Café de la Mémoire

“I was just getting donuts and coffees for the office, minding my own business, when that bicycle courier almost clipped my mirror when I was trying to get out, and then that armored truck, my God! I could have been killed.”

She’d been going on like this for nearly seven breathless minutes—an endless stream of near misses and imagined insults. A small part of me wanted to comfort her. I also wanted to slap the affronted look right off her face. I settled for widening my smile and nodding. Time didn’t matter, and I didn’t mind waiting, though I’m not sure the people standing in the line that stretched into the distance would agree.

I listened, performing for her as part of my job, day after endless day, in the coffee shop, my home for as long as I could remember.

We served all who entered, regardless of their demeanor, finances, clothing (sometimes a lack of…), or method of arrival.

Over time, the dark paneled walls, ripped red vinyl seats at scarred Formica tabletops, and greasy counter had become a part of me, and I, a part of the café: as immovable as the swivel barstools bolted to the floor. I imagined I smelled a little like the shop, too—a little grimy, a little burnt, like the bottom of a coffee pot left on the hot plate overnight. Crispy.

“Are you even listening?” she said, snapping her fingers under my nose and pulling me from my reverie. “Where’s my order?”

“I’m sure the drinks will be ready in a moment, and the donuts, fresh from the fryer, are being iced as we speak.”

“And I expect a discount! I can’t believe this place. Why don’t you have any parking? I had to drive around the block five times—five, do you hear me? And when I finally find a spot, I’m nearly decapitated. You should be paying me. Ha! Those stuffed shirts at the office sure don’t pay me enough for this.”

The bell rang, and I turned, holding the sigh of relief until I faced away. Literally saved by the bell, I picked her order up from the window, the bag heavy and bulging at the seams as something shifted within. I put it in front of her.

“This,” she said, opening the bag and digging in, “had better be right.”

“We do our best,” I said, still forcing the smile.

“This is your best?”

She held up a filled long john with a bloom of green at one end. The chocolate had slid off, and a plump maggot wriggled out of the cream to drop wetly onto her palm.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Let me get you a replacement. I promise it will be ready as soon as the coffees are done. If you could please stand aside while I take the next order, we’ll have it right out to you.”

She looked from me to the cluster of people waiting for their corrected orders and back.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m afraid so. We’re quite busy. So sorry.”

I turned to the next man in line, a lumberjack if his clothing was any clue, although I understand this is the new “look” going around, so really, there was no telling.

I missed the flowing dresses and buttoned-up collars, always finished with a tie. These days, it was all so casual. For them, anyway; I still wore the folding paper hat the boss, disgusting monster that he was, called a “cunt cap,” and the double-knit polyester jumpsuit, issued on day one, that rode up and pinched or chafed my nethers.

“How may I help you today?”

“Sure, yeah, um, can you, maybe, tell me where I am?”

“Of course,” I said. I’d had training in dealing with these types. “I get you, bro. We’ve all had nights like that. You’re in the Café de la Mémoire. What can I get for you?”

“Shit, man,” he said, patting his pockets. “I ain’t got no cash on me.”

“No problem. We’ll just call this first one on the house. Pick your poison.”

“I don’t know. What do most people have?”

“Excellent instincts. We’ll get your order for our specialty started right away. Hang on.”

I hung his ticket in the window, turned back to the counter, and grinned as I flicked a piece of paper off my forehead. Sweat had long ago soaked through the paper of the hat, and it had started to disintegrate.

“Okay. Thanks. Um, do you know how long this is going to take? I feel like I ought to be somewhere.”

“Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. In fact, I’m feeling like I should be somewhere else right now, too. I’m sure you’ll get where you’re going sooner than you think.”

A ding announced his order, and I turned to fetch it. The scent of cold, stale coffee swimming with lumps of undissolved, rancid powdered creamer wafted to my nose, reminding me of another restaurant, another time, another life.

“Here you go, my friend.”

“Thanks,” he said with a hesitant smile. “Why is the cup greasy?”

“Ah, that. It’s to hold the heat better.”

“But this is barely lukewarm.”

“Great! It’s working. Enjoy your beverage.”

Still holding the cup as though it might bite him, he wandered off in search of a seat. The brisk business meant there weren’t many empty spots available.

“Next.”

“I apologize, but I cannot read the menu. It is in English.”

“Is it?” I pressed a button on the register, and the screens mounted on either side of the order window flashed white, then displayed the menu in Mandarin.

“Ah, many thanks,” he said with a stiff bow.

I had already written green tea on his order slip but waited to turn it in. “Green tea, please.”

“Coming right up.”

He bowed again, lower, and stepped aside to wait.

I loved these types. They were always polite, accepting, complacent, even—and they never asked questions. So unlike the police, who hounded me for the guest list, looking for meetings with underworld criminal types in the dim booths at the back.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

The list of things I ‘should’ve’ done haunted me. No use following that train of thought; it had long ago pulled out of the station.

The bell saved me again. I picked up the green tea order and nearly dropped it in shock. The cup sparkled clean and white in the flickering, buzzing fluorescent lights, and its contents made me drool. Coffee, Kona, if I wasn’t mistaken, with a light, creamy schiuma and an aroma that triggered memories of the restaurant’s grand espresso machine, The Ideale by La Pavoni, with its brass columns, hissing gauges, and the eagle perched on the dome at the top. The temptation to drink it felt overpowering, but I set the cup on the counter and motioned to the patient man in the dapper suit.

The floor shook, and the coffee in the cup rippled, disturbing the tracery of foam.

From the back, behind the stained double doors, someone screamed.

Soon, the smell of uncured bacon, rich and fatty without the smokiness, wafted from the kitchen, and the doors slammed open.

“Get out there!”

A young man in a fresh jumpsuit, his paper hat crisp with the logo of a splayed-open brain still visible, stumbled through the doors. They swung back and caught him on his backside, pushing him forward.

“You… you’re supposed to, I guess, train me.”

This was new.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I mean, I was working behind the counter, and this bitch just picked up her fucking Whopper. She just wouldn’t shut up and kept changing the order, and then the robbers and the guns…”

“You spit in her sandwich, didn’t you?”

“Uh, look, I—”

Again, the doors flew open, slapping the walls. The boss had arrived, ducking through the door frame with his horns gouging the edges of well-worn grooves. Behind him, through the still swinging doors, I saw a foot protruding from the oven, slowly crisping.

“Vincenzo Russo, after one century of service, you’re being promoted.”

“Oh, thank—”

“Careful,” he said with a voice like boulders rolling on wet gravel. His eyes narrowed, nostrils flared, and I heard the staccato click of his scales rising.

“... You. I mean, thank you. I could really use a break. These people…”

His smile darkened the room as he tossed me a hairnet, clumps of blonde hair, some still embedded in dripping chunks of scalp, tangled in the fine mesh. “You’re the new cook.”

“Begging your pardon, sir. Are there any other options? I’m no cook.”

“Cook… or fuel.”

“I’d best get started,” I said, forcing the smile back to my lips even as my shoulders drooped, and I pulled the dripping hairnet over my head. “The line’s not getting any shorter.”