Spider Eggs
I wave to Finnegan on the way in. God only knows what he’s doing on the marina at half eight in the morning. In the rain too, mad bastard. I’d say something to him but I’d only get drowned. Besides I’m nearly late.
By the time I get there Joe’s already in a bad mood. From a distance his fat looks like muscle. Must be his low centre of gravity. If not for the auburn hair and rounded features he might look Russian. Maybe Polish or Slovakian. One of those countries anyway.
“Who cleaned the coffee machine last night?”
Sometimes it’s difficult to understand his Northern Irish accent. Even if he had spoken in Arabic I’d still know what he was asking. This is the Monday morning ritual. Lets you know what you’re in for over the next five days.
“I did. What’s wrong with it?”
“You didn’t soak the steam wand.”
“It was already clean.”
“You have to soak it.”
“Right.”
I shuffle past him and try not to give away that last night was a late one. I walk by the till towards the prep area. The smell of baking scones mixes with the smells of tuna and mayonnaise. I feel my stomach quiver but manage to keep everything down. Inside Beata is chopping meat and veg. I smile at her on the way to my locker. She smiles back. This is the extent of our conversation. The only Polish words I know are cześć and dzień dobry. Beata doesn’t know much English. It’s difficult to maintain a conversation using only hello and good morning. Everything is said with her facial gestures and blue-green eyes. My apron hasn’t been washed. It’s creased and stained. This will be Joe’s next observation.
The fan buzzes into existence as I sit on the toilet. My face is warm but my eyelids feel cold. Wet almost. I look at my hand and it’s trembling. The noise of last night’s kebab hitting the porcelain is unsettling but ultimately makes my stomach settle. In the mirror all I have are pale and stubble. The guy who drank his way through two years of an English degree before dropping out looks back at me. Retrospect is a terrible thing.
I pick up the triple shot basket and turn on the grinder. The ground Arabica beans fall peacefully into the basket. It slots into the coffee machine and the brown water starts filling the mug. I take a sip of the Americano as Joe flips the ‘open’ sign. Generally coffee tastes better with sugar but I can’t be bothered walking to the take-out station to pick up a few sachets. When Joe goes into the back I steal a doughnut. Drinking a triple shot Americano without eating is for coffee amateurs. By the time I’m down to the end of the mug our first customer walks in.
It goes against human nature to act like you care about people for eight hours a day. This really isn’t a problem until you work in a coffee shop but it’s something you have to get used to. Our first customer is wearing a pinstriped navy suit with a white shirt, salmon tie combination. He walks up to the counter. He’s tall. If he wasn’t I wouldn’t see it. The small white residue behind the hair and mucus on the inside of his nose.
“Cappuccino please Rob.”
I look at him again. Do I know this guy? Then I remember the badge. Gets me every time. ‘Hi I’m (insert name here) I’ll be your Barista for the day!” I stick on a double shot and start frothing the milk. The first time I managed to ‘leaf’ a cappuccino I was pretty proud of myself. I pour the milk over the espresso and keep the jug close to the lip of the take-out cup. When it’s half full I flick my wrist and pour the remainder out. I zig-zag my hand towards one side of the cup and then keep it straight as I bring it back to the other side. It’s an anatomic response. Every customer is impressed by it. I feel like one of those depressed comedians. I hand him the cup.
“Sugar, lids and serviettes are over on the take-out station.”
“Wow that’s like art.”
“You should blow your nose too.”
“What?”
I pretend to snort something off the back of my hand.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He leaves his coffee at the station and walks into the customer toilets. I steal another doughnut. He comes back out and throws some change into the tip jar.
“Thanks Rob, sound man.”
I nod to him as I pick some pink icing off my top lip and put it into my mouth. Joe comes back out and I swallow hard. He doesn’t notice anything. He looks at the rain falling onto the street and shakes his head. Light catches the scar on the side of his face. It looks like a lightning bolt. I once asked him how he got it and in a roundabout way he explained it had nothing to do with football hooliganism. Joe used to be a builder. Had his own little company, three man team.
“It’s going to be dead again today.”
“Mm.”
He stands beside me for a few minutes and then walks back into the prep area. Beata will be inside all day. She’s here a few weeks, wouldn’t be able to manage the till with only her Polish. She brings coffee or sandwiches or whatever to tables when were busy. We’ve taught her how to say thank you. This used to be good for a laugh when someone messed up an order.
“I ordered the Caesar salad, NO parmesan.”
“Thank you.”
It was funny until it became stressful. She’s generally able to figure out what’s going on based on body language, tone and facial gestures. The basics like hello and good morning are there so it doesn’t happen too often.
