Skipping a Beat

Coffee is the single most important beverage to the American people. Of course I don’t have any facts or logic to back this up, but when you actually stop to think about it, it only takes moment to figure it out. In New York City, it felt like the city was made of coffee shops, all competitive for my customers, all claiming to be unique in a sea of conformity. Most people just wanted their damn coffee and to get the hell out of the shop before some college-drop-out with a bass started reciting some awful poetry.

Claire Simmons got this; she opened her shop with the sheer idea of providing coffee to people, not some sort of idea that comes with a coffee shop. She opened it in one of the busiest areas of New York, she made the inside look expensive even though it was a cheap piece of shit, and she named it Luna’s after her daughter Luella. It was a hit with the businessmen on their way to work and their socialite wives who just wanted to get their coffee without having to worry about the unbathed hippies. When she opened Luna’s and needed someone to work for her and I stumbled in late for school and needing a goddamn coffee fix, she hired me on the spot because I yelled at the man two people in front of me who wouldn’t order fast enough. I was still late for school, but at least my summer job search had ended before it had begun.

At night, Claire turned Luna’s into a more relaxing place. Everything wasn’t just go go go, instead the lights were muted, and the stage was set and a musician with a lonely guitar would take the stage every other night and play beautiful music while the rest of the crowd would sit in awe and talk in hushed tones.

Luna’s was my favorite place in the world. Aside from my apartment and school, it was the only place that I spent much time. It was crowded and loud and frustrating, but eventually you would catch a customer smiling at you, or hear Claire’s joyful laugh from the back room and it felt more like home than anything I had ever known.

This was my beginning. Where the story really starts. It starts with a place that sold coffee to grumpy people and then played them to sleep at night with soulful guitars and soft strumming. It was a thrumming vibrant place, pulsing with emotion, overflowing with love and laughter and tears.

It was a New York coffee shop, and it was the only home I had ever known.

I had started working there the summer I turned sixteen, and it was hard work. My hands raw after my first day and my knuckles clenched. My brow was covered in a sheet of sweat that never went away no matter how hard I tried to cool myself down. The customers were impatient and didn’t care that it was my first day, they offered no sympathy or well-wishes. I hadn’t exactly expected them to all give me a hug, but I had not prepared myself for the rude comments and the snide remarks that rubbed my sides the wrong way. That first day I found myself in the back room crying, there was no way I could ever do all this work, it wasn’t for me. As I was about to throw in the towel Luella found me in the back room. She was three then, teetering on her chubby legs and she crashed into me, her shorts arms attempting to wrap around my neck and my heart cracked, emotions and love spilling out into the coldness of my chest. It was easy for Luella to wrap her arms around me, she was so young then and that was what you did when you cared for someone. It was love at its simplest.

As the days wore on the job became less stressful, the rude comments were ignored with an eye roll or a soft grunt, the orders were easier to memorize and make, and soon I fell into the rhythm of the coffee shop, the deep rumbling of a turning earth and coffee into the hands of a waiting customer. The mornings were crazy and filled with face after face, accepting money and handing over a steaming beverage, and by nightfall the place settled into a vibe that was on its own planet. The first time I had seen the transformation take place I was sure that this was an entirely different building, a different world. The customer’s calmed down, they relaxed in our comfy chairs and let the clock tick by, there were no angry comments and there were smiles and laughter. It was like being in a universe were nothing existed except the soft strum of a guitar and the muted chatter of people who had their own life outside of here, their own stories to tell someday to their grandchildren. It was overwhelming when you stopped to think about how many stories there were in New York, overwhelming and terrifying.

But at that moment, in those moments, the stories all meshed together, they created one perfect being. One throbbing heart, one thinking mind, one strong soul; it was as if the very air itself was bringing the people there together. They would sit at tables with complete strangers and leave with them three hours later, even if they never saw or spoke to each other again. I always like to believe there was something special about Luna’s, that it was some sort of vibe about the place, a spirit that lived there. In reality, it was probably just the setting sun and the soft mood of the music; it was probably juts human life at its best. There was probably no complex story about how Luna’s got to be the way that it did, but that’s maybe because it’s the simplest of answers that are always true (Like Kennedy getting shot or September eleventh).

Coffee brought people together, it was as simple and complex as that.

Right now, all of this may seem like useless information. You’re thinking Why the fuck do I care about your connection with a coffee place? Get to the part where the hot boys comes in! And I have to tell you that this is really the start of the story. It doesn’t start with Reese Munn or his guitar or some beautiful breathtaking moment. It starts with a building, this story, it starts with me. That may sound selfish or whatever, but in truth that’s where my story starts, because you have to understand why I stayed at Luna’s all those times there was a rude customer or a spilt cup of coffee all over my new blouse. You have to understand why I came back even after Reese Munn appeared there, it’s all part of a story that’s deeper than just the two of us, it winds itself all the way into the steel roots of New York.

That’s why I’m telling you all of this. It’s so that you as a reader can understand this story in its fullest, the way it was meant to be understood. And you will read my story and you will continue to grow old and maybe you will forget it someday. Maybe someday you will be too busy thinking about your own story that you carry on your shoulders to remember mine. I’m okay with that, this story wasn’t mean to be remembered forever in your mind, it wasn’t meant so that you would think about it every two seconds, and it’s meant to last a moment. Like a flash of lightning across the sky in a thunder storm. It’s a brilliant moment of light, and then it will be gone and you will go on, there will be other storms, other strikes of lighting. You will forget me and my story, but I will never forget, it’s a part of me now, a scar that runs across a deep valley that you cannot see on my skin. It’s an imprint of my heart and on my soul, it’s a soul all its own.

Of course, there are exciting parts to this story. There are boring parts and sad parts and funny parts. It has an ending that is not at all happy and not at all sad. It has its tipping parts and its twists and mistakes. It has soft whispers in the middle of the night and loud yells of hearts ripping apart. And it has Reese Munn, without him, this story would not exist. He is the true star of this, the star of the show. That was always fine with me, as long as he brought me along for the ride, even if it took me too far too fast and eventually, I couldn’t find my way back.

But now of course, we get to the part you’ve all been waiting for. The part where it gets interesting.