Hearing it again freezes me. I want to throttle Jeb but my fury fades, being replaced with a numbness that is all too familiar.
“Jeb, why don’t you go back out on the floor.”
“I’m sorry man, I just—”
“Please Jeb, go back out on the floor,” she says again.
She reaches over and gently grabs the Corrective Action. The rhythmic thud of my heart inside my chest drowns out my thoughts. The sound of paper ripping fills the air.
Next
Four cigarette butts and the ash-stained ground beneath my feet are the only things I can focus on. My break’s probably over. I usually smoke two but can quickly puff through three cigarettes on my lunch breaks. Right now my fifth one is almost finished, the filter hot between my fingers. So many things keep running through my mind, one thought after another, pushing away the one before. The only constant is the image of four cigarette butts and that ash-stained ground beneath my feet.
The heat of the filter burning jars me out of my stupor. Around me is the hustle and bustle of the city, its denizens going about their daily lives. The buzz of so many routines being followed hums in my ears like insects. We love our routines; they allow us to move along without having to stop and think. And my routine of going back to work after a few cigarettes kicks me in gear, accompanied by a sigh of reluctance.
The glances I receive while walking to the back tell me that my coworkers know what’s going on. Thanks Jeb. I ignore them and head into the bathroom to put away my stuff. Sarah’s sympathy accosts me as I leave the bathroom. “Are you going to be okay Jason?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I say and turn to look at the schedule on the wall to avoid looking at her. I notice Elena’s name is crossed out and her shifts have been covered by other baristas. “Sarah, why are all of Elena’s shifts covered?”
She sighs and says, “She don’t work here anymore.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Jason—”
“I’m sorry, but you’ve got to be kidding me.”
She pinches the skin between her eyes, sighs and says, “I wish I was.”
“What happened, did she quit?”
“No, we’re transferring her to another store.”
“Why?”
“Look, I’m only telling you this because you were there, but I don’t want you talking about it to everyone else.”
Sitting down across from her, I ask, “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
“Promise me you aren’t going to talk about it with anybody and I’ll tell you.”
“I promise, now tell me.”
“Elena called me and told me about what happened when she went out for drinks with you, Duncan, and Jeb.”
The stunning continues, relentlessly. I never realized how selfish I am: all I can think about is how everybody is leaving me.
Sarah continues, “She was pretty upset about it. She called me to tell me she quit. Luckily I was able to convince her not to, so I covered her shifts and put in a transfer request. She’s going to be picking up shifts at different stores for the next two weeks and then she’ll transfer to one of the stores in Mission Valley.”
God how I hate Duncan right now.
“Jason, I already talked to Jeb. He told me how you stood up for her and I think that was great and all. But I want to make sure you and Duncan are going to be able to get along. I know you’re dealing with some things in your personal life right now and I’m sorry about that but I need to be able to count on you. We don’t always get along well ourselves and you’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t agree with how I run things, but what with Holiday almost here and losing Elena, it’s going to get a bit bumpy for a little bit. Liz is coming along nicely, but she’s not quite confident in her own ability. You’re my best shift supervisor and without an assistant manager I’m going to lean heavily on you in the coming months.”
To say I don’t agree with how she’s running this store into the ground is an understatement. But to be fair, until these last couple of days, I couldn’t see any redeeming qualities in her. I never would have thought that she could be compassionate and understanding of legitimate problems. I also never would have guessed that she had any kind of perception into her employees’ performance that measured up accurately with reality.
“How is she doing, by the way?”
Her question startles me out of my thoughts. “Who?” I ask.
“Your girlfriend, Raquel.”
“Her name is Rachael and she’s not my girlfriend,” I reply. “And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t bring it up again.” I ignore her sympathetic replies, put on my apron, and walk out to the front to handle someone else’s needs.
“Tall americano for Hilda!”
“Thank you, have a good day.”
“Hi there! What can I get started for you today?”
“Liz, do you mind if I take bar?” I ask.
“Um, alright. Jeb could you do a spin when he slides for you and then assign a till?”
Jeb looks at me sheepishly before replying, “Yeah, no problem.”
I slide into the bar position, completely ignoring Jeb and start pulling shots for an iced grande americano.
“Do you guys carry the ice cream?”
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t. But Ralph’s does and it’s just a couple of blocks down the street.”
“Jason,” says Jeb while he’s wringing out a sanitized towel. “I’m sorry man. I was just trying to help. I don’t want to see—”
“Just stop Jeb.” I continue to focus on the drinks at hand. One after another as it starts to pick up. The afternoon rush has begun and our work speed increases. Drinks start to pile up on my bar. Eager faces fill up the space around the handoff counter; expectant eyes watch my every move. My mind shuts out the noise of my life and focuses solely on making drinks.
Grande nonfat two splenda latte: rip off the tops of two splenda packets and dump in cup, fill pitcher with nonfat milk and begin steaming, aerate milk with steam wand to make luscious dense foam, pull two shots, swirl shots in cup to melt splenda, use spoon to hold back foam while filling cup with steamed milk, top off with foam, lid it and call it out to an impatient Gayle.
