Coffee Boy

A Story by Simeon

Coffee Boy

The store perched like an eagle on a gentle sloping hill adjacent to the old highway that ran through the south of town. Every year a local holiday race terminated at the top of the hill there, and in a past year, when the race should have been called off for ice hazards, a man in his 60s slid down the hill and was sent to the hospital. After that, the runners had always called the hill “Old Man” paying tribute to the memory of the runner’s great slide. For me, it was the hill I used to walk once a week to get milk, eggs, and flour for the family, so for that sake maybe I could call it “Grocery Hill.” No matter what the nomenclature, the hill was had a unique character of rustic beauty.

From Main Street�"standing at the corner by City Hall�"a keen-eyed fellow could see the roman-style, dried-up fountain on top of the pinnacle hill sitting kitty-corner from Richard’s Store & Gasoline. If I were to look today, from a spot much closer than City Hall, underneath the blanket of crisp brown Oak leaves, I would see the reservoir of the fountain full of 12 oz red, disposable cups labeled with Rich’s outdated logo. There are several stories that circulate among local high schoolers explaining how so many of Richard’s cups ended up neatly stacked and full of coffee in the disused fountain of an abandoned Italian restaurant’s overgrown patio. Explanations range from supernatural to super-odd, and most are told at high school parties in a form similar to a Socratic discussion. However, party talk is too complex�"too entertaining. The accurate explanation is something much more simple.

Andy was my friend six years ago, back in the days of high school. I say friend; I mean acquaintance. Realistically, I talked to Andy a number of times I could count on my left hand, but regardless of how little I spoke with him, it was still more than anyone else in the school could even claim they made eye contact with him. He was an odd fellow, but not odd enough to justify his rejection. The truth is, I don’t think anyone really knew why they didn’t acknowledge him except for the fact that it was a pathetic upheld tradition. Straying from tradition, I got curious about this fellow Andy and began to inquire. Being the non-confrontational type, I decided to follow Andy home one day, avoiding his recognition. I realized he walked home from school, so I followed him out the south doors of the high school. He arrived at a large house much nicer than mine, and to this I was in dismay. Andy was a wealthy child. He didn’t dress like it, he didn’t have friends like it, but wherever he called home�"whether it was his mom, dad, or grandparents�"was nicer than what I called home. I didn’t feel comfortable going any further, and I headed home upon his arrival.

Halfway home, I remembered my mom needed milk. Fifteen minutes later, I was taking a breathing break as I walked up the hill to Richard’s Grocery & Gasoline. I noticed a silhouette of a quaint figure walking across the ridgeline parallel to the highway. He was relatively tall and a slender lamp post. The curls of his medium length hair were noticeable with the harsh backlight of the sun. When I got to the top of the hill, I had to rub my eyes. Andy was the boy that had just walked in the door with a chime!

“Ding-a-ling,” the door chimed, marking my entrance. My thoughts were dinging in my head louder than the door. What were the chances that Andy and I go to the store at the same time? Did he actually see me follow him home and I did I not notice? If he is so rich, why is he walking to get groceries? I forced myself to take a deep breath and realize he was oblivious and that this was a coincidence. I headed directly towards the milk, which was located in the back of the store, forcing customers to walk through the wants to get to the needs. I didn’t even look to see where Andy went. I got to the opposite side of the small store quickly, and grabbed the cheapest two-percent milk jug I could find. I checked its date and headed back near the doors to check out. The aromatic smell of fresh brewed coffee caught my olfactory nerve as if it was a well-baited catfish. What make Richard’s place unique was his small coffee bar that he had near the front-side windows of the store. People would often come to pick up a fresh cup of coffee roasted, ground, and brewed at Richard’s in the morning on their way to wherever they were headed. Although it was a half past five in the afternoon, I had a serious conviction to go get a cup of coffee�"I was tired, and I loved a well brewed cup. I peaked over, as the cold milk was starting to numb my hand, to see the coffeehouse-esque corner of the old man’s store. The espresso here was the most Italian thing we had in this small town after the restaurant across the street was abandoned. All of a sudden I noticed Andy walk up to the barista at the counter. I recognized her. Just last week she had checked me out at the counter. She must have moved to the bar to serve a customer. I tried to be nonchalant as I occasionally looked towards Andy, and I walked to the counter. The lady who checked me out noticed my peculiar ocular motion as my eyes moved between her and the coffee bar. With a strange look she gave me my receipt.

As I walked out the door, careful not to look like the creeping stranger that I was, I noticed how Andy acted with this girl. It was strange, but it seemed like he had befriended her, like this was the one person he actually tried talked to, and the one person who talked to him back. It was more than a economic exchange. I pondered the idea that maybe Andy was only an outcast in school; maybe Andy had a rich double life filled with stunning women, fine servants, and gold furnishings. The smack of cold outside air woke me up from this impossible fantasy, and I booked it home. I turned at left at City Hall onto my street, and managed to take a final glimpse of the hill. The sun was setting and I picked out a figure bending down by the overgrown fountain and heading along the ridge and then out of sight, blocked by the large stone base of City Hall.

The next Tuesday I remembered to get the milk and other groceries my mom had asked for. When I arrived, I walked in the store with a “ding-a-ling” and glanced towards the coffee bar, just curious to see if Andy was there. I figured he wasn’t when I looked, but then I had to blink several times when I saw him standing at the bar, ordering coffee once more. I stationed myself at the canned goods aisle, and spectated the turn of events. The barista and Andy exchanged several words and then he watched her intently as she made his order, then he murmured something, smiled, and left. I followed him out the door with relentless curiosity. He didn’t drink his coffee as he headed towards the fountain. I imagined he would sit on the fountain's edge and look down at the city while he drank his delicious java, but he simple sat it down it down heedfully into the waterless reservoir of the dilapidated fountain and walked back across the ridgeline to wherever he came from.

Two years later, the barista at Richard’s Coffee Bar died tragically in a pedestrian-traffic accident. Andy jumped off a bridge the next day and was pronounced dead at the scene. Our small locally published newspaper had a lot to talk about that week, and the reporters were simply told that Andy had depression issues. I knew differently. I was the only one who knew why Andy actually did it. Everyday that barista worked, rain, snow, or shine, he strutted into that store to order a coffee as an excuse to talk to the stunning girl who meant everything to him, and after a short conversation and a big smile, Andy left to place his full cup into that old abandoned fountain, because Andy always hated coffee and he didn’t want her to know. That daily trip motivated every action, every breath, that Andy took. Over the course of almost three years, Andy stacked almost eight-hundred full 12 oz coffees in that fountain. Andy had almost eight-hundred conversations with the woman he loved over a cup of coffee that he didn’t even like.