by Jan Tailor
Something in the Coffee
By: Jan Tailor
Copyright 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9880807-5-1
***
The gas station store looked vacant to the customer. He got his normal goods. As he approached the counter he saw the clerk sitting on the ground asleep. He put the can of pop and sandwich on the counter quietly and counted out the money for his purchase it was $5.78 which he had. However, he remembered he was out of smokes. “Hey Bobby wake up. Rise and shine Bobby!”
Bobby’s eyes opened and he jumped up knocking over his stool. “What yah need?” As his mind caught up he got the king size cigarettes the running suit clad local pot dealer wanted.
“Bobby this is the second morning I’ve come in and you’re asleep. You’d better start drinking more coffee.”
“I’ve gone on to harder stuff,” Bobby gestured with his head three energy drink cans. “I’ve only got one more day and night shift to go then I’ll sleep for a week. Besides all the people who come in from 4:40 AM on are honest and pay up, like you.” Really, Booby hated falling asleep at work but in a 100 hour work week it happens. The jobs were more needed than sleep.
“Dude, I can help you out.” The pot dealer fished around in his pockets. “Here have these.” He placed a small bag of dried mushrooms on the counter. “Brew em up in your coffee tomorrow night and sip it over the night it will keep you up.”
Bobby smiled and thought, ‘right, do shrooms at work – great idea, not.’ He said, “Thanks man, I’ll think about it.”
The pot dealer left but stopped at the door, “Just don’t do too many.”
The next night Bobby had not been on shift for twenty minutes before he was into the first cup of coffee and yawning. By cup three with an energy drink too, his eyes were closing even with customers in the store. He had two choices. Lock the door and get a nap but twenty minutes would not help. If he slept longer, he’d surely have a regular rat him out to the boss – drunks at midnight bitch to the boss when cigarettes are unavailable. Or do the mushrooms, they would wake him up but could he work the register on them or stay sane enough to run the store. He needed the job. The last clerk got fired for sleeping but it was ‘ok’ to act odd so long as you did not sleep. The mushroom went in a coffee pot as he cleaned the other pots.
Bobby took the first sip of the mushroom infused coffee as ‘Constable Clink’ an off duty cop walked in. “Jesus Christ, the things that go on at night on that beach. Every weekend we land on Wreck Beach with naked hippies praying to the setting sun and trying to hide their dope under their saggy ball sacks. And those shit for brains hippies tell me they’re not hurting anyone and I’m oppressing them. They’re the fucking criminals. The liberal courts won’t uphold the charges, that’s why we don’t send em all to jail anymore. Anyone out past ten at night should be thrown in jail, they’re all criminals. “The Constable looked at Bobby for a second, “Present company not included; you work, you have to be here. But all the rest should be locked up. You got the Protestant work ethic, you should apply for the RCMP they’re taking ‘white-bread’ folks like us again.” The Constable winked at Bobby.
Bobby had to fight every Jewish cell in his body from saying something dumb. He said, “That’s good to hear. I’ll look into it… sure would beat working the two jobs I got.”
The Constable turned to look at the coffee, “It’s a long drive home. I could use some coffee.”
“You’ll have to wait. I’m in the middle of cleaning.”
“It looks like that one’s got some coffee in it.”
“Ah, it’s old you don’t want it.” Bobby began to make a new pot of coffee and said, “It will only take a few minutes for a fresh one.”
“I don’t have time. I’m not going to pay for it so who cares if it’s fresh.” The Constable helped) himself to a large cup of coffee from the mushroom tainted craft of coffee. Bobby stood dumbstruck as the Constable took the first sip, “That’s good coffee… keeping it for yourself, eh.”
Bobby raised his cup to the Constable. The Constable did the same as he left the store. Bobby smiled and held back a laugh until the Constable was in his car and driving. Bobby thought to himself, ‘this only happens on Cheech and Chong movies,’ then he broke out laughing. The laughter was added to by the mushrooms making their way into his mind.
A yawn with no sleepiness told Bobby he was now high. Giddiness had him mopping the floor of the store while using the mop as a microphone. The fluorescent light did not agree with his eyes that were only pupils so he turned them off. After taking what felt like ten minutes to give out the correct change to two drunk cooks Bobby felt it would be best to put up a sign saying debit or credit only as he could not make change. However, all the sign said was, “Change yeah.” And every few minutes he would fall over laughing from thought of what Constable Clink must be going through.
Earlier than usual but at a time unknown to Bobby the local pot dealer came in. “Constable hahahaha,” was all Bobby could articulate of his story about dosing the cop for the first few minutes that the local pot dealer stood in front of him.
“I see you took too many mushrooms.”
“Exact change, debit or credit only… math is the enemy.” Bobby thought he was being smart.
“What about the Constable?”
“He came in… I only had the mushroom coffee. He insisted on coffee. I gave him hahaha.” Bobby began to hiccup.
“Dude, an off duty cop just drove into a wall down on Broadway, that’s why I’m not down there. This part of town is full of cops.”
Bobby lost all colour in his face, “What?”
“No shit, the car was flying down Broadway lost control and slammed into a building by Arbutus St. I heard it was an off duty cop. The cops were all over all the bars and restaurants in Kits looking for something or one. I took off cause of the heat. All the afterhours closed early. And you gave mushrooms to a fucking cop, coincidence?”
“Was it Clink?”
“I don’t know, they did not say on the radio. I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Bobby felt woozy and held on to the counter. “Fffuuuck. That is too much man.”
“Turn on the radio see for yourself.” The pot deal gestured to the smokes. “Kingsized.”
Bobby got the cigarette and processed the debit card but said nothing hoping not to hear anymore about Clink.
The pot dealer left but as he walked out the door he said, “Have a good morning, killer.”
Bobby slumped back onto the wall behind him and slid down knocking some product from the display. Visions of Clink going through the window of the car with a manic mushroom made grin on his bloody face before it impacted a brick wall and mashing into red goo with bits of white bone assaulted him. Killer echoed in his brain as the tape continued to play with a scene of the pot dealer telling the cops, ‘Killer, I mean Bobby was laughing his ass off about giving a cop mushrooms.’ Then the cops were coming to get him. It was certainly a crime to give a person drugs without the person’s knowledge. And Bobby was certain that if a bar tender could be held accountable for sending a driver home drunk he would be guilty of the same. These thoughts circled in his mind as he sat in shock and panting on the floor.
A distant siren was getting closer. Every nerve in Bobby’s body told him the siren was from a cop car screaming to get him. He had to get rid of the evidence. He sprung to his feet flipped the door lock on, turned on the water in the sink, grabbed the coffee pot with the dregs of the mushroom coffee and washed it down the sink. The siren grew closer. The bag of crumbs in his pocket was his next concern. It took a trip down the toilet. Still the siren rose in volume. And he remembered the last of the evidence, the video for the cameras. He bolted to th
e back room pushed open the door and hit the eject button exchanging the tape with another tape in the room as blue lights strobed outside and the siren sounded as if it was on top of him. He took a breath and walked out of the door expecting to see a cop pulling on the door. There was a cop car on the street kitty corner to his store but it had a car pulled over. The cop was talking with the driver.
Bobby’s relief was short as thoughts of Clink going through his car window took over. He struggled to tune the radio onto the new channel with the blue strobes beating his brain with flashes of Clink’s grinning face.
Once tuned in the new radio station reiterated the same story: The cop car had not gone into the wall of its own accord. It was clipped by another driver that apparently drifted into the wrong lane. The car that clipped the cop car had been found but its drive had not. And the driver of the