It’s a slo-mo day. I look at the clock expecting hours to have passed but it’s barely forty five minutes since I got here. I’ve sold a couple of coffees to a couple of regulars, that’s about it. Joe’s in his office gambling. This means he’s either going to come out smiling and playful or feral and angry. He plays Texas Hold ‘em. The only reason I know is because every now and then I have to go into the office to switch C.D.’s. I see him scratching his head and looking at his digital hand like he’s got too many chromosomes. I read somewhere that there was a serious rise in online gambling addiction and online pornography addiction. Hopefully he’ll stick to the gambling. Catching him mid stroke would make voluntary lobotomy appealing.
Outside Finnegan bends down and picks up some stones. He inspects them for a few second before putting them in his pockets. The rain doesn’t seem to bother him at all. He walks through the door and wipes down his long greying beard. His curly hair is matted to his face. No jacket, just a wet, green cardigan and blue jeans that have begun to tear at the knee. He’s one of the town celebrities. This town has loads of them. They all have stories. There’s the Druid; his parents were some sort of Jesus freaks and used to beat Satan out of him. He’s schizophrenic or something. Likes green tea with strawberry syrup. There’s Dirty Jane. She’s had several kids for her father. They all got taken away by social services. Every time I serve her she asks me if I’m a good man. I tell her I am, keeps her calm. Sometimes she comes in screaming and crying and we have to kick her out. Red tea, no sugar. Jim-Jim walks in from the country every day. He’ll sit down at a table until we close and order 7-Up and fruit cake every few hours. No matter how you start a conversation it always ends with him saying “Those horses would only cod you”. He got attacked a few years back, messed his brain up. He doesn’t do hot drinks. Franny-Maggie isn’t allowed in after stealing that woman’s bag. Burned down her house when she was a kid. She got out alone. Drinks flat whites.
Finnegan’s not as far gone as the rest. I’ve had some mad conversations with him, always interesting though. Rumour is he took an acid tab a few years back and never came down properly. But you never know what the truth is with the celebrities. People need stories. Something that separates ‘normal’ from ‘mental’, gives an explanation. Something tragic, something unthinkable. So they think it up.
“Finnegan, what’s the craic?”
“Not much brother.”
“Usual yeah?”
He used to drink tea. One day I asked him if he’d like to try anything else. He didn’t seem up for it but I told him it’d be on the house. He asked was I a pusher and then laughed. The first time you hear Finnegan laugh is an experience. It’s a cackle coming from the deep of his belly. It’s the kind of laugh a western president could not afford to produce. I made him a latte and he’s stuck by it since. He wears the frothed milk on his moustache until some unknown urge makes him wipe his mouth. I bring the drink down to him. He’s holding a worn piece of copy book paper with blue biro sentences.
“What’s that?”
“A poem I wrote.”
“What’s it about?”
“You tell me.”
There are scribbles, crossed out lines and blatant spelling mistakes. It doesn’t rhyme so I immediately think it must be good. I’m not really sure what it’s about.
“How the cycle of life works in weird ways?”
This is what I always say if I don’t understand something. Like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“If that’s what you think.”
“You just write it yeah?”
“No it’s from ages back. Trying to look at it as often as I can. I’ll probably lose it soon.”
“Why?”
“Just a feeling.”
“It’s pretty dead in here today. I could probably type it and print it out for you so you have a spare.”
Finnegan looks at me like I’ve offered him a kidney.
“You serious?”
“Yeah, no bother.”
“Ah that’d be deadly.”
“Joe’s at the computer now but I could do it later.”
“I can’t stay here all day though.”
“Where’ll you be at about half six.”
“Fishing off the quay.”
“I’m not going down there in the rain though.”
“It won’t be raining.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me brother.”
“Alright if it’s not raining I’ll bring it down to you but if it is I’ll leave it here for you until tomorrow.”
“Again; it won’t be raining.”
Finnegan shoots the rest of his latte back and hands me the paper.
“Take care of that won’t you?”
“Thought you were going to lose it?”
“I am.”
Finnegan doesn’t wipe his mouth and walks out into the rain. I put the paper into my pocket and pick up his empty glass. I walk past the prep station and Beata’s crying. She’s wiping the tears from her eyes. When she looks at me I notice the mix of green and blue. The green is like the red of an explosion. It speckles the blue. I’m a bit confused about what I should do so I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Dobry?”
That means good. I’m hoping my worried expression will say the rest. She turns to me and starts laughing like she’s just heard something funny. My immediate thought is that she’s having some sort of breakdown. It makes sense. Eight hours a day everyday unable to understanding anything. That’d be enough to send anyone off the edge. I get this image of her going into a shop to get a coffee and everyone being wary of her because she’s one of the celebrities. She can’t even speak English. The girl won’t stand a chance.