Double tall breve extra hot no whip mocha: pump three pumps of bittersweet mocha syrup into cup, fill pitcher with half & half, aerate half & half with steam wand, pull two shots, swirl shots in cup to melt mocha syrup, use spoon to hold back foam while filling cup with breve, lid it and call it out to a sour-faced Rena.
Tall six-pump vanilla extra caramel no foam extra whip caramel macchiato: pump six pumps of vanilla into cup, fill pitcher with milk and aerate with steam wand to make luscious dense foam, pull two shots, bang pitcher on counter to help settle foam, hold back foam and fill with milk, pour one shot on top of milk, add lots of whip, squeeze a disgusting amount of caramel sauce onto whip, lid it and call it out to a morbidly obese Steve.
Triple iced grande whole milk extra ice latte.
Short no room americano.
Doppio espresso machiatto.
Tall non-fat cappuccino.
Half-caf half-shot grande non-fat two pump hazelnut, one pump sugar-free vanilla latte.
Quad tall with room americano.
“Hi! What can I get started for you?”
“I’ll get a tall coffee and a blueberry scone.”
“Do you guys have a restroom?”
“I’m sorry, we don’t. But there’s one in the mall just around the corner and up the stairs.”
“Hi! Can I get a drink started for you?”
The rush fills the store with people, with noise, with needs and wants and expectations and disappointment and excitement. It fills my mind and moves my hands for the last two hours of my shift as I work the bar alone. It’s busy enough that anyone else would have another barista helping them on bar. But I don’t need anyone else and my fellow baristas know this. It’s not because I’m fast. It’s because I’m the fastest, and my dr
ink quality is the best. I’m the best barista in our store, in our district, in our region, in our zone. In all likelihood, I’m the best barista in the company. And sometimes, when everything else sucks in my life, I take solace in my ability to go solo on the bar during a busy rush.
My fellow baristas know to keep a safe distance; I’m a human tornado. I’m moving extremely fast, faster by far than most people can move but my movements are precise, controlled. Moving liquid around at high speed is hard and usually results in spills but I’ve become a master at the dance, hot and cold milk move from jug to pitcher to cup with barely any spilt.
These moments of mine, where I am king of the bar, are some of the rare times when customers take notice and give voice to their appreciation. I bask in it and encourage more with flashy flourishes, spinning whip cream canisters in my palms, tossing cups into the air over my shoulder and catching them behind my back without looking. I excite the customers gathered around the hand-off counter with long pours, where I start with the pitcher close to the cup and continue to pour while moving the pitcher away until the milk is traveling three feet from pitcher to cup. Small cheers of delight from them alert those waiting in line and soon I am the center of attention.
My eyes remain laser-focused. I’ve scanned the drink codes on the next ten cups, quickly planning out my different milks and shots. I’m flipping a whip cream canister dangerously high into the air while queuing up my next six shots of espresso. A small gasp from a couple of customers follows my quick catch of the canister. A one and a half spin of it in my palm aligns the trigger to my fingers and I pull it, topping off a grande white chocolate mocha before lidding it and calling it out.
Both my body and my mind are consumed by the hectic speed needed to rock the bar this hard. Compliments and tips are thrown at me by my audience, the customers. Several middle-aged people compare me to Tom Cruise from Cocktails. The attention feels good and my last two hours fly by before I know it. Liz steps into my zone, forcing me to slow down and says, “Alright hot shot, you’re off now. I’ll slide for you.”
She smiles at me and when I step away from the bar, my fellow baristas and a few customers give me a round of applause. I stand there sweating, my body quivering and my hands still moving, not knowing what to do. My mind is like a humming bird flittering around, only now it has nothing to focus on. I fill up a cup for water and walk to the back to get my things. The crushing weight of my worries begin to settle back around my shoulders. A numbness overtakes my being and I barely acknowledge my fellow baristas as I leave.
Immediately after stepping through the door I see my mother standing calmly by the newspaper stand. Before I know it, I’ve walked up to her. Looking into her eyes, my thoughts are filled with Rachael and images of my dad lying in a hospital bed, dying. Looking back up at me, her eyes knowingly search my own.
“Mom,” I say, my voice shaking.
“I know baby,” she says and she does. Everything bottled up inside smashes out, my shoulders shake, tears spill out and I cry out, “Mom, I don’t know what to do.”
She embraces me and the damn bursts, leaving me sobbing like a child. “It’s okay Jason,” she says while patting my back. “It’s okay.”
It’s Not Fair
The lights of El Cajon Boulevard streak by, illuminating the darker parts of San Diego. Liquor stores and gas stations pepper the long street, nestled deep in the dirt and the grime. The city’s unsavory characters stroll along the sidewalks and cruise slowly past the street corners in beat-up old cars. Brown-bagging drunks are chased away from prostitutes by angry pimps into the loving hands of crack dealers looking for easy customers. All around me are the dregs of society; those looked down on by everyone else. Driving down the seedy street, I don’t see the differences between these people and the ones that come into my store. I see the similarities; the most important one is the sense of need.
