Johnny Lunchbox was a workhorse with a lick-the-boot mentality. Clocking time. Waiting for his day to come, until out of boredom or necessity, he tied himself off with the brown junk. Just a taste; take it or leave it. But the euphoric sense of speed was overwhelming. He started each sip wanting another. Caffeine mainline. Liquidity. He made the six o'clock stroll to the cafe every morning, staying up later each night unable to sleep or dream or blink. You don't know a town until you've seen it sleep. Same as a woman. Then you can't wake up to the same face anymore; your own. Five generations of ghosts haunting every step, buried with Cala lilies, the grinding of an accordion, wheezing bagpipes, a roller piano; “Kiss me once, kiss me twice, kiss me once again, it's been a long, long time.” He knew the history etched in every epitaph. City hall burned. Creamery stood over there. Family had two houses the size of a city block with a big backyard, leveled for a gas station. Dogs hit by cars, running into streets as if they had swallowed magnetized bones. Sadie, Pal, Hank. He was going down too. Anxiety headaches. TMJ. Quality time ticking. Cold-turkey. Binge. Schizophrenic with everything but the pour; doppio, doppio, doppio. Clouds of foam billowing…
Bankrupt. I own 24% of an espresso bar inside a bookstore that has gone bankrupt. Dead animal. Lights off; mountain of mail on their counter, misshelved books, dust collecting, register removed from sight, no employees. Confused customers. I serve coffee inside this carcass, like Jonah bailing water from inside the whale, learning fast the language of lawyers, landowners, lessors, brokers, businessmen, potential investors, and the multitude of freaks who just want to talk. 80-cents buys my attention. I'm always on. Stringing people out on chit-chat, eye contact, spontaneous performance art, and caffeine. My life is a Mamet play; “Coffee's for closers.”
“Thanks a latte.”
I'll kill the next Kentfield housewife ordering a double half-caf vanilla soy mocha, flat with no chocolate, in a medium cup to stay. Who changes her mind? “Sorry, is it too late to just get a small decaf to go?” Not if you want to Fed-Ex this vegan speedball to some starving child in China or East Oakland who's willing to drink it cold, and pay for the pleasure.
“But I don't want it.”
Then why did you order it?
“I don't know?”
What am I supposed to do?
“Give it to the next customer.”
He wants a large coffee with room for cream, no lid.
“How do you know?”
Because he's ordered a large coffee with room for cream, no lid, every day for two years, and if he ordered something else I wouldn't give it to him.
“What about the woman behind him?”
Non-fat latte, extra chocolate.
“Then we'll have to wait.”
My life is a Beckett play.
The best theater takes place at the front of the line where there are plenty of games to play, including “customer's always right,” “stump the barrista,” “the great menu discovery,” “spill liquid spill,” and my favorite, “suddenly I'm a moron who doesn't now how to complete a simple cash transaction in a coffee shop when seconds earlier I was a successful businessman driving a $50,000 BMW.”
Of course there are games barristas play: “Any milk will do,” “Certainly that's decaf,” “Coming right up,” and “No change for a $20.” There is also the improv that comes with overcaffeination: singing, dancing, swearing. Speaking in tongues. Bad jokes.
- Q: What's the difference between Neal Armstrong and Michael Jackson? A: Neal Armstrong walked on the moon, and Michael Jackson's a pedophile.
- Q: What's the difference between a crucifixion and a circumcision? A: In a crucifixion you throw out the whole Jew…
- A homeless guy opens the door and screams he's suing me because I'm responsible for the death of his brother, the S&L scam, Moses having only ten commandments, and JFK getting whacked in Texas. A woman wearing day-glo make-up, squeezed into a prom dress two sizes too small, screeches at the top of her lungs the song of all tortured souls. Someone takes a bath in the bathroom. No tub. The toilets are clogged with shit, stir sticks and a Victoria's Secret catalog. I don't want to know. Another indigent goes for the double-cup small-in-a-large scam (after receiving a small coffee in two large coffee cups, doubled because “it's too hot to carry,” the bum splits the coffee into the two large cups, filling them to the rim with half and half, creating two large au laits for the price of one small coffee. Cafe owners note: Milk, especially half-and-half, is significantly more expensive than coffee). Reagan's plan of “trickle down neurotics,” opening institutions and setting loose the loonies, is working. The insane are everywhere.
