I quit drinking coffee at some point in my life. I don\u2019t really know why but I started up again a month or so ago. There are two Starbucks on my block. Yeah, two. Every morning, before I stopped drinking the stuff, I would go downstairs, three flights down and walk down to the one that is on my side of the street. It\u2019s further than the other one but you have to cross the street to get to that one so I always used the one I\u2019m talking about. They got used to me coming in there and they would even put Juliet\u2019s name on her Venti Soy milk carmaletto latte even though she never actually set foot in the place. I guess I told them her name at some time and so they sharpied \u2018Juliet\u2019 on her drink.<\/p>\n
Armed with her drink and mine I would go back to the apartment and wake her up in time to get to her job downtown. She liked to get up at 7:45 so she could shower and catch the 8:25 train. After she was gone I would get my shower and start taking calls. I\u2019m a help desk guy \u2013 freelance sort of. I have to take two hundred calls a week to keep my gig and I usually get those under my belt by Wednesday morning. Everything else is gravy. Juliet was less than enthusiastic about my career but she stayed quiet most of the time about it. We were at a party a few months ago and she said I was a telephone sex worker. To be fair she\u2019d had a couple of glasses of wine on an empty stomach so she probably didn\u2019t even know what she\u2019d said. I think that that party might be where she and Jason got started. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So like I said, I just got started drinking coffee again, but I don\u2019t get it at either of the Starbucks on my block. I go to a bar named Slappys. Slappys is between my apartment and the Starbucks I used to go to. One morning I just woke up and decided I wanted a cup of coffee. I might have been dreaming of Juliet \u2013 yeah I think I was. She and I were looking at a Sharper Image catalog and considering whether to buy a Swedish coffee brewer. It was carved out of a block of Norwegian porcelain. Who knew that was a thing anyways? It cost $595. I was getting my credit card out when I woke up with a start and found myself craving coffee.<\/p>\n
I was surprised to find it had turned cold and was snowing lightly as I started walking towards the Starbucks. I hadn\u2019t put much on except my sweatpants and a pullover sweater. Slappys\u2019 bar door banged open just before I reached it and a delivery man pushed a two wheeled cart out across my path. I pulled up short and for some reason turned into the bar. It was an odd feeling, a real throwback like the kind of bar my Dad and I went to looking for my Uncle Sal. Uncle Sal would go on a bender every couple of months and it was my Dad\u2019s job to track him down and deliver him back to Aunt Sharmane. Ma always made me go with him. My job, I finally figured out, was to be with Dad so he and Uncle Sal wouldn\u2019t get even drunker once they found each other.<\/p>\n
There were three guys sitting at the bar. Two right next to each other, hunched over staring into short glasses of beer. Empty shot glasses stood in front of each man. They each had a bar towel draped around their necks. The third guy was reading a newspaper and was smoking a cigarette. This surprised me since a recent state law had been passed outlawing this. I guess maybe they didn\u2019t know about the law here in Slappys. The guy with the cigarette stood up slowly and folded his newspaper under his arm as he walked behind the bar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019ll it be?\u201d His voice was thick and gravely. I was pretty sure he was Eastern European.<\/p>\n
Bartender, <\/em>I thought. \u201cDo you have coffee?\u201d<\/p>\n He turned to the back of the bar and pulled a Styrofoam cup off a big stack of cups next to an ancient Bunn double burner. He then took a decanter from the Bunn and poured steaming hot coffee into the cup. Finally he grabbed a flimsy plastic lid from somewhere back there and slapped it over the top of the cup.<\/p>\n \u201cFifty-five cents.\u201d He growled.<\/p>\n I considered asking for cream and a Sweet and Low but though better of it when one of the two patrons opened his mouth and belched. Instead I took a dollar bill out of my sweatpants and told him to keep the change.<\/p>\n I and my coffee were nearly out the door when I heard one of the bar flies call him \u2018Stavros.\u2019 I considered throwing the coffee into the nearest trash can and continuing on to Starbucks but then thought better of it. What if upon seeing me they make Juliet\u2019s drink? They don\u2019t know .. they don\u2019t know what? <\/em>I ask myself. They don\u2019t know what happened. Shit neither did I really. No, I had my coffee. Stavros made it and poured it out for me. So I was set. I returned to my apartment and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was pretty good. It had a good aroma and dusky taste. Black. I hadn\u2019t drank a coffee black since I was in college.