Klick on a Brick Story
I lived in Room 203 facing Kearny Street. I loved to lean out the window just when the sun was going down and watch the 5 o’clock working crowd race for the 15 Kearny or walk the seven or more blocks to Market St. The wind swept everyone including all the garbage, food containers and most anything that wasn’t tacked down. Life was simple then even though we were under constant threat of eviction
In the morning I’d pull up my window and the smell and aroma of coffee, fried rice with garlic and scrambled eggs snuck into my room alerting me it was time to get up and walk across the street to the Silverwing cafe one door down from Mike’s Barbershop and Margaret’s Pool Hall.
The Silverwing was not a restaurant you’d find tourists. It was a greasy spoon cafe with year and years of layered oil and grease that made the food smell ten times better than it looked.
No tables and chairs, only counters with red swivel stools. The cook, the guy who owned the Silverwing never said a word other than “The same?” And you’d nod your head in the affirmative. Next he’d bring you hot coffee and you’d be good to go.
Tenants that went fishing of the municipal pier were already seated and had finished their breakfast, telling tall tales about the one that got away that morning. Or we talked about the eviction, some scared, others not.
By 8:00 am we all piled out back to the hotel to attend meetings and wait. Would there be another day we’d be able to eat at the Silver Wing or wold that too become a memory in the past.
None of us really knew then what we know now.
manilatown.org 