Last Thursday, this guy and a female companion was at the next table at Zócalo Cafe. I was trying hard not to listen to his conversation. I had a lot of proofreading and writing to do, and I left my noise canceling headphones at home. Consequently, I heard snippets of their chat about the history of Oakland and San Leandro. I don’t really know what the thread of the conversation was about, because I was intermittently successful at blocking them out, but I heard enough to want to use a vintage map of Oakland as the table top in this drawing.

Ajuan Mance