I remember a time in this town when if a man laid on the sidewalk, something was wrong. Now it's commonplace. Everyone is on the ground and it's just a question of which toes you're going to step on. Who's going to get the three count? The politically correct, the police, business owners, the environment, drugs, alcohol, indifference, apathy. Human kindness. People protesting soup kitchens. Christians, cannibals?
I look at the mission, pink stucco surrounded by palm trees, backdrop of hills and cloudless sky. St. Raphael. I remember mass in Latin, hail marys, rosary beads. Site of my parents and grandparents marriage. Crosses to bear. If God gave his approval to that kind of sufferathon, he can give the nod to anything. I want to know, right along with Daniel Woodrell, what would have happened if they didn't crucify Christ? Would the world be different if they had only implemented a little Boonville justice? Took him out back and beat the holy shit out of him?
“Do you have a soy substitute?”
“Milk.”
Telephone rings. It's my mother. She calls at a quarter to nine when the caffeine jones is coming down chaotic on our customers like a million monkeys descending the trees for a single banana. And they're about to be late for work. Dawn of the Dead. Man with the Golden Arm. “No Mom I can't talk now,” I say, scalding myself with the steamer wand, another tribal scar. Mark of the multitasker. Foam spurting in pornographic fashion. Money shot. “I love you too, Mom.” Rattle of coins in tip jar. I end every phone conversation — bakery add-ons, bill collectors, wrong numbers — with, “I love you too, Mom.” Watch the quarters tumble, singles stuffed into the coffee can. You have to work the tip jar — “Nice hair, great dress, fabulous shoes.” “How's Grandma in Des Moines?” “Go Niners!”
“I like my women the way I like my cake, white and moist. Unfortunately, she's like day-old coffee, cold and bitter.”
A dock worker at sea amidst the flotsam of middle aged Marin housewives wants his third double espresso. They want decaf nonfat lattes, “Why Bother?” I want to drink my green health shake, spirulina, mushroom extract, algae. Hedging my bets. Wheat grass and cocaine. Carrot juice and single malt. Cigars and a jog up Mt. Tam. He asks why I would drink such a toxic looking mess. I tell him, “It tastes alright and it's supposed to be good for you.” He says, “That's what they said about pussy!” Housewives freeze like hood ornaments. No rebuttal; Keely Smith is singing “Bewitched, bothered and bewildered.” I slide the guy his drink free; an award for the most offensive statement of the month. Sometimes you don't have to wait for all the entries.
“Frappuchino?”
“Crappuchino?”
“Frozen latte?”
“Cafe booté?”
“Squeeze me?”
“Baking Powder?”
Starbucks. Corporate America eroding the fabric of our lives. Advertising dollars at work. Elaborate lies about the quality of coffee sold by the millions. Billions served. McCoffee. The same people who brought you the Gulf War, a hole in the ozone, climate change, the five-second attention span. They've mall-ified America, destroyed your downtown, killed Mom and Pop's corner store, now they’re back to build in the graveyard. Pick on the bones of your hometown. One flavorless flavor über alles. “But they give to the community.” Like GM gave to Flint, Michigan. Exxon gives to the environment. Next time you're in Starbucks, ask to talk to the owner. Not the manager or a 1-800 number, the owner. See if he's around making foam, stacking milk crates, counting out change. Starbucks customers always ask what happened to the bookstore or the nice people that ran the quaint shop that used to be down the street. I tell them, “You killed them.”
Pop Quiz: I should a) choose quality coffee and a local business, b) support Seattle and a faceless corporation, c) walk up and down the street looking confused.
Caffeine and Cole Porter coursing through my veins, I fall into a rhythm, the camaraderie of the morning crowd; men and women on their way to work. I enjoy the interaction, strangers becoming acquaintances, friends… A community. Playfully joking, recounting boxscores, birthday dinners, movie reviews. Headlines. Daily life. The anonymous anxiety that permeates each and every one of us living with the foregone conclusion of apocalypse. Still making the gesture. Getting up early to battle windmills. Pay the rent. Mow the lawn. Dignity. Hope. I feel partially responsible for this atmosphere, this unnamed enthusiasm, for creating this space. But by the end of my shift, I can't make another latte. All foamed out. I lean back against the refrigerator, sliding to the ground, floor mats sticking to my jeans like honeycomb, contemplating Caffe Valeska from a new angle. Cash register looming like a God. I know the real problem, the true source of my neurosis: I'm not a morning person.
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