30 March 1999 ~ Ginger-peach with a lemon... to go...

I heard a disturbing rumor today... According to my father, Java Joe's - the best coffeehouse in my hometown - is closed...

It had been a really good day until a little while ago. the some lady screamed at me in the post office for not selling her 22 cent stamps (er, sorry ma'am, but we don't have any because THEY DON'T EXIST, YOU ROTTEN FUCKEN BITCH!). Then I found out I won this auction on eBay, but the seller-guy won't answer my instant-messages. THEN Peter's entry for today was about David, whom I miss like hell... Then Jeff starts ignoring me, and my dad tells me my favorite coffeehouse is closed. He might be full of shit, and he might have no clue what's going on, but it's still freaking me the fuck out.

I'm not going to bitch about the other stuff -- I was planning on typing up some stuff I found in my old paper-journal, but now all I want to do is tell you just how important this coffeehouse is...

I spent at least 50% of my life in Java Joe's during the summer of 1997. I started going there with Erich in 1996. He loved coffee and I loved coffee. And one day, while sipping a leisurely cuppa joe in the front window while Erich attempted to prove Socialism wrong and make me cry, I saw this eerily familiar form out the corner of my eye. It was David - I hadn't seen him in almost a year, and he was wearing this heinous white sweater, which looked like something you could have gotten in the women's section of the GAP in 1975. And from then on, it wasn't about the coffee. Yes, I was dating Erich, but I was in love with the guy behind the counter: David.

Erich and I went there all the time. The coffee actually is REALLY good. And if you have enough money, the baked stuff is amazing too. I don't remember how I made any friends there with Erich clinging to me so tightly, but eventually, I had a ZILLION friends there! There was David, of course, who hated my guts for awhile because of Peter, then warmed up to me, then asked me to dinner with him, then became one of the closest friends I'd ever had. There was Meg, who thought I was a disgusting little teenager for awhile, then warmed up to me, sent me a few emails, called me a few times, and always had about five thousand good gossip tips for me. There were Neil and Marianne, and all their little friends, who were occasionally paying customers, but who usually leached off David for a coffee or a muffin, and who spent their days chatting and role-playing and probably committing felonies in the back of the coffeehouse.

When Peter left for Texas, I went to Java's. Jayden was there, and Erich was there, and David gave me free tea because he knew I was having a crisis: ginger-peach flavored. With a lemon. "I figured you liked peach," he said, "although I prefer vanilla." Vanilla tea? I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but it was enough that it was warm inside and I was among friends and I was drinking the best tea on the face of the planet.

When Erich and I broke up in July 1997, I went to Java's nearly every day - alone. I'd walk in at 9 in the morning, order a coffee, and sit at the counter with The Breakfast People. That's what they were called - they were the people who came in every day for a coffee and a muffin before work. Alan was usually among them. Meg developed a particular liking for Alan, who is a fairly nice but very misunderstood person. He never spoke to me, but we shared counter space every day, and that was enough to bond us a little bit. There were other regulars too: the woman who looked like the lead singer of the Pretenders (if you say "the woman who looks like the Pretenders chick" to ANYONE who works there, you'll get a smile of recognition) There was the odd gentleman who always wore boots with heels, a ponytail, a blue shirt, and black pants; he sat immediately next to the air-pots and just wrote. For hours he would write in this little journal-type-thing, occasionally sipping at his coffee, which was the only thing he ever ordered. Meg thought he was a freak, and nobody else ever talked to him. THEN there was Kathy. Kathy came in to read the paper (the Times, of course: accept no substitutes...) and order something weird, which she wouldn't eat. She's very loud, and kind of pushy, and she'd make a great test subject for Ritalin... I like her a lot.

