Lake-Effect Coffee, Chapter 1
A fictional look at a real goal of caffeine-fueled connection.
“One large coffee…black is fine…and…she’ll have a small cappuccino.”
Matthew ducks under the van’s low ceiling and steps to the espresso machine, too focused to notice my thumbs-up. Our espresso repetitions are finally being put to the test.
“It’s on me next week.” The second woman, leaning rigidly against the van, turns to me while I ring up the total on my phone. I cringe inside hoping the credit card reader behaves. “Wait, will you be here next Thursday?”
“Definitely.” I lie through my teeth. The single bulb in the van’s ceiling flickered, reminding me to crank the manual electrical subsystem if we had any hope of the La Marzocco surviving the cappuccino.
Four full-body cranks later, I can’t help myself from grinning as my colleague Matthew serves two hot beverages to two hot women through the open aluminum side panel.
“Congratulations on being our first customers at Lake-Effect Coffee! We appreciate you!” I chime in myself, knowing that is an understatement. With one drip and one espresso, we’re taking the first small step toward living a more authentic life. I glance into the park contentedly, soaking in the moment. Two boys with backpacks stroll by, a man and woman jog briskly the other direction, and here we are, serving up piping-hot liquid connection.
“May I snap a quick pic for our socials?” Our third business partner and Matthew’s wife, Robin, pulls her phone from the front pocket of her overalls. Her eyes gleam with the confidence of a pre-scripted Instagram caption.
“We have to ask: why the name Lake-Effect? Did you drive down from Buffalo?”
Robin glances up to Matthew and I in the truck and the three of us exchange a knowing glance, silently deciding who should field the question.
Robin shrugs. “Why not?”
Matthew and I turn to each other and execute a freeze frame high-five. We practiced this more than the cappuccinos and we assume the studio audience loves it.
It was a ridiculous morning—and exactly the kind that made us feel alive.
Fade to black.
***
Eighteen months prior, my days were filled with turning a different professional crank. One that didn’t even produce cappuccinos, just despair.
I can no longer discern whether the dull hum is coming from inside my brain or the row of fluorescent bulbs above my cubicle. The clock on my desk phone says 10:49, my work-provided mobile says 10:49, my work-provided laptop says 10:49, and my work-provided desktop says 10:50. I haven’t touched any of them since I got in at 8:29.
As a child, “fight or flight” sounded superhuman. Mother needs to lift a car off her child? Just trigger fight or flight! Lame-duck president needs to ram a bill through congress? Just invoke fight or flight!
It was only as a 30-year-old on my third therapist I discovered the establishment had demoted Pluto and promoted Mr Freeze.
Fight, flight, or freeze.
Was the lack of luster because of how clumsy it was stumbling off the tongue or because I, along with nearly all of my closest friends, found myself in the third bucket hour after hour, day after day, of our 9-5 careers?
Regardless, I’m glad there’s a word for what I’m experiencing. I feel confident the nuanced and empathetic half of the establishment (my therapist) can envision what I’m describing when I use the F-word.
(Freeze, dumbass. This is a children’s story.)
It’s not the same with my PCP.
(Primary Care Physician, dumbass. Drugs have no place in our schools. Except Adderall. We hand that out after the Pledge of Allegiance and before the morning prayer.)
“When was your last panic attack?” Uh, never?
“When did you last take a Klonopin?” Six months ago—it put me to sleep.
“Great! It sounds like we’ve achieved a good balance!”
I’ve been told to advocate for myself at the doctor, but when this is the script of misunderstanding, what else can I do but email him a copy of my memoirs—typed under these very fluorescents?
Zero panic attacks might seem like a good sign, but just like low unemployment doesn’t mean every family has food on the table or employer-provided health insurance, no panic attacks doesn’t mean I’m mentally thriving. Panic attacks or no panic attacks, I feel catatonic most days at my job and it is leaving a deep psychological scar.
I take out my phone to text Matthew. He made me laugh when we met on the yellow school bus more than twenty years ago and I’m counting on him being able to do the same this morning.
Zero bars. Of course. If my employer wanted to prevent us from using cell phones, they would not even think of encasing the floor and ceiling in rebar or declining the option to add signal relays. They’d send out a moralist email From the Desk of the Executive which ignores the reality on the shop floor.
Don’t get me started on the real moral issue here.
I’ve been staring at my screen for more than two hours. What are you up to?
I hit send on my way to the pane-glass window: one bar, two bars—swish.
A single SMS is the first piece of real work I’ve done today. My brain recognizes the fresh creative outlet and I fire off a second.
What if we open a shop called Moralist Coffee?
***
“That was awesome.”
“That was awesome.”
“That was awesome.”
The debrief of our first customer interaction is unanimous.
We weren’t sure if anyone would trust us or even see us on our first day in the park. The sightlines through the leafless late-fall, early-winter trees are rich with dramatic depth, but we don’t even have a health score from the county yet and our logo is still a monochrome outline.
“That was awesome.”
“That was awesome.”
“That was awesome.”
Perhaps one transaction is all we need. Time to pack it up and go home, a life well-lived. But Matthew, ever the opportunist, cracks his knuckles and steps out of the van.
“My lingua franca is sales and I thrive on the hunt.”
“Yikes dude, less stalker vibes, more charming entrepreneur, please.” Our trio works because Robin calls her husband ‘dude.’ They met in the common area of Upjohn Hall during undergrad in Kalamazoo, and the pharmaceutical origins of their relationship (Upjohn, clearly and obviously referring to William Upjohn, the founder of the company which invented Xanax and Rogaine) were present in the precision in which Robin had trained us on the espresso machine.
“I’ll walk behind you to give you some social validation. Oh! Would matching aprons help?” I make a mental note of a potential business expense, realizing I must be comfortable—I voiced my thoughts without overthinking. How refreshing to feel the low morning sun warming my face instead of the cold glare of fluorescents.
Robin takes a step back to straighten the chalkboard menu. “Presentation, presentation, presentation,” she quips, then grabs a damp cloth to wipe a smudge off the counter. I didn’t even know we had damp cloths, but I know a call-and-response when I hear one. “Location, location, lo…oh there he goes.”
“Good morning, sir! You look like you could use a pipe-organ-hot cup of joe!” Matthew has stepped into the center of the park and I scurry to catch up before someone reports him for being zany. Talking to strangers feels almost taboo these days, as if everyone’s social sphere froze three months into the pandemic and never thawed.
The man slows up and considers it. “I only have 5 minutes. Do you have drip?” He reaches into the front pocket of his khakis and pulls out a money clip, and for a moment, I’m not sure he’ll follow through.
“Of course! Would you like that in a large or a small?” Matthew’s script is succinct and charming. I nod towards Robin, her hand hovering above the tower of cups.
“What the hell. Make it a large. My wife said I have bags under my eyes and I hate to admit she’s right.”
I am a coach on the sidelines for this transaction, rocking onto the balls of my feet as if I can change the outcome myself.
“One serving of optimism, made to order!” Robin snaps the lid onto a cup and drops the vessel into a sleeve with “Lake-Effect Coffee” written in black ballpoint pen. It’ll have to do.
The man picks up the cup, hands her a five, and starts to turn away. “This is cute, but do you guys have real jobs?”
Matthew leans casually against the van window, one elbow propped up and his other hand snug in the front pocket of his blue jeans. He is in his element: never satisfied until he has closed his sale.
“What’s more real than this?” Matthew says, a grin on his face as if the answer is both obvious and radical.
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