5:00 am

on coffee. . .

Coffee is pretty gross when you break it down. It is a bitter, dirty, somewhat astringent concoction whose only real benefit is the stimulation. Sure, snobs will disagree and offer that there are complexities with roast and origin and yadda yadda bullshit, but in the end it is just hot bean water.

It’s the same twattery people layer onto wine and IPA brews. Enough already. None of it is good. It is all just faux sophistication to disguise the need to be altered. And don’t get me started on decaf or nonalcoholic drinks. You don’t start on those. You end up there because your habit is stronger than your common sense.

Yet here I am. Pulling the handle on a door to this profit conglomerate with a burning need to spend my hard earned cash on a subpar attempt at a middling beverage choice. Brewed by a robot from beans roasted by robot, shipped from who knows where, and served by someone who would rather be doing something else.

I honestly don’t know how it got this way.

See, I never liked coffee, but I did like the coffee shop. I was poor so I would order what was cheap. A mug of this terrible tasting alternative to tea I could nurse as I sat with friends and contemplate the speed of light. The local spot was an oasis with an outdoor patio tucked away under the shade of large trees accented with string lights.

It was marvelous and I fell in love.

I learned to play chess at the coffee shop. I wrote rhymes at the coffee shop. I had deep and meaningful conversations with strangers at the coffee shop. I professed my lamentations, dreamed of rock stardom, endeared myself, embarrassed myself, and became myself all at the coffee shop.

Not this place. This is basically a fast food restaurant that serves the occasional cup of coffee. Most of their profits come from selling milkshakes and slushy drinks to mask the taste of their horrible espresso. I mean their entire model is ubiquitous branding and market saturation.

You know where I am.

I don’t have to say the name.

I order a large black coffee and pull out an ancient payment method. The person behind the counter asks if I have the app. Something about earning rewards for free coffees and discounts on overpriced merch.

“I don’t carry a phone.”

Why would I? I don’t feel so self important that I need to be at the beck and call of whomever wants to get my attention. I have not dulled my intellect so far as to need the assistance of a machine to help me navigate the world. I am not so desperate for dopamine that I need to mainline content into my eyeballs every five minutes.

But what about emergencies?

They can wait. I am not superman. If I get caught out it will be annoying but I know how to manage my existence without fondling a screen. Granted I should probably memorize a couple phone numbers, but whatever. I would rather be inconvenienced than be a slave.

The clerk is not phased. I am an oldster so it isn’t surprising that I am not hip to what all the cool kids are doing. There is more than one way to skin this geriatric piece of shit into collecting his data and building brand loyalty. Deep down though, they know I am scratching at something they understand about their own phone use, however they are well trained.

“You can get a store card and it works the same, then if you ever want to do the app it will all transfer over.”

Somehow I am able to verbalize a polite “no thank you” through a mouth positioned for expletives. I don’t want your fucking card. I don’t want your fucking app. I don’t want to sign up. I don’t want to be treated like a toddler with your good job stickers and promises of a treat if I am a good boy. I just want the overpriced disgusting sludge you call coffee and to get on with my day.

“Thank you so much!”

Back in the Jeep I sigh. It didn’t used to be this way. The transaction used to be simple. I gave you money, you gave me coffee. If I came around often enough you maybe learned my name. If I came around often enough and long enough you might even give me free coffee due to how polite and affable I am.

No technology involved, only human kindness.

I miss the old school coffee shop even though some of my darkest days were spent there. I was lost. Fresh out of jail for driving on a suspended license of all things, I had to move back in with my parents. I had to try to piece together a life on sheer willpower and the kindness of friends. I clawed my way back to normal at the coffee shop.

I wrote a terrible script and formulated a way to crawl out of the hole I had dug for myself. I made friends with the staff, journaled, wrote rhymes, and smoked my way back to my feet. Then I met a girl who led me an opportunity to explore a part of the world I had never seen.

She was in love with my best friend and I was chasing him to get away. I never did find a coffee shop there and ended up slinking back home after a year or so. Feeling like a failure I decided to do what I found comforting. I went back to my old coffee shop to find a familiar face. I settled in and started yet another rebuild.

I contemplated opening my own coffee shop. I would have tried if anyone around me would have shared the same desire. I didn’t want to do it alone and I didn’t know where to begin so that idea faded along with a million others conceived at the coffee shop.

I wrote unsophisticated songs and fell in love at that coffee shop. I felt the grandest joy a soul can muster at that coffee shop and was obliterated there as well. I wrote insipid poetry at that coffee shop, and found a way to survive the crushing there. That coffee shop was my castle and I was the king.

My friends stayed connected through sessions at the coffee shop. I heard about engagements, pregnancies, and births at the coffee shop. We shared our lives over cups of brewed beans. We challenged ideas and built dreams in those seats. We laughed and hugged and hoped at the coffee shop.

I found myself in a legal pinch again and left my shop behind. It took me forever to find a place where I felt comfortable and even then it paled in comparison. Still, I kept my sanity at a coffee shop. I grinded through the troublesome there. Then this girl started working there and I made her my wife.

I was kicked out of my band at a coffee shop. I later had to have a hard conversation about cancer at a coffee shop.

Those were the first tears I ever saw shed in that space.

I still pour some out for the dead homie.

Somewhere along the line the romance faded. I was merely maintaining a habit and hoping there would be a little something left to wring. Soon enough I realized I had been going to the coffee shop for more years than the staff had been alive. The atmosphere had sterilized and I became a patron who only mattered if I joined the club.

There are probably local mom and pop shops around, but I haven’t looked. I have learned to cope with life without a corner seat in some out of the way cafe. Maybe I will find my way back, but I don’t know. It’s probably time to cast this addiction aside and retire the hopes that something magical can happen over a simple drink.

The death of some romantic ideal.

I think I will head up to the spot I took that coffee shop girl who annihilated me. We went there after our first date to look at the city lights. She probably wanted me to make a move but I was trying to be a gentleman. My god. My heart was trying to escape my ribcage as I held her hand.

I dug that girl completely.

I should be able to get up there before the sunrise. Enough time to look down on the silent twinkle of a landscape engulfed by civilization. The comfort we installed that has stolen the stars. It’s beautiful in a way. It doesn’t quite inspire awe, but it’s cool to look at the world in miniature.

Finding a place to park I settle into the silence and take a long gulp of the dirty bitterness I can’t let go of. Stepping out of the Jeep I spot a rock that looks like it might accept my sitting. Looking out at the city lights I light up a cigarette and wonder what that girl is doing these days.

Me? I am going to live my habits. I am going experience my days and make time to go to the coffee shop and wish for something wonderful to find me there.

Here’s to hoping.