I take a slow drive down this street whenever I’m hit with overwhelming hatred for humanity. I don’t know why; it doesn’t make me feel any better. I think maybe it acts as a confirmation, further proving that we suck. Tonight though, my thoughts aren’t ruminating on despicable behavior or how much I despise people. I’m thinking about my dad, about Rachael, and about the cruelty of life. I’m thinking about my mother and our long conversation, about her comforting me and how strange that felt, and about her own loss.
After my breakdown in the mall, I went with my mother to her house. It was a silent ride. The wall between us now had a gaping hole in it, and I was at a loss as to how to deal with what that meant. My whole world seemed to be unraveling and regurgitating painful memories. My mother and I finally came to terms with each other and how we dealt with my father’s passing.
I was thirteen when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. I turned fourteen the day before he died. My father had never liked going to the doctor. He was the kind of man that preferred to suffer, “toughing it out” he would’ve said. So when he finally decided to see a doctor after he started coughing up blood, the cancer had already metastasized throughout his body. Aggressive chemo-therapy and radiation prolonged his suffering, and ours.
The treatment and the cancer waged war on his body. I watched him lose his hair. I watched him lose weight. I watched his skin lose its ruddy complexion and become pale and pallid. I watched him lose his dignity. I watched all this alone. My mother stopped coming by the hospital after the treatment began. My father told me it was okay, that he understood why. But I couldn’t. Resentment for her spread throughout me like a poison and the wall between us was formed.
The end was the worst for me. For the last month of his life, my dad had become a shell of a human being. The treatment had been forsaken; there was no point in it anymore. He held on by will alone, waiting for my birthday. Every day he asked if it was tomorrow. His sense of time was gone like my sense of him. At this point he was on so much morphine, to make the end easier, that he wasn’t awake for much of the day. It felt like he was already gone. But on the day before my birthday, when he woke up and asked me again if it was tomorrow, I told him yes. His eyes lit up and he looked at me.
For a brief few moments he was entirely focused while looking into my eyes. A smile came to his face and he told me how excited he was and that we’d better get some rest for the big day tomorrow. He closed his eyes, clicked his morphine button and fell back asleep.
The next day, I asked my mother to come with me to the hospital. It was all I wanted for my birthday. She was sitting in the den, drinking from an ever present glass of wine, staring into the fireplace. I screamed at her when she wouldn’t answer me. She turned around and looked at me a moment before slowly turning back around to gaze into the fire, not saying a word. I almost forgot about her when I got to the hospital, almost.
When I walked into the room, my dad was sitting up in his bed. He hadn’t been able to do this for a long time. He turned towards me, completely aware of what was going on around him. His eyes were sharp when he looked at me and his voice was strong when he spoke. He seemed so much like his old self. He was cracking jokes to a nurse fussing with his I.V., carrying on with enthusiasm and exuberance. He was engaged with me when we conversed and I almost forgot where we were. Doctors and nurses came and went, checking on him. To each one he would exclaim that it was my birthday, causing the most joyful embarrassment I’d ever felt.
One of the nurses brought us a couple of pieces of cake and had even smuggled in candles. The nurses and one of the doctors joined my dad in singing happy birthday to me before I blew out the two candles. After finishing the cake my dad pulled out a present for me and held it in his hands while nodding at the nurses and the doctors. They left on his cue, leaving us alone. He continued to hold the small gift in his hands while he told me about his high school years. I was going to be a freshman next year.
He told me that what he was holding had helped him when he was in high school, that he was able to identify with it when so much was changing in his life. He h
anded it to me. The wrapping was yesterday’s newspaper and I tore through the comics to open it. The Catcher in the Rye. It was a worn and well-read copy, the pages yellowed and smelling a little musty with more than a few dog-eared corners. He told me it was his favorite book still to this day. He’d read it dozens of times. He told me not to worry about the time period it was set in, it was old even when he read it but that the tale was timeless.
We spent the rest of the day talking and laughing. He tried to give me some advice about girls and cars and college. I tried to steer our conversations away from the future and reminisce on happier times from the past. I didn’t say anything about his sudden resurgence; I simply relished in it and squeezed the moment for all it was worth. It was hard to say goodbye that night. My dad hugged me for a long time, telling me how sorry he was that he wasn’t going to be there. I thought I’d dried up all my tears months ago. Deep inside I knew this was our last hug. I told him I loved him and he did the same.
The next morning I was putting on my coat, about to leave for the hospital, when the phone rang. I could see my mother sitting in the den, next to the old rotary phone. She carefully finished off her wine and gently placed the glass on the side table. While she did this, the phone continued to ring. On the fourth ring, she picked it up and answered it. She breathed the word “finally” before hanging up. I knew then that he had died.
“Do you remember what your father gave you on your fourteenth birthday?” she had asked once we’d gotten to her house and settled down at the kitchen table.
Still a little rattled, I’d looked up at her and said, “What?”
“The book,” she said.
“Yes,” I answered.
“That was his copy, you know.”
“I figured as much.”
“Yes, but did you figure out how he retrieved it from his library to give it to you?”
I didn’t answer immediately. I had never thought about it. I looked up at her and asked, “Why?”
The Dark Roast Page 17