It was three in the morning, I was hunched over my laptop, a pencil lodged between my teeth as my ink-splattered fingers laboriously tapped away at the keys. It was Finals week. For a Journalist major, that meant churning out paper after paper, like a publications factory of one.
Periodically, and for the sake of my sanity, I had to stop for breaks. There was only one thing that could sustain me for Finals. I glanced at the clock, grabbed my keys, and headed out the door.
I knew a place.
I don't breakfast, you know. At least, not in the traditional sense. Not even in the eat-as-you-go pop-tart or granola bar fashion. At this hour, my quick fix could only be found the sole 24-hour operation in the nearby vicinity: a CVS pharmacy.
Night at a pharmacy is an experience I won't soon forget. The sky outside was purple and the air was icy cold. There were still people out and about at this hour, not very many, just four cars parked outside, including my own. Every little detail was registered in my mind's eye clear as glass. The way the automatic doors whooshed before my presence as though announcing my entrance. Sure enough, two pairs of eyes followed me.
The teller lazily nodded his greeting. Across from him was a green man, sickly pale. He was wearing a thick, plush robe and Grandpa slippers. His eyes bore holes to my skin, as though infecting me with just a single, questioning gaze. I tentatively walked by.
There was an eerie glow cast about the products on the shelves. They made me not want to buy them. Night had a way of changing your perspective. I was alert, aware of every perceptible change in my surroundings, ready to bolt out the door and head home. Daytime, I sort of saunter past, attend to menial tasks while dead to the world, and without the slightest recognition of what I was doing. I called it: the mindless drone routine.
I found my way to the back towards the cooler. Inside was an assortment of drinks to choose from. My hands automatically clasped around a shapely glass bottle, by now, condensation was already lining around the outside.
"Is that everything?" The teller asked. We both knew the answer to that question.
"That will be $4.12," he said. And every penny was worth it. "Would you like to bag it?"
I popped open the lid from the bottle and tasted the bittersweet liquid that cascaded down my parched throat. I felt energized and ready to start the night anew.
* * *
Finals week, day two. I was inside the Dunkin' Donuts, waiting in line like a good little girl, because I had convinced myself that this would be faster than drive-thru.
There were a lot of people in the cafe. College students, residents and the older, middle-aged crowd who stopped by before heading to work. There was a Chinese man, a Nigerian woman, and an Indian couple sitting at the booths. All of us drank. Not quite beer, but we drank together nonetheless.
In France, people take cafe au lait, and in Italy it's caffe ristretto lavazza, but none are as genius as what they take in Amsterdam: koffie en room, with some cannabis on the side, please. There are whole international cultures devoted to the drink. Whole businesses and houses and gift-shops centered around it. It's become an art form, with so many different presentations and packages. Have it with milk, or without, or cream. Have it as a cappuccino, espresso, java, mocha, or jamocha. Then you have to choose from a variety of specialties, flavors, brands. You could have it with honey, caramel, hazelnut, cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch, peppermint, toffee, pumpkin spice, coconut, marshmallow, raspberry, even pineapple. It's become an art-form now. Once the drink of aristocratic nobles, it can now be found at your local McDonald's for $1.19 a cup, or if that fails, a 24-hour pharmacy. It's all the rage. The only trend that has been around for centuries.
It all started thanks to an Ethiopian goat. It was one of those legends I often heard told about, like one would hear about mythical lands and beasts and Greek Gods. Except this was about a belching goat in the grassy highlands of the Ethiopian coastline, prancing about in the middle of the night after feasting upon plump, red berries. They must have looked delectable to it, itching to be picked, like shiny red gems in a brush of tasteless green ferns. The goat couldn't help himself; he was the happiest goat in the world from that point on. And from there, the discovery was made. The energy that these berries possessed was later harvested by the monks at the monastery into liquid-form: a drink before prayer. It was called the divine drink of the Gods.
The monks drank as a ritualistic tradition. An Ethiopian farm boy, tanned and slim with lean muscle, he would turn twelve before he could have his first cup, black and thick as molasses. He drank as a coming of age ceremony. Arab traders also drank. They passed the communal cup along throughout the continents, until eventually the Pope himself stamped his seal of approval with a smile from his bitter-tinged lips.
Along the other side of the globe the Mayans and Aztecs preferred their beans as currency. Ten beans for each plucked chicken. It was as good as gold.
As all worthwhile things, it had its dark history. Several hundred years later it would be cultivated by thousands of black men stuffed in hundreds of ships. By the sweat of their brow and the strength of their backs, they were enslaved by the beans. "Goods," that was what they called them. Trading "goods".
Finally, I was next in line. The barista had served the drink with much flair, even hastily wrote my name on the side of the cup. This was my share of the goods. My very own.
* * *
Last day of finals, I decided to splurge. It was off to Starbucks this time.
As I was driving downtown, I began to reminisce on my first cup. I was nine and I watched as my grandmother picked up the whistling kettle. As she poured the drink into the cups, it came out as liquid gold before settling into a pitch-black pond. Tendrils of vapor escaped from the steaming pot, rising into the air in wispy curls. Like the very souls of the beans dispersing into greater being. Such a heavenly scent.
I saw my reflection in that cup, its drink like a black mirror revealing a miniature of my face. My small, lifeless expression was trapped inside the contours of that cup, drowning in the waves and golden foam stirred about by the silver spoon. My small hands cupped around the mug, hot to the touch. I took a slurping sip, recoiling in disgust.
At first, I didn't like it. A child's taste buds are not accustomed to bitterness, see? But not wanting to feel left out, I used to soak my toast with it. Its flaky crumbles floated above the surface like life-rafts.
I grew to enjoy the drink after that, grew to enjoy its transformative effects-- the buzz that left one energized. The elixir that would combat the illness of daytime and the routine of the mindless drones.
Companies knew its worth. It was the product of many corporate franchises importing over a billion pounds of beans annually. I wondered about what we thought of the drink today. How one would get up, brush one's teeth, before staining it again moments before heading out to work. How many business enterprises settled their ordeals over these same cups?
It was everywhere. On advertisements or commercials. On street-corners, usually several shops stationed right across from one another. In grocery stores, at airports, in restaurants, even pharmacies. The posters outside the store advertised it. How many artists enjoyed a drink before their grand performance? And how many of their audiences drank to them? The snaps of their fingers led on by their buzz.
I parked my car, walking into the familiar shop. The rich aroma filled my nostrils. I debated what I was going to get as I waited out the line.
In the movies, you'd see it as a mechanism of characterization. The mafia boss would reveal how many creams and sugars he took, and the audience can finally relate to him. A drink to our identities. Television shows too, they thrived on product placement, you always had to get the shot of the cop at his desk with the labeled cup in his hands.
Through the window out the front, I saw the cafe across the street had also opened, another line forming. The ever-growing line left me feeling suffocated. The drink was invading and pervading our world. Suddenly, I was the little girl again, impatient to join the adult conversation, impatient to have my first sip, stopping only to find my own face trapped in it.
The woman in front of me had ordered decaf, and I couldn't help but wonder, what was the point of decaf? The point, I realized as her veined hands grasped tightly around the carton, was the drink itself. There was a need to drink. We were enslaved to it.
"Will it be the usual?" The man at the register asked, smiling politely at me. He remembered me well, already inputting my order in the cash register without even looking up at me. Was he also a mindless drone? My credit card was already out at hand and out of habit I handed it to him. This was what the day did; I thought deliriously, it made us drones desperate for another cup. We were confined to it...
"No," I said. Suddenly, he looked up at me, and we saw each other for the first time. "I'll have the chocolate milk instead."
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