Tuesday, 11 November 2008

A non-existent novel: Boiling water, coffee from Brazil

Chapter Three


'Yee-haa!'
'Bobby, please do not scare customers to death! It's not good... you know... for the business...'

And by the way, wearing a sheriff-style hat screaming out 'Yee-haa!' in the daytime doesn't mean that you're a cowboy. It doesn't even mean that you're sane. Not even at Halloween... Not in the daytime. Actually it means that you're insane. Anytime. But... You know, it's Bobby... He has nothing to do with sheriffs or cowboys, not even with pictures of cowboys. He saw 'Once Upon a Time in the West' two times, that's all. And his name isn't Bobby. He's Carlos Somethingsomething. ('Somethingsomething' stands for his real name which is too hard to remember to.)

He usually comes in the shop every day at 10 AM to tell us that he doesn't drink coffee. We don't know why. We asked it so many times I can't even remember when I started not to listen to the answer. 'It's the caffeine blah blah blah...' Why do I drink coffee? Same reason.

We started the 'Coffee Brazil' back in 2003, the time when energy drinks were for kids, guns were for the Mafia and coffee for the businessmen. Now it seems like changing. Everybody has a gun to protect the energy-drink business. So between shooting each other and shooting each other they just have time for a quick sip of Red Bull. Anyhow coffee is good. Coffee is brown and doesn't have bubblegum smell. Just an ideal mixture of good things and better things.

Jeah, 'Coffee Brazil'? We ordered the nameplate than realised that it doesn't make any sense. 'Coffee Brazil' means 'A Brazil made of coffee'. But it's not a problem. It's not a café, just a coffee shop, so it can't be 'Café Brazil' anyway. When we realised that the name choosing was a bit... ehm... unfortunate, we tried to draw a comma between coffee and Brazil, but we always had problems during the football world cups, because... we just hate them. Even Brazil. So throwing off the Brazil fans during world championship was like WW4, just bigger, and with better weapons. Atomic beer cans and green-yellow fan-style hats. And I just feel like a Nazi soldier during these meetings. 'Achtung! World Cup!'. (WW3 is listening to Bobby arguing with his mom.) The shop is not too big, not too small, not too tidy. Just perfect for a coffee shop. We don't have a big market, Tchibo and Nescafé. Special enough, isn't it? Yeah, I don't think either.

Back to Bobby...

'Hi, Bobby!' - Said Josh politely. He's always polite. Even after all the 'Yee-haa!' and 'Welcome to the Wild West!' stuff.
'Hi, James! Welcome to the Wild West!' - He doesn't even know the poor boy's name...
'It's Josh, Bobby!'
'Where? New employee?'
'Doesn't matter...'
'What can I get you?' - What did I say? Politeness... I just open the papers... Sudoku!
'I don't drink coffee, Kid...'
'Why, Bobby?'
'Because of the caffeine blah blah blah' - blah blah it must be a nine here...
'So what can I get?'
'Actually the other thing why I don't like coffee is that blah'
'More respect please, you're talking about coffee!' - OK, I did everything I could, now go back to the... look at there... Crosswords!
'Sure, coffee... Just a drug. Like alcohol or cigarettes...'
'What can I get you then? Alcohol or cigarettes?'
'Bollocks. I hate them all. All just... you know... addictive.' Nine words, horizontal a..i...ve ...
'ADDICTIVE! Gotcha!'
'Pardon?'
'Nothing...'
'What... can I get you then?'
'OK, just give me a Kit-Kat.' - He eats 5 Kit-Kats a day. Smoke is addicting. Kit-Kat is delicious. - 'It's delicious.' - Just what I said... [And the conversation goes on for a whole paper... called... 'Crosswords monthly'...]

So that's all about 'Coffee Brazil'. That's my life. My whole life in a coffee shop. *sip* Man, I love coffee...