I have loved coffee for as long as I can remember. As a kid, coffee was the key to adulthood; it’s what all grownups did in the morning – drank coffee and ate breakfast, or complained about what their day was going to be like. I can see my parents, coffee cup in hand, watching me and my brothers opening Christmas gifts. It’s what my Uncle Ron drank all the time, especially when he would visit and smoke his pipe – the only person who was allowed to smoke in our house. I got my first coffee mug on Valentine’s Day, when I was in the 6th Grade. It was a corny mug that had a heart shaped handle and said “The Luv Mug” on it. My Ma gave it to me. I was the only twelve year old who was drinking coffee and reading the paper before school. I’m not the type of person who gets a headache if they don’t have their coffee in the morning, and I am also the type of person who can drink coffee all day, and it doesn’t affect my sleep, but I am the type of person that if I don’t drink coffee in the morning then I feel like the day isn’t right.
Over the last two years, I have started drinking tea in the afternoon. Actually, 4pm to be precise, and only from October to March. You know, the cold months around here. I don’t know why I started doing it, and it would be easy to throw my wife under the bus on this one, as she does like a peach tea from time to time. But I got a box of Black English Tea, made a cup with a little milk and sugar, and it became rather satisfying in the afternoon. I even have a specific mug that I use for my tea. Funny how before, I only viewed tea as something that one drank when they sick, like had the flu. Tea was like coffee, but not as strong, so it was more water and less caffeine, you know, what sick people need.
I have to go to Trader Joe’s today (Woop! Woop! On 125th!) to pick up a few things for the weekend. I know I shouldn’t do it, but I will buy a bucket of cookies. I woke up this morning knowing, to my core, that I would walk into that store, and get that plastic container of chocolate-chip cookies, and eat most of them over the next two days. For no other reason than I want to. I have been good about going to the gym, and sticking to my running two miles three days a week, and I started to notice that my shirts and pants aren’t so tight, and my energy has been up, and I do feel more focused. And I am focused on eating cookies all weekend long.
The only constant in life is change – nothing stays the same forever. The older I get, the more I think about this. There are things I wish would stay the same forever, but I also know how foolish of a wish that is. And then there were times in my life that I thought nothing would ever change, only for the ground to slowly shift under my feet. These were some of the thoughts I had as I was reading Bryan Washington’s “Last Coffeehouse on Travis.”
The story is set in Houston in the very recent past. Specifically, in the Midtown neighborhood before gentrification changed the area. At the start of the story, the narrator is being politely kicked out of his aunt’s home and is going to live with Margo and her son Walter. In exchange for a free place to stay, the narrator will have to work at Margo’s coffeeshop not too far away. Margo is master coffee maker, and the majority clientele at the coffeehouse are recently arrived white gentrifiers. But there is to be a solid group of regulars, mainly black and latinx, who form the community of this story. As Washington lets his story develop, mainly through Margo’s coffee making and the narrator’s attempt to learn from her, we come to see people in states of change, both wanted and unwanted.
Now that I have that very simplistic description out of the way…
There were a couple of times that I felt that this story could fall off the rails and land in a pool of clichés; The narrator continually trying to make a cup of coffee that impresses Margo, or a character reveals some deep dark secret trauma from their past, or the climax being some explosion of a fight between two characters that should be working together. No, Bryan Washington was playing with me, because he crafts full, lived in characters that I could see myself running into on my block and having a conversation with. These are characters that want to learn from each other. Characters that have pain and mistakes in their past, but that pain doesn’t define them, nor stop them from going out and living and trying to make connections.
Then there is the craftsmanship to Washington’s writing. The very subtle touches he uses to forward the story and develop characters. How Margo never asks, she tells people what to do. The very short but efficient descriptions of the neighborhood, to create the feel of this setting, as something that is slipping away, but at this moment, it was very alive. Another aspect that I thought was well written was how gentrification was this underlining menace to the story and its characters. Change maybe unavoidable, but it is not always good. We know from the beginning of the story that the neighborhood will change, and Margo and the coffeehouse won’t be there in the future. It’s touched on in the right way to amplify the theme without belaboring the point. This is good writing, where nothing felt wasted or superfluous. This story was made the way it needed to be.
Which brings me to how well the climax of this story worked. Again, I go back to the fact that Washington was playing with our expectations by starting this section with, “The morning that it happened…” My mind went to dramatic ends of what could possibly be coming. In fact, the final paragraph of the section before, the narrator even acknowledges that no matter how well things are going, it can’t stay this way forever. (See, Bryan Washington is priming us.) But what follows are characters understanding that it is time for them to move on to whatever is next, because things are changing. There is a rise in action, a true climax, but it is treated in an honest way that I wasn’t expecting, and I am also trying not to ruin this story for people. Sorry that’s vague.
I love reading Bryan Washington’s work. It moves in ways that feel familiar but also unexpected at the same time. I loved being with his characters, not at the most dramatic moment in their lives, but a very pivotal one. These are moments that take us to the next place, and Bryan Washington reminds us how valuable those moments are.
I don’t know how things are where you live, but up here in New York, I think we are in the sixth weekend where it rains, especially on Saturdays. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s nice to have a cold rain Saturday in Fall, where you can curl up on the couch, read a book, watch a movie, take a nap – you know, do cozy stuff. After six weeks of rainy weekends, I would like to see the sun and go outside and not get wet. In the Summer, sometimes we get in a pattern of five days of sun, then one rainy day, followed five or six days of sun, and the cycle repeats. But rain every weekend feels a bit like a punishment. “Tough week? Working for the weekend?” “Tough shit! You’re Stuck Inside!” On the spectrum of disappointments, six weeks of rainy weekends isn’t that bad. Yet I do wonder if this is some kind of record.
I know that I am not like most people, and I do have time in the morning. When I was working an office job, mornings were nothing but a rush, and not very pleasant. So now, with the extra time, I have started to try and treat the mornings as a calm start to the day, which includes a breakfast. Not a fruit bar, or frozen waffle, but a meal. Though it is a small meal, it is still a meal. I have noticed a few things after having done this for a month now. First, mornings are calmer for all of us now. Not as frantic, though some mornings getting the kid out the door can be a challenge. Second, with eating breakfast, I find that I don’t snack throughout the day. No mindless eating while working on things. The third thing I noticed about myself is that I feel like I have accomplished something. A while ago, I read that you should make your bed every morning because it will make you feel that you have order at the start of your day, and also that you have accomplished at least one task in your day. Yeah… I never felt like that when I made my bed. But, I do have that feeling after having eaten and fed my family. Just saying…
