c. 2002–2003 · Short story — a shift, told through the previous night’s napkins.
It was just another day for the barista, just another hell. He had to compartmentalize his mind into categories, into two realities: One was work, the other a sorry excuse for a life. What time wasn’t spent soiling his clothes with the tenacious residue of coffee was spent in bars, drinking off the pain of such pointless existence. As he jumped into a pair of coffee-stained pants and strapped on a belt, he glanced down at the crumped napkins he’d been writing on the previous night. These are the lethal silences, the ones that quench one’s soul, when the spirit feels empty, and there’s no change for the next toll. Jesus, the barista thought as he shook his head. Must have been a crazy night. In fact, he couldn’t remember last night at all, not a cloudy memory, or even a hint to how he got home. He pulled a shirt over his head and took another look at the napkins. You’ve run out of tears—no time for your brother’s pain. You’re just a second among the years who stands alone in the rain. The barista could only laugh. He stuffed the napkins in his pocket so he could peruse them later.
He left the apartment he called home, the apartment that cost him two thirds of what he earned at the coffeehouse. He slammed the door behind him and spit on the door knob, in case his bitch of a girlfriend decided to come back and get her stuff. Shaking his head in disgust at the world around him, he ran down the stairs making as much noise as he could. Hell, if he had to be awake thirty minutes before five then the rest of the people in his building could wake their asses up too.
It had snowed again. Muttering a curse as he stuck his hands in his pockets, he ran to his car, which was about a quarter of a mile away from his building because the other residents who owned two, sometimes even three, kept their extra vehicles parked in front of the building. What a fucking joke, he thought. His disgust for the human race grew every day. As he approached his car, he slipped on the icy pavement and pulled his hands from his pockets to catch his fall, tearing his pants and cutting a bloody although superficial gash in his left hand. One of the napkins from the previous night stared up at him from where it had escaped from his pocket when he fell. He picked it up with his freshly-cut hand and read it with a murderous grin. The world watches: a detached judge who records your failures. (It’s all one smeared smudge—a run-on sentence that says nothing but loss.) Yeah, that’s right, he thought. Nothing but bloody loss. After wiping the cut with the napkin, he let it fall to the ground. That’s my life all right: a fucking smear. Boy, I did some thinking last night, didn’t I?
He checked his pockets for his keys and finally found them with numb fingers. He climbed into the car and turned the ignition. After a miserable five minutes waiting for the engine to start idling warm, he pulled onto the main street and began the commute to work. It seemed there was a bloody red light at each intersection, and during one interminable stop he read another of his napkins. This one was stained with what looked like beer—or vomit, he thought. Happiness is an illusion, you’ve seen that for sure. Love is only intrusion, a disease in need of cure. The light turned green and he stepped on the gas with more pressure than the law permitted. He reached for his cigarettes and opened the pack only to find it empty. Fuck! he cried. He took a treacherous U-turn and stopped at a gas station. Might as well fill ’er up while I’m here, he thought. He glanced up at the prices. Holy shit! $2.25 a gallon? Doing business with rag-heads is like having your dick sucked by a cobra, Christ! He read another napkin while fueling his car. The air we breathe pollutes our lungs. The songs we hear corrupt our hearts. Better to leave such evils unsung than deal with the shit it all starts. He grimaced as he felt a migraine coming on. Paying for his gas and another pack of cigarettes (reds this time because he needed more than his usual dose of nicotine), he entered his car and turned onto the highway.
He looked at his watch. Shit! It was already five and he had the keys to the store. He accelerated. Suddenly, he remembered last night. He remembered just sitting there as a shotgun shell ripped the bartender’s heart out of his chest and took a piece of the bar with it. He just sat there and downed his shot, even while one of the thugs brutally raped one of the waitresses, her screams simultaneously pleading and condemning the barista for his inaction. He remembered sitting there, completely apart from the world, unaffected, neither caring nor dismissive, just writing on those goddamn napkins, mouthing the words he scrawled: I drown my sorrows in these bottles of piss, dreaming of a life I somehow missed. Did I look at her and even think that I was maybe going to…that we could…and I ask why…and I ask if only…I mean, how…and I hang my head. Where’s the balance? They see white and black, but I see red. Red! I’m about to crack. I’m starved for love, thirsting for it, and the hour is night, try…try…try not to sigh…goodbye…
The end was too quick for the barista to notice. As his car slammed into the coffeehouse at 80 miles per hour, his body was thrown full-force through his windshield. The bloodied and torn body sat crumpled in the shattered glass of a display case, crimson syrup from the lacerations on his face decorating the cinnamon-walnut coffee cake that lay in his lap. As the police arrived in response to the alarm, the female barista waiting outside for Tony (who had the keys) to unlock the door could only stand there, her mouth hanging open in disbelief, and her head pounding with the hangover brought by too many drinks the previous night…
Composed 2003 · part of the Short Stories collection · authorship documented on the Provenance page.