(With apologies to Neil Gaiman. And Harlan Ellison.)
I’ve never been afraid of coffee or espresso machines before.
I’ve had cups of coffee that might have melted spoons in diners that would make
Edward Hopper’s blood run cold. But since visiting one particular coffee shop
in Seattle, I’m now a lot more cautious about where I get my Java...
It started around 9 am one morning in Seattle. I had
finished a late night book signing at around 1:30 am the previous night and on
top of being jet-lagged was thus so seriously tired that I was having a
difficult time staying awake. Being in
Seattle meant that I had a lot of cafes to choose from but there was something
about small, dark café called the Drip Drop Café that caught my eye.
The coffee shop was old…very old. It predated Starbucks and
possibly the arrival of Columbus in the new world. It had cups that appeared to
have been carved from polished mammoth bones; drifting piles of coffee grounds
in the room’s corners seemed to predate the pyramids. The very air in the cafe
seemed liquid, warm, humid, probably highly caffeinated. The cashier and baristas
were friendly on the face of it but in the way of Marines who are pretty sure
they won’t HAVE to kill you. There appeared to be coffee grinding machines and
steamers but from the stuttering howl they made when operated by the baristas,
the grinding could have been done by damned souls or even self-flagellating
gnomes under the counter.
When I ordered my coffee, the barista seized my hand and
locked eyes with me. She asked “Do you want your coffee with room?”
“For cream?”
“For truth.”
“Uh, sure.”
A few minutes later, I sat down with my coffee. While it
cooled, I watched people order and walk away with their drinks. This being
Seattle, a lot of the drink requests sounded more like incantations to dark
Vegan gods than coffee orders but the baristas handled the requests with aplomb
and an intense efficiency that was actually quite impressive. Just then, a
prominent local lawyer started walking away with his cup, took a sip, scowled
and went back to the barista.
“Hey, my coffee is cold and bitter!”
“Like your soul,” she replied. “You said you wanted room for
truth.”
“Well how about making it over again and doing it right!!”
Silence gripped the room: a dozen conversations abruptly
ceased and people busily looked down at their coffee with scared expressions. I
happened to be looking out of the corner of my eye and it looked like there was
something else in the barista’s place, like a gargoyle from a desolate
cathedral or a Faustian demon. Her hands planted on the counter and the
chilling, ancient visage leaned across the counter,
inches from the terrified man’s face.
“Leave. Now.”
The man uttered a strangled squeal and scampered out,
walking crabwise as if he was afraid he would lose control of his bodily
functions. Conversations paused in shock resumed and it was as if the incident
had never happened. But I knew and now I wondered what MY coffee would taste
like, since so many of my stories involve pain and fear and haunted souls.
I took a sip. It was the best coffee I had ever drunk in my
entire life! It was like being 20 again on a Spring day and you’re in the
British museum and a pretty girl smiles at you! It was like being at the pier
and seeing dolphins frolic there, jump through the air and then spell out your
name. I sat there and savored the coffee as long as I could, each sip like a
mouthful of recovered youth. Finally, there was no more left of it to drink and
I reluctantly took my cup back to the counter. As I started to walk away, the
barista said “I know you’re not local so I won’t ask you to sign our plastic
bag ban petition.”
“You know who I am?”
“Of course. And thank you for staying so late last night to
make sure everyone got their book signed. It was classy. I was near the end of
the line.”
“Thank you.” I stopped to look at the petition. “If you tell
me a bit about this, I’ll Tweet about it later. You’re trying to avoid
landfills?”
“No, it’s more the metaphysical implications that we’re
worried about. “ (pause) “Sorry, I just kind of dropped that on you there.
Look, most of your writing has to do with mythology of one kind or another. The
old gods versus the new ones in American Gods. All the gods needed sacrifices
to stay alive, the larger the sacrifice the better?”
“Yes?”
“How many sacrifices could be more significant than a dinosaur.
One that lived 150 million years ago? That’s what the petrochemicals in plastic
bags are made of, after all.”
What she was saying began making sense. She continued
speaking.
“When you render down a plastic bag, it’s a kind of
sacrifice. That’s why the human population is exploding. That’s why the world’s climate is changing. Unconscious
sacrifices are being made and they are being answered. If it doesn’t stop, the
world is going to change in ways you could never imagine. Yes, even you. The
old ones are waking up and they WILL wake up…hungry.”
“So what can we do to prevent it?”
The barista paused. Her face was like a stony mask with a
hint of sadness behind the eyes, like she was trying to be loving and gentle while
a beloved pet was given her last injection. Then that look was hidden behind a
brave and blandly hopeful smile and she said, “Just do your best to get the
word out and it will all be fine. Oh, and do me a favor and thank Harlan
Ellison for his introduction to Strange Wine. He didn’t exactly convey the
message we asked him to but he tried to do something and the effort was
appreciated.”
I never went back into that particular café again. I didn’t
have the nerve. I did start to talk to Harlan once about that café but I
stopped when his face started to turn green.
I wonder how much time we have left.
