I enter Coffee Garden, the small café hidden between Cahoots and The Tower Theatre down on 9th and 9th. Setting my belongings on the only free table, four seats from the door, on the right side of the main entrance, I make my way to the counter. Its stainless steel is grimed with oil from the hands of a busy morning. The tip jar, finger printed with donations, is barely half full with crinkled one-dollar bills. “The usual?” The bed-headed college student asks me. Of course, I answer with a smile, still finding amazement that he knows how I like my chai tea poured over a half of cup of ice with a black straw instead of a white bendy one. He punches my frequent diner card twice, even though I have only purchased one item.
I saunter back to my seat, avoiding the man with four high-rimmed cups on a tray and facial expression of pure panic. Sliding onto the bench seems awkward for me, as always. I set my right hand down on the bended lumber and suck in my stomach, even though I know there is enough room between the wooden table and the red shattered brick wall. Tilting my shoulders to the left, I fall into place, centering my torso with the table and hugging the pole between my knees. Quickly, I look around to see a reaction, but there isn’t one.
Silence clouds the room. The place is crowded. Every black chipped chair filled, but with lonely faced occupants. An educational aroma drifts, mixing with the sensual smell of Costa Rican coffee just brewed for the over weight man at the counter. The quiet is broken by the clinging of a falling fork from a woman with shaking hands and wrinkles folded above the brows. Leaving the three pronged eating utensil on the ground, she drips honey slowly into her hot tea. Her eyes are mesmerized by the slow departure of the thick substance from the off-white jar. A much older man steps beside her. His Velcro shoes move slowly as he scoots around the condiments island. A simple cup of black coffee turns a light brown as he stirs cream and sugar replacement with a slender red straw. Smiling in satisfaction of his work, the man tips his corduroy cap up and waddles to a near by seat. He sips with precision. His eyes, weakened with age and protected by thick glass, watch the cup as it begins to empty.
A young man in a blue sweater drops a piece of sketch paper in front of my table. Attractive to the eye, his palms are stained with granite from a number three pencil. As he bends down to pick up the run away art, a woman grabs it eagerly and stands before him waiting for a response from the rising man. He thanks her and sits down, leaving her discontented with the reaction of the blue-eyed artist. She moves toward his table, in what looks like an attempt to persuade him in her favor. The room grows louder with cell phone conversation and blenders crushing ice and strawberries, while her confidence softens forcing her to continue on her way to the front counter without an approach to her recent interest.
Mozart begins to escape over the noise through the speakers above me. I take a sip of my now watered down beverage as a tattooed decorated couple sits next to me. Although they are painted with staining ink, the boy’s eyebrow is lined with rings resembling a shower curtain, and the girl’s ears are gaping with rubber gauges, they are beautiful. They talk in low conversation, but their simple hand movements express passion. His face holds a smile; a smile that looks like it longs to grasp love by the throat, strangling it until every breath is his. The girl smiles back, moving a strand of hair from between her eyes. I start to feel awkward watching this subtle romantic couple, so I direct my eyes to the ground. I notice people’s feet, their shoes, shoes that connect a resemblance of their journey to this coffee shop.
The most interesting aspect about a coffee bar is the people who wander into it. We are all here with a common tie of thirst and hunger, but our stories are all different. Take for instance the quiet man in the corner. He is young, maybe fresh out of college, and has been sitting in the vertex of the walls staring out the window, sipping his drink aimlessly, with a look of deep thought stretched across a yawning mouth. Sadness dirties his face. What is his story? What made him choose to take a seat there? What does the symbol falling from a chain on his neck represent?
We all have different memories, backgrounds, opinions, experiences, hopes, and dreams, but we are all connected by the need for coffee.
