The Man Who Made Me Miss My Bus Turn off the ovens first--they’ll have to cool before they can be cleaned. Once 9:00 hits, everything’s gotta be strategized if you’re gonna get out by 10:30. Next start dumping things--the extra tea and backup iced coffee, the bucket of sanitizer, the whipped creams and the smoothie bananas that expire at the end of the night, the carafes of cream on the condiment bar--every container’s gotta get washed. Throw that stuff in the dishwasher while the ovens are cooling, and while the dishes are washing, start making mop water. While the ovens are cooling and the dishes are washing and the hot water’s trickling painfully slow into the mop bucket, start sweeping up in the café. When you finish sweeping, the mop water will be long ready. So you put the first load of dishes away, start another, and then mop while the second load washes. You dump three of the four coffee brewers and start them on their cleaning cycle, leaving one to hold the night’s final batch of coffee. This can’t be dumped and cleaned until the last customer has left and the door’s been locked behind them. There’s plenty that can’t be done til after the doors close at 10:00, but that’s why when 9:00 hits you gotta start throwing away food and apologizing that you’re out--if you get every damn thing done that you possibly can before the doors are locked at 10:00, you can make it out by 10:30, and that’s what your shift on the schedule says--that you’ve got ‘til 10:30. Better stop the small-talking with your customers and your co-worker, get your head in turbo mode, and calculate the timing of every single task. That’s how I make my 10:40 bus on time. I’m the best closer we’ve got here. I’m used to that attention to detail, keeping my eyes peeled. Hyperawareness is a habit for women. Walking home alone at night, I’m always checking over one shoulder, then the other. Can’t overlook anything. That’s how you’ve gotta be with closing, too. Even when you think you’re ahead of the game some night, don’t get cocky. You never know when a whole Bible study is gonna come in at ten ‘til close and order two hot chocolates apiece, with whipped cream and sprinkles on every one. As a matter of fact, this one night that we were a few minutes ahead ended up being one of the latest closes I’ve ever had. At 9:53 I’d just finished the final rinse cycle for the third of the three coffee brewers we can dump before close. I was meticulously rubbing out those little sunshine-shaped stains where the coffee drops splash on the countertops. Taylor was scratching burnt cheese off of the oven stone. “Hey, you want any of these pastries before I throw ‘em out?” “Actually, yeah. Save me those everything bagels if you would. And the croissants.” “You got it.” From behind us came the terrible noise of someone clearing their throat so we’d know they were standing at the register. It was a polite sound, the kind that wants you to notice it but doesn’t want you to know that it’s made to be noticed. You know what I mean. At five ‘til close, that’s the sound of missing the bus. Taylor gave me the look that meant I’d better believe I was the one who had to ring him up. I turned around to see a plain man in a pale yellow polo. He was thin, with an oval face and wire-rimmed glasses and a smile on his face. “What time do you guys close?” He was considerate enough to ask. “In three minutes,” I said instead of “10:00.” Trying to nudge him a little with my own sense of urgency. “Right on time!” he said in relief. I gritted my teeth. “Okay, I’d like to place an order for two of your Bulk Buggies.” “Of course! What time do you want us to have them ready?” “Now would be great, if you could.” Now this is cruel and unusual, you gotta understand. “Bulk Buggie” is the stupid name we have for our portable bulk brewed coffee. Usually customers order these over the phone or come in the day before to specify the roast and the types of sugar they’d like, etcetera. Occasionally people will come in last-minute and ask for them right away, but that always happens in the morning for a business meeting or something. And in the mornings, we’ve got nine or ten people on the floor. I’d never had anyone order one at night before. “Taylor?” He looked up at me from the crusty ovens. “He wants two Bugs.” Taylor was confused. “You know the spot in the book to write the order down, right?” “Like, now.” Taylor looked directly at the man. “Now?” “That would be great, yeah, if possible.” Taylor stared at him. He looked alarmed for a few seconds before he remembered to put on a smile. “Yeah, of course.” Well, as you might imagine, I missed the bus that night. Did everything I could, but my fingers just couldn’t move fast enough. In a heated silence we re-prepped two of the already clean brewers and started to brew the two full batches of coffee that we’d transfer to the Buggies. Taylor locked the doors and shooed the teenage couple still lingering in the café. He started on the post-lockup tasks while I filled up the side compartments of the Buggies with creamers and sugars and empty paper cups and lids and everything else a customer needs. I was looking at the clock every 20 seconds. 