Thank You for the Coffee

Gerard was happier than he’d felt in a long while, which he hadn’t really expected to happen during the crazy assignment period. He’d expected to be stressed out of his mind and panicking like a motherfucker, but although he still groaned every time Joe reminded him how many days they had left, he was actually feeling on top of things. It was quite frankly a relief to have found somewhere that he could sit and draw happily, and he had called his mother a few days previously to reassure her as such. That’s not to say that he hadn’t had a couple of nights whereby he’d sat and simply doodled, pulling out his walkman and just sort of chilling out. But the work he did on the other nights more than made up for a little bit of concentration lapse/procrastination. He would ink in the mornings to mid-afternoon, have a bit of relaxation time late afternoon-early evening, watching a movie and making some dinner, and then he’d head off to Westside Cafeteria until closing. It was more organised than he’d ever been in his life, he wagered.

The coffee shop had got steadily busier during their evening shifts. The tables were mostly full now, as opposed to the first night he’d been when only about 5 were occupied besides his own. As Gerard pushed open the door, there were even two people in front of him in the queue. The boy – Frank, his nametag said - was taking the orders, and his female colleague was programming the coffee machine. Gerard popped his earbuds in for the short wait, fitting in an Iron Maiden song before he took his turn at the counter and Frank smiled at him.

The boy’s hair always seemed to be messed up from the heat, dark hair that had grown out and strayed onto his forehead. He usually wore a dark t-shirt to work, a short apron tied around his waist and covering the thighs of his jeans, so there didn’t seem to be a uniform as long as the clothes the employees chose were relatively plain. A tattoo of a star decorated his forearm towards the inside of his elbow, and a ring of words in red ink linked around the opposite wrist, although Gerard had never worked out what it said.

“Black coffee to start?” Frank smiled, already reaching for a mug.
Gerard nodded, smiling. Frank had obviously already memorised Gerard’s general pattern of ordering. Gerard had frequented dozens of coffee places as he’d grown up, but this was the first where the barista had remembered his order. He handed over his student card for Frank to scan.
“So, can I call you by your name? I mean, you’re a regular, and I see your name every day on your card, so.”
“Sure, Frank” Gerard grinned in response. “I see yours on your name tag.”
Frank smiled widely and scanned in the card.
“Oh! And this is Beth. She always gets stuck with me on the evening shift.”

Gerard waved at the girl and said hi, taking his coffee and change. He turned to walk to his table of choice, and was strangely heartbroken to see that it was piled up with dirty cups and plates on a couple of trays. Before he could even turn around to sheepishly ask one of them to clear it up, Frank had already come around the counter, wet cloth in hand and tea towel slung over his shoulder.
“It looked kind of busy in here earlier. I didn’t want someone to take your booth” Frank explained.

Gerard was sort of touched that Frank had made his table uninhabitable by anyone else, and followed him happily over to the booth while Frank piled everything up and wiped down the tabletop. Without the barrier of a counter between them Gerard could see just how short Frank really was in relation to himself. It was sort of sickeningly adorable.

“So, I realise you’re an art student” Frank began, wiping crumbs off the table to catch in his hand, sprinkling into one of the dirty cups. “- but what’s your actual degree?”
“Bachelor of Fine Arts” Gerard replied. It still made him feel a little silly to say, as if he was being a pompous asshole or something, even though he clearly wasn’t. “I major in cartooning, though.”
“No shit? That’s rad. Like animation? Or is that something different?”
“More like comics.”

That seemed to catch Frank’s attention and when he looked up the next time he had an even wider smile on his face somehow.
“That’s really cool, I’m not gonna lie. I’m not exactly a comic connoisseur or anything, but I read a couple here and there, so I can appreciate.”
“Oh yeah?”

It was always a good day when Gerard could tell someone what he was majoring in and be met with enthusiasm rather than an incredulous snort. Unless you actively read them, people didn’t understand just how difficult making comics could really be. They see some warped cartoon doodles and a couple of lines of dialogue in a panel and scoff, thinking I could do that. Gerard doubted that people really understood just how frustrating it was to narrow down all that needed to be said and communicated just into that doodle’s body language and a couple of lines of speech.
“Superman’s alright, not quite to my taste though. Batman’s the best, Spiderman’s the worst.”
Gerard grinned, thinking about how similar Frank’s opinion of comics was to his brother’s.

“Frank, the fries!” came Beth’s voice from the other side of the shop.
Frank smacked his head dramatically onto the tabletop, before straightening and re-wiping the spot his forehead has tarnished.
“I have no fucking idea how she manages to break it so often” he groaned good-naturedly, giving Gerard a smile before hefting up the tall pile of china and heading back to the kitchen.