ChapStick (ManxBoy)

Chapter 4 - A cup of Joe

Chapter 4 – A cup of Joe

Chapter Song – Anything New - Bibio

With a tray balanced on one hand and a teapot clasped in the other, I swerved by the tables to avoid collision. I braked on my heels before a group of four waiting on their spread of croissants, bagels, cannolis, and bear claws. I served the tray of pastries with a smile. They tipped me generously with four dollars and a dime.

“Hey, sugar cane, where’s my coffee??”

I turned to the side and met a brute who wanted a second cup, “here’s your coffee sir! Nice and piping hot just the way you like it,” this time my smile was choreographed. I didn’t get a tip.

I was now sixteen and had been Americanized. Thanks to the kind-hearted people who took me in without thinking twice. It had been two years since the warehouse incident. Yet I could still smell the blood under my nose every time I poured coffee grinds in our compost wastebasket.

“Vander, sweet cheeks, ‘ungry people need servicin’ on table five please!” exclaimed Bertha, owner of the Manhattan breakfast joint I worked in. She was ghetto, but I loved her all the same.

“You know it lady luck!” I shot back. She was a dear friend to me, and I loved her so dearly.

“Hmm-mmm … child, werQ,” she pouted. We’d always top each other’s words like this. But I’d always let her have the last say in things as a sign of reverence, since she was the boss of me.

Bertha’s a stout African-American woman who loved wearing tight neons to contrast her dark Medusa curls. She’s good friends with Lupo, the catty buxom stripper who signed my papers after the police found me lying on a ditch somewhere.

Lupo got questioned of our relation. She testified that we were cousins. It wasn’t the most convincing for she was full-blown Barbie while I was a small Asian kid. But I’m glad she did because I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for her compassion and sympathy. Maybe knowing first-hand how hard it must be to come from nothing made her compassionate enough to pick up garbage like me, with no thought or reservations. What I had now was a life in front of me, and for the first time I could see clear where it was heading.

Lupo worked at a 'Red-Light District'. There was really no permanent red-light district in New York anymore, because certain neighborhoods had problems with prostitution and solicitation. Areas of ill-reputation were mostly located in the outer boroughs. Places where Lupo stationed.

In terms of location, Lupo frequented the Meat Packing District. A place I tried to avoid as much as I could because the stench of freshly killed animals was nauseating. It reminded me the horrors I experienced that night in the warehouse. I had been trying to forget about it ever since.

“Yo chinky banana! Get your chinky ass over here and service me!” a voice pierced through my stupor. His ridicule traveled all the way from where he sat across the breakfast tables. He wore a burgundy button down which made him look like the pig that he was. I hated pompous men. They irritated the hell out of me. I winded around three tables to get to him. And as I made my way towards the douche, all I could think of was how his breeding paled in comparison to the downtrodden pigs that got slaughtered in the Meat Packing District. I pulled up my notepad against my face, let out an exasperated sigh, and then greeted him with a choreographed smile.

“What can I get you this morning?”

“Choke it,” he chuckled. Oh boy.

“Excuse me?  I don’t understand code. Would you mind going at it, again?” I revisited kindly with a touch of distaste. Damn.