THE BAD COFFEE
My girlfriend likes her coffee with cream, no sugar. So that’s what I tell them in the deli every morning when I go to get the muffins and coffee. But you have to watch these guys, because if you turn your back on them for a moment they’ll shovel about six spoonfuls of sugar into the cup, and then you’ll really be screwed. It’s a moral thing with them: you ought to have sugar in your coffee, whether you like it or not.
That’s what happened one morning: I was hung over and I must have been distracted; I think I started playing with the little gray deli cat. So when I get back to the room my girlfriend takes one sip of the coffee and declares that she can’t drink it.
“Alright, goddamn it,” I said, annoyed. “Give it here.” I grabbed the cup and put the lid back on it. “I’ll take it back.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Go ahead and eat your breakfast. I’ll get it myself.” She got up and made to leave.
“Take this with you,” I said, proffering the cup, “or else they’ll try to make you pay again.”
“No, I don’t want the hassle. Their coffee sucks, anyway. I’ll just get it somewhere else.”
“Well, what do you want me to do with this?”
“Just throw it out.”
I did just that. I took the full cup of coffee out to the trash bin, opened the lid, and threw it down in the can. It landed straight up, without spilling, in the bottom of the empty bag that lined the can.
I went back in and sat down and had a bite or two on my muffin. About a minute later I hear this god awful racket from out in the hall: “SHIT! AH, FUCK!” Then somebody slammed down the lid of the trash bin. A second or two later somebody opened the bathroom door and a moment after that slammed it shut.
What was that all about? I wondered. I didn’t put two and two together. Like I said, I was hung over, slightly slow that morning. Just an unrelated bit a Chelsea lunacy, I thought, nothing out of the ordinary. My girlfriend got back with an acceptable cup of coffee and we finished our breakfast.
Then I went to use the bathroom, and when I opened the door I was startled to see that someone had sprayed the place with a milky brown liquid. It was all over everything: the walls, the sink, the toilet, the mirror, even some on the ceiling. A real mess, still wet and dripping. Obviously somebody had got the bad coffee out of the trash and, standing in the doorway of the bathroom, slung it boldly, creatively, in a wide, sweeping arc. The Jackson Pollack of bathroom slobs. It was hard to believe there was that much coffee in that little deli cup.
What on earth!? Who could have done it? I immediately suspected the trash man. Who else would have got that coffee out of there? Remembering the noises I had heard, I figured he had burned his hand, and, pissed off, had chosen to display his anger in a manner suitable to the art-infested realm of the Chelsea.
So why didn’t I feel guilty? Because I figured it was his own damn fault. He only needs to empty the trash two or three times a day, but instead he empties it twenty times or more. He goes around and grabs every little scrap of paper out of all the trash bins on every floor. A half an hour later he’s back again, whether anybody has thrown anything in the trash or not. If he had just waited an appropriate interval, until there was liable to be something more in the trash, it wouldn’t have happened: the coffee would have cooled, there would have been stuff piled on top of it, and he never would have burned his hand.
Puzzling, also, was the choice of venue. Why the bathroom? I wondered. Why not the hallway—that was the obvious choice—or, if creativity was at a premium, the supply closet, or the elevator?
I decided that it must have been directed at me. He must’ve seen me come in with the coffee. This was more than mere paranoia. Everybody knew I was the crazy bathroom person for this floor (every floor had one), the guy who would lurk around the corner to see who was stealing the toilet paper, the guy who would make sure the lock was changed regularly so no junkies got in. Apparently, this was a revenge sloshing, and a warning to me to avoid such offenses in the future.
It pissed me off a little, both the part about messing up of the bathroom, and the warning part. “I’m gonna ask that trash man about this,” I said.
“Just drop it,” my girlfriend said. “It’s no big deal. It’s not worth it to get involved in somebody’s crazy games. That’s how this place sucks you in, and the next thing you know, you’re nuts too.”
“I’m not getting involved in anything. I’m just curious, that’s all.” I felt like I had to confront him.
I threw out the deli bag with the remains of our muffins and coffee, knowing the trash man would be around shortly to collect them. When I heard him slam down the lid I ran out there.
Hugo, the trash man, was a middle-aged Russian or eastern European man, his face haggard, bloated from drinking, his coal-black, balding hair slicked back with grease.
“Hey Hugo,” I said, “was that you who slung coffee all over the bathroom?
He gave me a dirty look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was probably hung over too, just like me.
“Well, I don’t care. It’s not me who has to clean it up,” I said. “But I’m telling Rita it was you!” I said, half-jokingly. Rita was the maid; she would scream at Hugo and bitch him out.
“You go on,” he said, with real hatred. “You tell her that.”
I tried a different tack. “Hey, I’m sorry I threw that coffee in the trash. I just wasn’t thinking.”
“I burned my hand! You must be crazy! Who would do that, throw a full cup of coffee in the trash!?”
“Why don’t you just wait?”
“Wait for what?”
“For there to be enough trash to make a load. You don’t have to take out every single piece of trash as soon as anybody throws it away. Wait a couple of hours and then load up you trash cart. The rest of the time you could just be sitting around, taking it easy.”
Hugo sighed. “They’d just find something else for me to do.”
Locked up in this magical fortress of bohemian madness, I had forgotten the simple lessons of manual labor. This was one of those rare instances of relative sanity around the place.
Copyright 2006 Ed Hamilton
Culture Clash's friend poses in the lobby with Robert. Robert is a painter, note the paint splatters on his jeans. Unfortunately, the tourist didn't capture Robert's painting, which hangs on the opposite wall. According to CC's diary, she stopped by twice to take photos, but stayed at The Gershwin, a Chelsea Hotel wannabe. Little did she and her friends know that the Gershwin is home to Hiroya's ghost.
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