“Cebula.”
I try to space my words out and speak slowly knowing that it won’t matter.
“I don’t understand. Are you O.K.?”
She points to the half chopped red-onion on the green board and starts laughing again.
“Cebula!”
“Oh, onion.”
We both start laughing. She puts her hand on my cheek to say I’m nice to care. I think that’s what it means. I can’t believe I never noticed her eyes before. Joe comes out of his office.
“What am I paying you for?!”
Beata looks confused.
“It was just that I thought...”
He cuts me off. His face is boiling.
“Get back to work or get out of my shop!”
I bring the latte glass to the dishwasher. In my head I call him a degenerate gambler and throw the glass at his already scarred face.
“I have to go out on business. I’ll be checking the camera when I get back so no arsing around!”
I put the latte glass into the dishwasher and go into Joe’s office. There’s a monitor hooked up to a camera on the main floor. I start typing up Finnegan’s poem and occasionally check the monitor to see if anyone’s come into the shop. It’s about a spider checking on her eggs. They’re mounded on one another so she can’t see if the ones on the bottom are okay. Eventually they hatch but nothing comes out. The spider tears through the eggs eventually getting to the bottom. There’s a baby spider there. She picks it up feeling waves of relief and love. Turns out the kid is stillborn. Man, this is grim. This is the reason I dropped college. Well, not really, there was the too hung over to go to lectures thing as well. Why can’t people just say what they mean? “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” is something an arse hole says. “Wish Romeo wasn’t a Montague. He’s a ride” is something a normal person says.
Joe comes back in at quarter past six. I’m closing the shop for the night and have already sent Beata home. She stayed late and helped me with some of the lock up. He walks past me without saying anything, presses a few buttons on the till and takes the receipt that comes out. It’s the read for the day. It can’t be more than three hundred. You take my and Beata’s wages out of that, add electricity, rent and product. Joe will be lucky if he’s cut even today. I fill a jug with water, put the steam wand in and say goodbye. Joe doesn’t say anything.
Finnegan was right the rain has let up. The quays are on my way home otherwise he’d be waiting until tomorrow. If you shaved him up and taught him how to laugh he wouldn’t stick out the way he does. What was he like before he took that acid tab? I wonder how the Finnegan I know would get on with a Finnegan who never took drugs. The arm of the marina curves around the quay. He’s sitting on the rocks that separate the marina from the water. It loos weird, speed boats, trawlers, buoys and Finnegan. I can’t see his fishing rod. His hair and beard are caught in the wind. He’s skinny enough to look like he might get caught up in the breeze. He throws pebbles into the sky. Above him seagulls circle and follow the stones into the water.
“Finnegan!”
He turns around and looks at me. It becomes clear he expects me to go out to him. It’s easy enough. It isn’t so long ago that I used to drink on these rocks in the summer.
“Well brother.”
“Not too bad. I got your poem printed up.”
“Thanks for that Rob. Appreciate it.”
There’s a packet of rashers and a small pile of stones beside him. He wraps one of the stones in a piece of bacon and throws it into the air. The seagulls fly for the pebble until one of them manages to catch it in its beak and swallow. The bird immediately falls out of the sky into the river. Finnegan lets out his belly laugh and then sighs.
“Did I ever tell you about my daughter Rob?”
“No. Didn’t know you had one.”
“She drowned.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry Finnegan. I didn’t know.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Finnegan throws another stone into the air and another bird goes down. I haven’t seen the first one come up yet. He laughs again.
“Some party out at the beach. It’s her birthday today.”
I’m not sure what to say. It doesn’t seem like Finnegan expects me to say anything.
“She had some eyes. Green bursting into brown.”
He throws another stone up. It’s kind of frightening when the seagulls clash above us. They really battle it out for those stones. There’s a load of feathers around us. Finnegan must been here since I saw him this morning.
A bird goes under. Finnegan laughs.
“They found her dead on the rocks with all the gulls. Her eyes were gone.”
I put my hand into my pocket and pull out the copy book poem and the printed poem. I hold them out. Finnegan smiles at me.
“This’ll come around brother.”
He takes the copy book page and wraps it around one of the stones. He wraps the stone in a piece of bacon and throws it. The seagulls bounce off each other, eyes fixed on the meat. Their grey and white wings battle one another like a dull kaleidoscope. One of the gulls catches the stone wrapped in art and bacon. It’s going to drown like a memory. The thrill of catching that meat is going to kill it.
I hear the splash and wait for Finnegan’s manic laugh.
It never comes.
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