10:04, 10:08. If I miss that 10:40 bus, I’m stuck waiting in the cold for the 11:40. But the cold’s not the real problem. The problem is that I take the bus to the train station, and then I take that train home. It’s a 45 minute bus ride, and the last train leaves that station at midnight. So if I miss the 10:40 bus, I miss the train. I dropped a whole sleeve of cups on the ground. I cursed aloud and threw them out without a second to mourn their waste. The customer shuffled uncomfortably. If I miss that train, it means walking 2 miles alone through dimly lit neighborhoods. Just the weekend before, a girl was raped by her taxi driver at one of the intersections I have to walk through. The month before that, a double homicide. We’d have to run both brewers through their rinsing cycles all over again. We’d have to re-count the creamers. What else? Did I take the trash out yet? Yes, definitely yes. Floors are done, too. Taylor’s working on the usual stuff. We were a little bit ahead of schedule tonight. I thought for a minute there I might make it to the bus. You know how they say there’s a violent crime spike near the holiday season. I worked silently and urgently and a little too loudly, let my nervousness turn into sloppy banging and slamming. I didn’t say a single word to the man waiting patiently for his coffee. It was 10:14 and all that coffee was still brewing. I poked my head in back to see how Taylor was coming. Before I could ask, he shook his head. “Assholes, man. It’s so easy to just be considerate. If I ever open up my own coffee shop, I hereby swear that my employees shall not serve any new customer five minutes til close. 50-year-old white guy in his nice slacks thinks he’s got a right to anything he can pay for. Fucking bullshit.” I nodded but said nothing and ran back up front. The guy looked right at me when I stepped through the doorway. It seemed like he wasn’t sure where to wait. I realized sheepishly that he was probably very aware of our anger. He looked embarrassed to be idle, kept inspecting the same little chocolates over and over. It made me feel bad. “So where you goin’ with all this caffeine this time of night?” I asked him. He turned around a little startled. “Oh,” he hesitated. “It’s, uh. Sort of a going away party.” “How late’s this party supposed to last?” I teased. “Well...” he paused. “I guess we’ll see.” Something was off about his tone. It was too delicate. I stopped scrubbing the sink for a second and set the bleach down to turn and look at him. His eyebrows were pinched together in the middle, and his cheekbones stuck out from biting his cheeks inside his mouth. He looked like he wanted to cry. I didn’t know what to say, just squeezed the rag in my fist and waited. He cleared his throat. “This stuff have enough caffeine to keep a bunch of tired middle aged guys up for awhile?” he joked. “Oh, I think we’ve got you covered.” He nodded but didn’t say anything else. Just stared blankly at the gift cards display with his hands in his pockets. It seemed like he didn’t want to talk, so I started sorting out all the bills and coins from the tip jar and dropping them in the safe. You’re not supposed to handle the safe until the store is totally deserted, by the way, but I really didn’t have time for those formalities that night. I felt bad for him. Couldn’t help wondering what was going on. While I was rifling through the money, Taylor turned the music off in the café from the back room. The little clinks of the coins stood out and made the silence unbearable. I looked back at the man to see him still staring at nothing, still biting his cheeks. I had to say something. I locked up the safe and started wiping down the countertops. “So it’s a going away party?” I asked. “Who’s the party for?” “It’s one of my oldest friends,” he said. “Known him since high school.” “Where’s he going?” He didn’t say anything at first. I thought I’d pushed it too much. Finally, very slowly, he said, “Well,” and then for a moment, he paused again. “He’s in hospice.” I stuttered and set down the rag. “Is he going to be alright?” “It’s hospice,” he said. “Oh, wow.” I was quiet for a long moment, and he was too. I wanted to tell him about my uncle. “I’m so sorry,” I said.
It was 10:20 by the time he left. I don’t remember what else I said to him. I pulled the coffee into the Buggies and held the door for him on his way out. I was quiet for the rest of the close. “I can’t believe that guy,” Taylor said. I didn’t respond. “Thanks for your hard work tonight,” he continued. “If I’d been closing with anyone else, it would’ve been even later.” I thanked him for the compliment, but I didn’t tell Taylor what the customer had told me. I didn’t want him to say something to try to make me feel better. I was freezing by the time the 11:40 bus came and freezing again when I got off to walk home. Kept thinking about that man. I thought that I should’ve asked him his name at least. What if he’d heard what Taylor said in the back room? A car door slammed somewhere in the darkness and startled me into a sprint like some kind of frightened animal. Did he wonder if he was the cause for the anger in my pinched face? Did he know? I was on high alert now, swiveling my head and running at the same time. I decided to just run the whole way. My fists were clenched to try to hide my fingers from the cold. I knew that he couldn’t have missed the anger in our silence, in my haphazard body language. I was still thinking about it when I rounded the corner of my own street and slipped on a patch of ice right in front of my doorstep. I landed hard on the cold concrete. I gasped and looked around make sure I was alone out there. He knew as well as I did that I had to be nice to him. For a long time I sat there in front of the stairs to my apartment building, shivering and gulping cold air. I remember the sky being unusually clear, and the moon catching that frozen sparkle all the way down the street. It was hitting the cars, the lampposts, the windows, the fences...I must have sat there for a long time. Everything was covered in ice, completely silent and still. I hoped his friend would be awake to see that night. I pictured them gathered in his room. They are fixing their hot coffees on the window sill. Somebody pulls back the curtain and points outside, look at that silvery night, would ya? The blinds are jammed, and the dying man can’t see out there from his bed. The man who was our customer untangles them, and another friend ties the curtain back. The dying man smiles and gives a thumbs up, readjusting his pillows so he can prop his head up to keep on looking. They are all glad.