WELLESLEY FALLS, Mass. When Henry’s Coffee, a popular retail institution here for many years, lost its lease on a valuable corner location close to the commuter rail station locals’ worst fears were soon realized. “I can’t think of anything worse than a bank,” said Niles Oberg, a retired actuary whose greying pony tail betrays the anti-establishment attitudes he adopted in his youth and never abandoned. “I held the record for nursing a single cup of coffee–six hours,” he says with pride. “I can’t think of any reason I’d want to sit in a bank that long.”
There were enough conscientious objectors to the takeover of the site by First Third Short Bank FSB that instead of just complaining about the loss of a treasured “third space” that mediated between the worlds of work and home, long-time patrons decided to do something practical instead of just shooting the breeze together. “Because it’s a corner lot, the bank needed a permit to add a curb cut to give their armored cars access,” says local zoning attorney Adam Blascowitz. “That kind of thing can add years to the process, which is bad for business–except mine.”
A compromise was struck that allowed the bank to open on schedule, however; existing customers of Henry’s with a loyalty card or “bottomless cup” annual membership could continue to work on their novels on bank premises and drink the free coffee offered to customers, provided they left at three p.m., typical closing hours for banks, if not coffee shops. “So many of our customers just wanted to get away from spouses who nagged them to get real jobs instead of trying to become writers,” says former manager Maggie Van Dyne, whose booming voice and bad taste in indie rock music set the tone on the morning shift at Henry’s for many years. “Or if it wasn’t that, it was ‘Why can’t you make millions like John Grisham or Stephen King instead of pennies on amazon. Does Jeff Bezos need a bigger yacht?”
While some wannabe writers declined the offer fearing that the change in industries might affect the tone of their work, others plunged ahead saying they were too creative to let the stodgy culture of banking affect their work. This reporter takes up the offer by the bank’s public relations firm to investigate the new era of harmony between finance and belle lettres, and Monday morning finds long-time customers Burt and Amy Slifkin tapping away at their laptops while they savor the bank’s decidedly non-gourmet coffee.
“It’s a heroic saga of the British Navy,” Burt says, a fan of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Martin sea novels. “Here, read this passage, I think it’s pretty good,” he says, as he turns his computer to provide a better view of a detailed account of battle on the high seas:
“Avast!” Captain Selwyn cried, “and give way to the H.M.S. Free Checking Account!”
“Not for a million pounds, you scurvy dog!” replied Jack ‘Redbeard’ Jackson replied. “The bank down the street offers leatherette checkbook covers and lollipops for my kids!”
With a nod and a smile this reporter signals his approval, and moves on to see how the distaff half of the Slifkin family is doing with her work-in-process.
“It’s a murder mystery set in the English countryside,” she says with wry smile. “The genre known as ‘There’s something nasty in the potting shed’ novels.”
Amy gets up to refill her cup, saying “Don’t be too hard on me, it’s a first draft” as she goes, leaving this reporter to peruse her prose without her hovering nearby.
“Madam?”
“Yes?” Lady Witherby replied, looking up from the sampler she was stitching with an anodyne adage that she hoped would be handed down through future generations of her descendants.
“I think you should come take a look at something.”
“Is it urgent?”
“Well, it’s not for me to say, madam.”
“Whatever do you mean,” the mistress of the house said with irritation.
“It’s just . . .”
“Just what?”
“Well, the savings bank down the village is offering toaster ovens if you open up a new account, and the one we have is nearly three hundred years old.”