wine already picked out. Not this time. For whatever reason, I felt immediately comfortable around Him. We sat in the back corner of Von and spoke of San Francisco and Fernet Branca and shopping at Oak. It was simple. It was easy. I immediately knew that I wanted this man to be my best friend. But more than that, I wanted to swallow Him whole. I wanted to take Him into my mouth, taste Him, chew on Him, and revel in his being. I wanted Him on my skin like a sexual photosynthesis; I wanted to absorb Him. As he spoke effortlessly to me about his life, I couldn’t stop staring at his lips. They moved in slow motion and at times the words seemed to not make any sense at all. He could have been speaking Swahili for all I knew. I just wanted to kiss Him.

  Sometimes it’s the kisses that I think about the most. I can remember what it was like on that first night when we kissed on Saint Mark’s Place in front of Yaffa Café. My eyes were closed, but I could feel with my lips that his lips were smiling as they met mine. I’d kissed a lot of men in my days (see: sexually liberated, not a slut) and always thought that I knew what it meant when they referenced “fireworks.” With Him, it wasn’t fireworks. It was the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb. It was Pompeii, fireflies, Christmastime, the feeling you get on the first day of spring.

  At Von that first night, I leaned against the bar and was caught in a wave of unimaginable delight. He was perfect. Looking back, I suppose I can see how I thought that. I didn’t know that he was the type of person that had the capacity to completely throw away another person’s heart. If it sounds melodramatic, that’s because it is. The heart is a funny thing, and it can make mountains out of molehills. Back then it was all so simple, and I was just a boy looking at another boy and seeing something that words could not yet explain. It was that unspeakable hope. Hope that this was The One, and I was finally getting back what I deserved from the universe.

  The tragedy of it all is that I had to learn that the Devil comes dressed as your wildest dreams. Mine blinded me to the truth, and the truth is that in order to really be in love, it requires two hearts. One simply will not do. Even if it is the biggest, most pure and loyal heart there is.

  The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

  Category: Coffee & Tea

  Neighborhood: Greenwich Village

  Ritual has been a vital part of the core of my being for as long as I can remember. In an almost compulsive fashion, I have taken to the things that have made me happy with a fervor that most associate with religious fanatics. If I see or do something that I like, I treat it like a sapling that needs tending, watering, and feeding until it blooms. As a young New Yorker and an artist, my rituals have been fairly simple. Most of the time, it involves just getting a morning cup of coffee and having a cigarette. Sure, it goes deeper, like my traditional gin martini with a twist that I must drink every Valentine’s Day. Coffee, however, has always been the most prevalent.

  In my life with Him, we used to go to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf every morning. It was one of those unspoken things that we just did every morning to help recover from the night before. For a while we switched to decaf because he began to have severe mood swings, which I usually took the brunt of. Little did I know at the time it wasn’t the coffee’s fault at all. Hindsight is 20/20.

  In the very beginning of our courtship, we drank a lot. It was that sort of rose-colored fog of Cupid breath that winds one up into having to deal with hangovers of all sorts. Every barroom was painted red with the bitterness of Campari from his Negronis and the vibrancy of our newfound contentment. Dancing in the roads hand in hand, kissing beneath streetlights on Greenwich, kissing while rolling on the dirty sidewalks of Minetta Lane—we were a sight to behold. I was drunk on love and on Him and on gin—and it didn’t matter at all. I knew that the morning would come eventually, and I would wake up with Him in my arms. Then he’d roll over and stare at me. Without thinking, I would get up and throw on whatever clothes were on the floor so that I could go get us coffee. It was always me that ran downstairs to the Coffee Bean for coffee. I was just as hung over and decimated as he, but it brought me insane joy to go do this little ritual for Him.

  Those days, I didn’t see many other people. So many of my personal relationships were put on hold so that I could spend every waking moment with what I knew was the man of my dreams. It didn’t bother me in the slightest because he had become my best friend. The Bonnie to my Clyde. The Ethel to my Lucy. The Campari to my gin. At last it all made sense. My mother had always told me that when I met “the one,” I would just know. As far as I knew, he was it. Looking back, perhaps I was just drunk. Or had too much coffee.

  The baristas of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf became the most regular reoccurring characters in my life. My ritual of seeing them every morning became the best part of my day. With a smile, they would serve me my two coffees with a knowing look on their faces. I could tell that they could tell that I was stupid in love. At times, they would give me the once-over, as if they knew that I was dripping with morning love making and looking like a disheveled
mess. Cockeyed and wearing crumpled floor-clothing, I would just give them a Cheshire-cat grin as I waited for freshly brewed light roast.

  Then there were the days when he would come and get coffee with me before we went on our morning walks. He’d cling to my arm so tight, like he was afraid I’d float away if he didn’t hold me close enough. Then the baristas would smile at us because we were finally becoming “regulars.”

  Being a regular was all I ever wanted. As someone who came to New York City at a very early age, I had been trying to find a “place” my entire young life. As rituals tend to go, if you do something enough times and it feels good, then you become regular. It’s what you do. I thought the same would always hold true with me and Him. I made Him my ritual, and over black coffee and hangovers, I painted a picture of what I wanted my life with Him to be like. It was the happiest I had ever been, and it felt so good to finally be a regular.

  Uncle Ted’s Modern Chinese Cuisine

  Category: Chinese

  Neighborhood: Greenwich Village

  Uncle Ted’s makes me want to be a better person.

  Wait—let me rephrase that. I want to be a better person, and Uncle Ted’s is to blame. No, still not right. Damn. When I think about what a sad person I used to be, I can only hearken back to a time when Uncle Ted’s was there for me as the ultimate cliché comfort. Yeah, that’s more like it.

  Chinese food always reminds me of being in love. It’s that age-old classic image of being completely involved with someone so romantically that you don’t mind letting them see you gorge on lo mein and General Tso’s chicken like an utter pig. It usually happens in sweat pants after a hard day’s work and is a lesson in just existing with another person and your carbs. It is eaten out of the paper to-go box that we all know and love, and it feels like it would be best enjoyed if eaten off an upturned cardboard box used as a makeshift table. Words cease to matter in that moment that you first begin to savor your eggroll. That’s just the way of it. You know the feeling.