Men Who Think in ISBNs
- Sheridan Guerrette
- Feb 23
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 11
I said “yeah” and left the coffee shop.
I was standing in line, doing nothing more remarkable than what I do every morning when I arrive at the coffee shop, when he asked what I did. I answered honestly, because lying feels more like effort than my poker face permits.
“I’m a writer.”
There’s a very specific pause that follows this information. Not a surprise, exactly. More like recalibration. His posture shifts slightly, like he’s just remembered that I am not a person so much as an opportunity, which is interesting because I have not indicated that I am looking for one.
“Oh,” he says, nodding. “That’s… really cool.” He smiles.
He asks what kind of writing I do, and I tell him I’ve ghostwritten a few books and have one out under my own name, which is more information than he needed and less than he wanted.
Something in his face changes, subtle but immediate. He’s decided I am useful in a way I have not agreed to be.
He leans in, lowering his voice, as if the barista might be listening.
“You know,” he says, “people are always telling me I should write a book.”
“Oh, really..?” I say hesitantly.
He explains that his life has been really interesting, not in a casual or conversational way, but in the specific way people mean when they believe it would hold up a typeset, bound, and millions of sales to strangers. As he believes he is owed an ISBN.
“You could make SO much money off my story,” he adds, generously.
I do not respond.
He leans in closer to me, “I mean,” he continues, clarifying, “I wouldn’t even want anything for it.”
I can see that this is important to him.
“You haven’t heard anything like my story, I swear,” he says. “Everyone tells me to get it out there, because people need to hear it!”
He pauses, waiting for my reaction. When no reaction arrives, he begins telling me the story anyway.
“It started when I was a little boy...”
“It was pretty dark,” he says, watching my face carefully, then softening the claim when nothing happens. “I mean—dark for me.”
He launches into a story that drifts quickly from memory to memory, pausing every few sentences to explain why each part matters. He leans back when he thinks something has landed, leans forward again when it hasn’t.
“This is the kind of thing people really connect to,” he says, nodding, more to himself than to me. “Like, this one little blip is just a chapter, we could write a whole series!”
I nod once, minimally. He unfortunately takes this as encouragement and rewinds the story slightly, clarifying details no one asked for, circling back to make sure I understand the emotional weight he’s assigning to it.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” he adds, as though daring me to try.
“This is the part that really gets people,” he says, midway through a sentence that has not gotten me yet.
He watches my face closely, searching for awe, or recognition, or the sort of quiet reverence he seems to believe accompanies the discovery of unfound talent. When none of it appears, he continues anyway, mistaking my continued physical presence for my emotional investment.
“This is gold,” he says, about himself. “Like, actual gold! You could retire on this!”
I wonder, briefly, if he thinks publishing works like a scratch-off ticket, and when I consented to being scratched.
He starts talking faster, as if afraid the story might evaporate if he doesn’t keep it moving, explaining his motivations, then other people’s motivations, then returning to his own, looping back occasionally to remind me that this is exactly the kind of thing people pay BIG for. Every few sentences, he pauses, the way people do when they expect applause, a reaction, then resumes when there is none.
“I’m serious,” he says. “You’d make a killing.”
He stops the story to make sure I understand this part.
“For free,” he adds. “I’d give it to you for free.”
I nod once, politely, which he unfortunately accepts as confirmation that we are aligned on the economics of his life.
Behind him, the barista clears her throat.
“Hey,” she says gently, already holding the iPad. “I can help whoever’s ordering.”
“I am,” I say.
He keeps talking.
I turn fully toward the counter.
“Small oat—”
“I just want you to understand where I’m coming from,” he says, stepping half an inch closer, which somehow blocks the entire line.
I pause.
I tilt my head to see past him and continue, “—milk latte.”
The barista nods. “Got it.”
“Because this isn’t just a story,” he adds quickly, alarmed by the silence. “This could be a whole series of books, then a movie, a whole franchise!” He says with increasing excitement.
“Iced or hot?” the barista asks me.
“Hot,” I say.
He nods along, mistakenly.
“Exactly,” he says. “That’s what I’m saying!”
He does not register that anything has happened.
“I just feel like people need to hear this,” he says, lowering his voice again, though nothing about the environment has changed. “And you’re obviously the right person to tell it to!”
“I’ve placed the order,” the barista says, politely.
He keeps going.
“I mean, this is a lived rich experience,” he says, tapping his chest. “You can’t teach this.”
The barista steps back to make the drink. I stay where I am. He stays where he is. He talks.
He raises one finger without looking at either of us, a universally rude request for patience, and launches into another anecdote, this one about a breakup he narrates with great care, arranging the facts so that he emerges as sensitive but wronged, emotionally aware but unlucky, a man who has done “the work” in the same way I did yoga once and kept the mat. He uses the word growth several times, which is usually how you know a man has not grown.
“This is shit people eat up,” he says, pleased with the momentum of his own life. “You could really do something with this.”
Milk steams. Cups move.
He keeps talking until he doesn’t. The story runs out before his confidence does, and he looks at me like there’s a natural next step here, like I’ve been waiting for my stage cue and simply forgot to come in.
“So,” he says. “What do you think?”
The barista places my cup on the counter.
I pick it up.
I look at my hands. They are now holding coffee. I have not written anything. I have not opened my notes app.
“Yeah,” I say, because the conversation is over.
He smiles, satisfied, like a man who believes he’s just made a smart investment.
I thank the barista and leave the coffee shop.
I did not get to write at the coffee shop that morning.
by Sheridan Guerrette
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