illustration by Geoff Gouveia
“Where’s the milk pitcher?”
“The what?”
“The milk pitcher, Fritz. Where is it?”
“Right in front of your face, right there on the counter. I swear- sometimes the night shift gets to you George.”
“The evening shift here is the worst,” George said while scrubbing the metallic counter. “The worst. I can’t do anything after this. Time for bed as soon as I’m done here.” He looked over at his coworker, a scrawny girl with dark brown hair pulled tight into a barista pony-tail away from the coffee.
The girl, whom George called Fritz though her last name was Fitzgerald, played with a pen near the cash register. George purged the steam wand on his hand, letting it too close to the skin and winced when the steam lava licked his fingers. He unhinged his wrist to let it flap the pain away. Fritz nodded with a small smile. “Did it get you?” She asked with downcast eyes while drawing a circle with the pen. “Always gets me.” The pen dribbled from her fingertips and a sigh rolled with equal carelessness out her mouth. “I’m taking my break. I’ll be in the back if you need me.”
George wiped the milk from the steam wand before emptying the metal catch tray on the espresso machine. In between the metallic tinks of loose pieces jumbling next to each other, footsteps clopped from near the door. George greeted the customer with a slow nod above the espresso machine.
The man walking towards him bounced from heavy right step to lighter left, back and forth in a singsong limp. His dark gray jacket mourned the blue it used to be, soggy at the sleeves and wilted at the edges. The jacket sleeve covered the left hand while his right wrist lay naked at the tilt in weight. The man favored his left side, the side with the bag.
Dark navy, the bag had scuffs of wear that faded against the denim. Brown handles popped against the darkness. The man walked from the threshold of the door towards the counter before stopping in abrupt rock, rearing his back straight to place the duffel bag on top of a table. When the duffel bag stood crumpled at the top but rigid against the flat bottom surface. He looked at George, wiping the steam wand again, before coming near to order.
Tufts of grizzled orange hair escaped with wild intent out of the sides of his head. A fiery balding van Gogh, the man’s beard climbed his face like an ancient infantry scaling a castle wall. Burning them back down the ladder, the hot oily face held no distinguishable features other than the suspiciously thin red mustache he held hostage on his upper lip.
He crept with hand in pocket to communicate via jingle his net worth. The man tilted his head to the side, the wild tiger tufts of hair following him as he turned. “Espresso, pur-lease.” The words danced dainty steps around his teeth to reach George, its volume on the edge of a whisper. After ordering he swiveled towards the bag, eyeing the table it sat on while placing the change on the counter. Abandoned the duffel looked still but when George gazed upon it, he swore the left side of the bag rose as if in mid breath. George shook the sight off with a question.
“Your name, sir?” The coins tallied to a few cents under the amount for the drink he ordered but the man was half way back to his table.
“Er, Er…Nigel.” The man called out with his back to the register.
George sent a demitasse cup sliding across the metallic bar towards the espresso machine. The scraping of ceramic on the metal released a chemical reaction in his brain, his hands moving to an internal rhythm drummed into him by the year behind the bar.
Soft steps carried the espresso to the table and when George neared it, the bag pulsed. Right next to the table George noticed the duffel bag had a black mesh lined top. He turned to start a trash run when he felt a small claw hook his shoulder. Nigel was standing to tap it.
From this proximity Nigel smelled of warm mashed tuna, the breath the main culprit. “Er, do you have milk?” It leapt from the deep sea before lapping at George’s nostril. “Milk?” Nigel spoke again but George forgot to reel it, subjecting him to another round of fermented injustice. “Could I, er, trouble you for a small glass of milk?” The longer sentence overpowered George, half closing his eyes as shields from the fresh scales sliding off Nigel’s tongue. George matched the seafood smell with a crustaceous retreat to the refrigerator.
The milk poured delicate velvet, the high sheen cream folding neat into the cup. George carried the ceramic with precision to his customer, careful to avoid the classic barista mistake of over rushing the viscous liquid onto the floor. Nigel stirred his espresso like a café colored mouse trapped under his paw. With a nod and simultaneous wink he sent George back to his original task of taking out the trash.
A metallic scuffle preceded the crunching of plastic cups in the folding of a black trash bag. The sounds repeated in pursuit of George, one by one the bags piled up near each other. Near the door George stole a glance at the sole customer in the shop. Nigel’s nose drifted closer and closer towards the mesh, the very tip of it almost entering. Small thin lips held back a round tongue, the outermost piece of it dangling outside the mouth cage it called home. It protruded its pink half moon self for a moment before darting back inside with a straightening of his neck. George shook his head and let the bell chime from the open door reset his mind into the night.
Outside the January chill hugged him from behind like an awkward friend not spoken to in awhile, lingering past comfort. The bags his hands gripped weighed the arms into a seesaw as he walked to relieve the trash. Back from her break, Fritz began to straighten the chairs while George trotted back with hands in his pockets. The loud dingDING preceded a rush of artificial wind from the doorway, pushing a napkin from the wall towards the duffel bag. Fritz slipped from behind the register.
“Is that your duffel bag?” she asked with a point of her chin.
“My what?”
“Your duffel bag. That one, on the table.” She pointed with her finger. “The only duffel bag in the building.”
“What? That’s Nigel’s.”
“Who’s Nigel?”
“The guy that just ordered the espresso while you were on break.”
“I didn’t hear the bell while on break?”
“Maybe it’s broken. Where’d he go?”
“Where’d who go?”
“Nigel, Fritz, Nigel. The customer.”
“I haven’t seen anyone. So this isn’t your bag?”
“Nope.”
“Then who’s is it?”
“Nigel’s, Fritz. It belongs to Nigel. He’s probably in the bathroom.”
George stabilized himself with a hand atop the table while picking up the napkin with a grunt. Underneath the table a soft purr emanated from the opposing side. A slow ascension from George accentuated the noise, the purr gaining in volume as George neared the bag. The serrated zipper teeth parted with a narrow sliver on the left side. Through the opening a piece of fur moved before chiming a bell.
“There’s no one in the bathroom, George.” Fritz called from the hallway leading towards the toilet.
The top mesh of the duffel bag began to rustle. A tiny paw pushed the zipper away from the side before disappearing. An orange furry face poked through the hole. Yellow green eyes stared at George before the body they resided on bounced out of the bag. A tinkle bell binged like unpredictable jazz as the cat purred back and forth in feline pace across the table. A twill string held the bell and a glimmering golden tag, the faintest cymbals crashing to sound its presence. He edged near to catch the cat while it drank from the milk saucer on the table.
“Why are you crouched like that, George?”
George motioned with his hand to his lips but Fritz didn’t respect nonverbal cues.
She gasped like all women with animal shaped holes in their hearts do when they see small creatures. “Where’d this cat come from?” she said in a rush towards it.
The cat, in its mistrust of humanity, leapt from the table and shot towards the door. The milk saucer crashed to the floor when George pounced on the cat. Twisting from his grip the cat shot through a tiny hole from the wind-assisted door opening. The captive tabby cat skirted out into the night, red body burning against the cool blue cement away from the shop.
“That was somethin’. A cat. No one will believe me when I post this online.” Fritz sat laughing. “How’d you say it got in here?”
George stared at his hands, the simple twine collar ripped easy of the cat. Bing – bing. The bell and tag clanged together in his hand. In the fluorescent bulbs that lit the night shift, a lone word flickered in contrast against the small gold plate: NIGEL.
“Didn’t it look like the cat had a mustache?” Fritz said before shutting the night out with a firm pull on the door.
Thank you for reading this story. As a former barista, I love writing from this perspective. Here's another story from it.