<\/p>\n The next morning I woke up and wanted coffee again. No dream of Juliet this time, just a desire for coffee. I looked out the window and noted the weather before heading out. I put a thicker coat on and grabbed my gloves.<\/p>\n Stavros was behind the bar when I walked in. He was leaning over his newspaper mumbling to himself. The two old guys were in their same spots, moldering.<\/p>\n \u201cCoffee\u201d I smiled.<\/p>\n Stavros grunted then turned to the bar and repeated the same actions as he had before. I noted the stack of Styrofoam cups hadn\u2019t seemed to have dropped any since yesterday. I might very well be the only coffee customer he has. Which made me marvel at the enormous reserve of cups the man has next to his coffee machine. Had some smooth talking salesman come in here sometime in the last decade and convinced Stavros that he needed two thousand Styrofoam cups vouchsafed against the day he would be called upon to sell ten gallons of coffee?<\/p>\n \u201cTen cents.\u201d He snarled.<\/p>\n \u201cTen cents?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cTen cents.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was fifty-five cents yesterday.\u201d This man was playing with me.<\/p>\n \u201cToday \u2013 ten cents.\u201d He leveled his eyes at me, daring me to argue with him again.<\/p>\n \u201cOk.\u201d I said digging a dime from my pocket. \u201cSee you tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the old men sang \u201cTomorrow, tomorrow \u2013 I love you \u2026\u201d his voice trailed off. He\u2019d either forgot the words or lost interest.<\/p>\n The next day Stavros and I exchanged coffee for money.<\/p>\n \u201cFifty-five cents.\u201d He said.<\/p>\n I smiled and pulled three quarters from my pocket. His eyes were drawn to the coins as I dropped them on the bar. \u201cKeep the change.\u201d<\/p>\n I was stepping through the door when I heard him say. \u201cBah\u201d<\/p>\n The next few days were dark. I didn\u2019t go out for coffee. Juliet had texted me. She thought we should talk. I ignored the texts and stayed in bed.<\/p>\n Sunday, I went for a walk and stood outside Slappys for ten minutes before walking back home. I had been by there the night before and there was music playing and I could smell hamburgers frying. The bar did OK for itself I guess. I wanted to go in but I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Monday morning I woke up and made myself get out of bed. I had to sign in today and take some calls. Last week\u2019s funk had hurt my numbers and I needed the income. So I went down to Slappys and got some coffee.<\/p>\n Stavros slid the cup in front of me and said. \u201cThirty five cents.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThirty five, huh? Your prices sure fluctuate a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is this fluctuate?\u201d he said slyly. I didn\u2019t take the bait. For all I knew the man was a college professor.<\/p>\n \u201cHow much was this coffee yesterday?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou weren\u2019t here yesterday.\u201d He shrugged.<\/p>\n I pulled two quarters from my pocket and asked. \u201cHow much will this coffee cost tomorrow?<\/p>\n Stavros eyed the quarters and said. \u201cI am not sure. Better you should come in tomorrow and we will find out together.\u201d<\/p>\n I stopped the shenanigans with the money and decided to see what I could do to bring Stavros into present times. I was feeling bad about the Styrofoam cups accumulating in my apartment. I found a plastic travel mug that Juliet had given me in the back of a kitchen cabinet. It had a frog on the front of it and it said \u201cPucker up \u2013 I might be your Prince!\u201d \u201cFifty-five cents.\u201d<\/p>\n Now I had two stupid cups \u2013 I took the top off the frog cup and then took the top off my Styrofoam cup. I poured my coffee into the frog cup and then pushed the Styrofoam cup back across the bar. \u201cNow you can recycle that cup.\u201d \u201cFifty-five cents.\u201d<\/p>\n Each day I walked into Slappys with my plastic frog cup and walked out with coffee in that cup and an empty Styrofoam cup.<\/p>\n Stavros doesn\u2019t recycle.<\/p>\n Once a week I take my Styrofoam cups into the Starbucks. They have a very nice recycle setup in the lobby. The irony of this does not escape me.<\/p>\n Juliet was sitting on my stoop one morning when I came out. \u201cI forgot about that cup.\u201d She points to my frog cup. \u201cThree dollars and fifty-five cents.\u201d He says. I quit drinking coffee at some point in my life. I don\u2019t really know why but I started up again a month or so ago. There are two Starbucks on my block. Yeah, two. Every morning, before I stopped drinking the stuff, I would go downstairs, three flights down and walk down to the one … Continue reading Stavros and Me<\/span>
\nI took that with me the next day and sat it on the bar. Stavros looked at it briefly and then turned to the bar, took down a Styrofoam cup and filled it with coffee.