The Breakfast People would drift out, and the Java Kids would show up. "Java Kids" was a term I coined, and "Kids In The Back" was one the Java Joe's staff coined. They loitered and they caused problems and they annoyed customers and they panhandled, and they had sex in the alley, and they brought Subway cups, fleas, and STD's to the Java Joe's vicinity... Now, this was all great fun -- I went skinny-dipping with a couple of fellow Java Kids, nearly had sex in the alley with a fellow Java Kid, and was once kicked out of Java's for absentmindedly picking the petals off the flowers in the center of the table.

I was caught in this weird intersection of wanting to be as cool and interesting and mature as the people who worked at Java's, but I wanted to be accepted by and have fun with the Kids... I wanted to make the mochas and clean up the messes and bitch about college and play Trivial Pursuit when there weren't many customers. But I also wanted to give myself a tattoo in the back of the coffeehouse, and dissect dead birds in the bathroom of the coffeehouse (I've seen it done, okay?), and sing stuff from Les Misérables behind the coffeehouse... I wanted it all... I guess my life is still like that a little - I want to be a dumb immature kid, and I want to be the guy who yells at the stupid immature kid... I wanted to play, but I wanted David and Meg to think I was just going along with the other Kids. I did a pretty good job of balancing everything though...

There was this mirror in Java Joe's -- it was this big antique thing with a gold frame. It was pretty badly warped. One day, I got some coffee on it, and wiped it off. Well, that got me started cleaning the whole thing. David handed me some coffee filters and some Windex, and I polished it until it sparkled. It's still warped, but it sparkled because of me. "God you're anal," commented Meg. "Maybe," I replied, "But I'm cute!"

Some people have this compulsion to join their high school's pep squad out of loyalty. I had a compulsion to polish the Java mirror. The warp always seemed symbolic to me: the rest of the world was reality, and Java's was the warp in that. the rest of the world hurt, but Java's was the distortion of all of that.

My dad made me get a job that summer. I worked around the corner for an environmental group - it was the most evil job I have ever had and the most evil job I can imagine. However, as benefits, I got the occasional paycheck and I always got to go to Java's for coffee before starting work.

On Halloween, in my vampire-days (as if it can all be summed up by that...), I placed special stones at both entrances to Java Joe's: they were for protection. They were to protect MY space from evil - or whatever the hell I thought was going to invade it. It was MY territory, it was MY Home, it was the only place I could ALWAYS go to. And NOTHING was going to fuck with it.

In - was it November? - I finally got to do something I'd only ever dreamed of... I got to work for Java's. Kind of. They had a booth every year at this local festival, and TONS of people stopped for a coffee or a bagel or whatever. Meg drove me over there to see the booth and everything. She was just delivering napkins or something, and refused to work the booth, even though David was swamped with people. So... *I* worked. "Everything's a dollar," he explained to me hurriedly, "except these... And these here are chocolate-chip-hazelnut-espresso scones. Practice saying it a few times." I practiced. Within an hour, I was the star of the show: I knew what was what and how much everything was, and David didn't want to let me go walk around to see the rest of the festival: "You're GOOD at this!" And I was good at it! I could say "chocolate chip hazelnut espresso scone" with the best of 'em. I laid out the table so it looked better. I made customers laugh. I made GRUMPY customers laugh. I handled the situation perfectly when a woman found an eggshell in her cookie (it was one of the cookies made by Amy, who only wishes she was cool enough to work for Java's...). I was a Java Goddess.

I came back the next day to work too. Of course, no one was paying me, so I can't actually say I was employed or anything, but I did work two full days at the booth. And the second day, I wore my Java Joe's t'shirt, just to look professional. People asked ME questions, not David. I was the Java Girl, and he was some guy in a heinous sweater. After the festival, he took Amy and me out to dinner, where Amy ate about five pounds of steak with lard-covered mushrooms, and David and I shared a plate of the "third-best wings in town." And he kept giving me this secret little grin that said he was impressed with me. I smiled back, loving David and loving Java Joe's and loving coffee and passionately loving chocolate chip hazelnut espresso scones. I was proud of myself. I'd ALWAYS wanted to be a Java Girl - there was nothing in the world that was a bigger honor. Well, very little in the world that was a bigger honor.

