Mike, Wayne, and Sameen

04/18/2026

Today I got dinner with friends and ended up with a few hours to kill before a birthday party. On the way to dinner I had spotted a bar called city swiggers. It looked ideal. They sold build-your-own beer packs and had a warm place I could drink for a few hours before the party. In a neighborhood full of sports bar, I had found a dive.

I was reading Cats Cradle and half watching the Knicks game. Mike and Wayne were talking about Scurvy. They were discussing how limes were used instead of lemons on some voyage. Wayne was remarking how the sailors hated the limes. They felt they were inferior to lemons. Apparently the captain resorted to mixing it with sugar and grog (watered down rum) to compel them to drink it. Sameen sat in the corner silent.

Mike is a retired librarian. He had worked at NYU for 30 years and was in charge of their multi-media archives. He sits silently most of the time and makes a twisted face that I first read as confusion, but later realized was deep concentration. When he speaks, he breaks out encyclopedic knowledge of history and literature.

Wayne is the owner of Mercer Street Bookstore in the west village and is apparently a published short story writer. He is extremely passionate about the american short story. Before buying the bookstore, he worked at citibank on computer systems. He was very excited to hear that I was a software engineer.

Mike and Wayne have known each other for almost 30 years. They drink together at this bar almost every day. Neither of them is married, but I suspect that their friendship might be stronger than some marriages. They first met when someone was trying to sell Wayne a bunch of stolen books from NYU. He reached out to NYU’s library and ended up in contact with Mike.

Sameen is a fellow in his lates 30s. He has been unemployed for the past 18 months. He is the primary provider for his parents who immigrated from Iran. He claimed to have worked as the COO for three 10B+ valued companies before landing in his current predicament. He was clearly very distraught about his current lot in life. Unlike me, he was not having a relaxing drink. Later in the evening Wayne would eventually tell him to “just get a job”. They did not get along.

At some point, Christie walked over and began talking to Mike and Wayne about her “MAGA cousin”. They’re all in agreement that she is right to be accepting of her cousin despite this character flaw. They’re critical of anybody who wouldn’t. This segues into Christie talking about her background. She grew up in Oklahoma and was raised libertarian. This libertarian twinge is what launches Mike, Wayne, and Sameen’s great debate.

With great hesitation, Christie mentions that she has a divisive opinion that she’s scared to share. Wayne is eager to hear it.

Christie speaks her mind; she does not believe that the government should be allowed to fine her for not wearing her seatbelt. Wayne immediately begins arguing that wearing seatbelts is actually not even safer. He cites an example where someone avoided getting beheaded when sliding under a truck because they were able to position themself in their seat in a way that would have been impossible had they been buckled in. Mike would later go on to remark that Wayne loves nothing more than being contrarian. Christie more or less ignores Wayne’s remarks and challenges anybody to provide a real counter argument to her original statement.

At this point, Sameen engages. I can’t remember the substance of his argument. It goes on for a few minutes. Finally, Christie says something along the lines of “it only hurts me and it only costs me if I get hurt”. At this point, I can’t help myself and I jump in. I say “well the government might pay if you have no health insurance and they need to cover the bill”. Sameen lights up and immediately agrees with my point. Christie makes an unbelievable, genuine argument that most people wouldn’t survive without a seatbelt and there isn’t much to pay for if you’re dead.

A few minutes later, Christie gets a text that her cousin is at her apartment and she departs. Mike, Wayne, Sameen, and I continue to sit around talk for another hour or two. For the most part it involved Mike, Sameen, and I debating against Wayne on a wide variety of fairly random, often non-controversial topics. The first of these topics was whether we were on the brink of civil war. It then quickly devolved into Wayne listing out reasons why he thought every generation after his was inferior.

At one point Sameen started arguing that fiction was irrelevant in the modern age. He didn’t think it offered anything beyond what movies and video games could provide. Most controversially, he didn’t feel that fiction made him more intelligent. Mike absolutely eviscerated this last point. He was not aggressive or rude. He simply explained how “The Year of the French” had helped him understand his own Irish generational trauma. His explanation was so thorough that Sameen immediately conceded.

When I got up to leave Mike and I were arguing with Wayne about whether addiction was real. He didn’t think it was. I’ll have to close the loop on that one when I visit Mercer Street books.

Suggested books:

The year of the French - Mike

New York City Slaves - Wayne