\n\u201cNo.\u201d I said. I wanted you to put my coffee in this cup. I spun it so he could see the frog.
\nStavros picked it up and then showed it to the guys at the bar. They squinted at it and then chuckled. Stavros put it back on the bar and then handed me my coffee.<\/p>\n
\nStavros grunted, took the cup and its top and tossed it into a trash bin under the bar.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhy haven\u2019t you answered my texts?\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d She is beautiful. Her hair moves in the icy breeze. It\u2019s blonder then I recall. \u201cHave you changed your hair?\u201d
\nShe shakes her head. She\u2019s not going to answer that question. I realize that she never answers any question that she doesn\u2019t want to. She get answers to questions.
\n
\nHow is it I never saw that before?<\/em><\/p>\n
\nI feel my face blush. How will I explain this silly game I play daily with a man who doesn\u2019t know my name?
\n\u201cYeah, I don\u2019t \u2026\u201d I turn back towards my door but then I stop and turn back. \u201cWhat do you want Juliet?\u201d
\n\u201cLet\u2019s walk.\u201d She says and loops her arm through mine. \u201cI need a latte.\u201d
\nFor a few steps she is quiet and then she starts. \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I don\u2019t know what I was thinking. Jason is such a child. He doesn\u2019t know how to be .. \u201c She smiles into my face. \u201cHe\u2019s not you, is what I\u2019m saying.\u201d Juliet squeezes my arm. \u201cI\u2019m hoping we can put all this behind us.\u201d
\nI feel myself nodding my head. I can\u2019t really think as she chatters away. We pull up next to Slappys and her face slips into puzzlement. \u201cWhat\u2019s here?\u201d
\n\u201cI get my coffee here now.\u201d
\n\u201cWhy..\u201d she looks askance at the bar door. \u201cLet\u2019s go to Starbucks. I\u2019ll buy.\u201d
\n\u201cNo.\u201d I plant my feet.
\n\u201cHoney.\u201d Her face hardens. \u201cDon\u2019t be stubborn.\u201d
\nI leave her on the sidewalk and go into the bar. Stavros slaps his newspaper on the bar and looks past me at Juliet as she peeks into the bar.
\nI don\u2019t say anything as I hear the door slam shut. I know that she has not come into the bar. She\u2019s still out there. Outside.
\n\u201cI\u2019d like to buy the bar a drink\u201d I say impulsively.
\nThe half dead men at the bar suddenly come awake.
\nStavros looks at me for a second, giving me a chance to change my mind. His eyes flit back to the closed door where my former girlfriend is tapping her foot on the pavement.
\n\u201cOK.\u201d He nods his head as if agreeing to some unspoken question and pours out the drinks for the men. He then takes my plastic frog cup and fills it with coffee.<\/p>\n
\nI pull a five dollar bill from my pocket, drop it on the counter and say:
\n\u201cKeep the change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"