Every year for the past three years, the Java Crew has made me a white chocolate mocha thingy for Christmas. They're like, ten dollars or something, but that's always my Christmas gift. And dammit, those things are AMAZING.

I have had the best times of my life in Java Joe's. I cannot remember a SINGLE bad thing -- other than getting kicked out for picking flowers -- that has ever happened at Java Joe's. Jeff and Anthony and I picked people up there. Rachel and I made a chart there of "The Six-Degrees" of the town. (BE IT KNOWN THAT EVERYONE HAS FUCKED CELESTE EXCEPT ME, thank you very much...) Java Joe's just FEELS GOOD. The farmer's market on the street near Java's every tuesday morning in the summer is great; the eerie sound of bagpipes playing in the general vicinity is great; the bricks of Java Joe's against the sometimes-blue sky is great. The warm smell of espresso on a cold winter day is great. The stupid plastic fish hanging from a string on the wall is great.

The only time I have ever REALLY been published was when I wrote an article about Java Joe's for the local newspaper. It was a great article. I was so proud of it. I was so proud to be a Java Girl.

I have a confession to make. One of the main reasons I chose to come to Santa Fe is because the other two Java Joes's in the same chain are here in Santa Fe. But they're just not the same: business is slower and there are no Breakfast People. There are no Kids. They don't even make panini in one of them. There's no trouble to get into, no trouble to witness, no conversations with the Java Crew. And Erich, who is the bane of my fucken existence, works at one of them. (His mother probably threatened the management that she'd never hang another art piece on their walls if they hired me instead of her son -- I'm almost certain that's what happened, because I am, of course, a Java Goddess...)

My last day in town, I spent a long time at Java's. "Meg," I asked, "Can I have a plate? As a going-away gift?" She hugged me and stuck a plate into my backpack. It's difficult to get Meg to be really affectionate like that, and it's sure as hell difficult to get one of those plates out of Java's - and I know, because I'm a restaurant-klepto...

The first day I was here, I demanded to go to Java's. My father reluctantly took me. I sipped at my coffee happily. It wasn't New York Java's, but it was Java's, and it was Home.

When I went home for Winter Break in December, I was at the front door waiting to get into Java's as soon as it opened. The familiar smell hit me, and Meg's voice hit me, and I was assailed by Home, the very essence of Home... Nothing had changed. There was nowhere else I'd rather be.

While I was in town, I went to Java Joe's while Peter worked. I brought us back muffins for breakfast, and spent my days writing journal entries and letters to Ken while inhaling that SWEET smell of Java coffee. I spent my time talking to Rachel, and Meg, and Ken's ex, and a few of the others among the original Java People. I spent my time feeling loved, feeling KNOWN, feeling warm and needed. There's no real drama at Java's - but there is a certain calm and happiness that is pretty high up on my list of reasons to stay alive (this list also includes the facts that I don't have leprosy, and that Portishead is always going to be more depressed than me...).

I don't know what I'm going to do if it really is closed. I don't know where I'll go. David left ages ago, and Meg will probably be leaving soon, and the Kids are growing up and moving on, but there's something about that place, something about the bricks, something about sitting at the counter with Kathy reading the Times, and something about the words "chocolate chip hazelnut espresso scone" that are sort of eternal - a part of my life deeper than my house and my possessions and sometimes even my friends. It is my haven, my safe place, the one place I always knew I could return to, and the one place that never ever hurt me. Maybe it's something in the ginger-peach tea with lemon...

Love always,
Helena*

"Helena, will you go see what the Kids are doing and come back and report?" --Meg, using me as a Java Spy.

"I like going to Java Joe's and hanging out with my friends. Other than that, this community has basically nothing to offer." --a quote in the local paper in 1997.

"I like it when you put your honey in my tea... And that lemon! MM-MM!" --Me, writing obscene things on Java napkins to the Java Crew.

"If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't go looking any further than my own backyard..." --Wizard of Oz (er, duh...)