*The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed when I can’t remember them.*

On September 11, I try to do something alive. Mostly, I go to museums or spend time with friends. Today, I take a chance on something completely different.

Arlington, Virginia is one of D.C.’s big suburbs. When I used to live in Alexandria, it was a place I found myself in regularly, sometimes for the farmer’s market on Courthouse, sometimes Ray’s the Steaks or Ray’s Hell Burger, sometimes to visit people I know. The last time I came out here was because of a temp job. Otherwise, Virginia doesn’t hold a lot of interest for me.

However, after a Turkish gentleman named Isa became fixated on my resemblance to Phillip Seymour Hoffman at the Jomeh Bazar last Friday, he invited me to his coffee truck, the Ballstonian, parked every morning at 4000 Wilson Boulevard. I live about as far away from there as I can get while still being in D.C., but I’m looking for something to do, and I decide to make the schlep.

I find his truck easily, parked near the “Jew-ish” bagel place, Call Your Mother, and it is a work of art. He occupies the sidewalk with a seventies-era vintage car from his native Turkey and Arabian-style low tables and stools.

There is a Stormtrooper, but we’ll get back to him.

Isa is really excited to see me, like, really excited. He says he has been hoping I’d show up, and he serves me chai, not the American kind, but Turkish tea, like he wants to impress me. He also offers me Turkish delight, which lives up to its name.

At ten a.m., there are three people gathered around the truck, and he introduces me to them like I’m the most interesting person they’re ever going to meet. There’s Gary, who is fairly close to my age and wants to know everything about me. He thinks I’m retired. Yousef, a Kuwaiti transplant, doesn’t know what to make of me—it’s curiosity when I tell them I used to live in Qatar, then revulsion when I tell them my wife worked for the CIA. I do not speak to Caroline. She and Yousef leave shortly after my arrival, and the remaining attention is on me.

Isa unfolds a stool for himself and me, and mine is broken before I sit down on it. The addition of my weight deforms it, but Isa pounds it out and has no problem reclining on it. Gary tells us he was on an Air Force base in California when everything happened twenty-five years ago.

I tell them where I was. They poke and prod, and I tell them everything. I don’t often get to tell the actual story anymore, and they really listen. The whole experience is cathartic. Gary and Isa settle down into a collective, “Whoa,” broken up by the arrival of Malcolm.

Malcolm doesn’t talk or emote, and he’s got this intensity to him that may  be shyness, or it could be sociopathy.  He sits on the far end of the tables and drinks his tea.

When the crazy woman shows up and talks to him, she is casually diverted away by Isa’s personality. She tries to talk to Gary, who says, “Nope.” This is her first time at the Balstonian, but Isa has a lot of experience with crazy people.

Isa reminds me of Shane, in that he is best friends with everyone. We’re joined by four other people he’s excited to see, Kieron, Grant, Hugo, and Cody. Hugo is a defense contractor who leans left, and he just went to conference for the “Department of War,” where he hooked up with one of two women older than twenty-five. Cody, with his neatly trimmed beard and shampoo-commercial, curly, ginger locks, simply abides. Keiran is silent for the most part but is amused by everyone. His only job is to take the piss out of Grant when necessary.

Grant. Grant is cranked up to eleven. He’s what I would call extra. Isa leans and tells me that this is now Grant’s show. He’s also incredibly charming, and he makes sure he talks to all of us equally, especially me. As a twenty-something resident of New York City, he interrogates me on what it was like to live there at the turn of the century. I explain the concept of CBGB’s, which I never thought I’d have to do, and he tells me how cool I am.

“2003 begs to differ,” I reply.

Grant is the one flashing gang signs.

He works his magic on Malcolm and finds out he cosplays. Grant even coaxes out some pictures. Malcolm’s main focus is historical costumes, and Grant keeps referring to his SS uniform. I am unable to work out whether he’s kidding or not, which becomes a genuine concern when he convinces Malcolm to show us his Stormtrooper outfit. Panicked, I ask, “What kind of Stormtrooper are we talking about here?” Hugo tells me to relax.

I hope Malcolm recognizes how awesome it is that he’s show this group of mostly strangers his passion.

Two glasses of Turkish tea makes me jittery as the afternoon approaches, and I bow out and stop first for an obscenely good sandwich at Call Your Mother. Grant tells me that I was the most educational thing to happen to him, and he just backpacked through Spain. Isa tells me the Balstonian is there every weekend, which is good information to have.