You walk into the door, forgetting that it’s made of glass. Good thing you’re a ghost and can pass through. That’s what you tell yourself to avoid an embarrassment. You cut the one-person queue and walk up to the counter. Queues are for losers and British people, but you repeat yourself(Joke valid After March 29, 2019). The middle-aged mom behind you looks shocked. She is itching for a fight. Her too-tight yoga waistband snaps and she has to run out clinging her Spanx leggings. Whew! Saved By The Belt.
You greet the cashier behind the counter ‘What up LaMark?’. He’s not black. Nor a biologist. Is he a cashier or a barista masquerading as one? Or vice versa? Or versa-vice? You want to order black coffee. You talk yourself out of it. It’s too early in the morning to trend on Twitter.
You ask about the beans. They’re from Ethiopia, replies LaMark helpfully, even though his name-tag says: Jackson. You’re not convinced. You want to know which animal threw them up. LaMark says ‘Well they were smuggled here in human anuses. Which is sort of like pooping’. Good enough for your morning espresso. Sold!
Fireflies fly out as your rump makes contact with a flea-bitten, sack of juniper berries. It’s where you’ll spend your morning contemplating Kierkegaardian Existentialism. Or whatever the kids are calling it these days. “Fortnite”, if you recall correctly. You peer into screens around you. What is that lady googling? ‘Ways to summon the beasts of hell’. You wonder if the first result will be ‘Be a Third-World country in need of aid’. Over by the window, a teenager bobs his head back and forth to the beat. There is no music playing in the cafe. He doesn’t even have headphones on. He’s having a stroke. You smile at his youthful exuberance.
Your coffee comes in a simple white cup and you smash it against the wall to the pieces. They rebrew it and serve it in a mason jar. You sip boiling hot coffee through a metal straw. You fondly remember your masochistic flings of youth. The espresso tastes like the bitter urine of a diabetic coyote. You would know, you lived in Punta Cana for a year. Alertness envelops your brain like a hungry wolf enveloping a moose. All’s right with the world in this tiny neighborhood cafe.
