Half empty

I walk up the steps reading - Jimmy, Outspan and company trudge through mud back toward their tents - and down the hall toward the office kitchen. A man in a white shirt walks out of the kitchen past me. I close the book, set it on the counter, pick up a white styrofoam cup, pour it half-full of decaf. I had tea at home this morning and don’t really need a full coffee cup’s worth of caffeine. I reach for the pot of caffeinated coffee. A line of coffee pours from the spout and into the pot. White shirt guy must have made a fresh pot. I bet he’s a good neighbor. Then again, I ask myself, does making coffee for others get praise or is it a minimum standard?

I pour the cup the rest of the way full of decaf, pick up my novel again, put it back down, step toward the sink, then back to the pot of decaf where I pour half the cup back into the pot. I haven’t sipped any of it yet, I tell myself, but there are probably chemicals in the styrofoam. I wonder if that stuff gives you cancer. Pretty much everything does, I think. A bit of a Fugazi song, “Styrofoam,” pops into my head, Ian MacKaye shouting “we are all bigots, so filled with hatred!” I look at the caffeinated pot of coffee. It’s about two-thirds full. The stream of coffee trickles in. I put down my cup, pick up my novel. Jimmy and his troupe reach their tents, crack open a beer. I hear the trickle of the coffee slow and stop.

I put the novel down, pick up the coffee pot. A drip drops from the top of coffeemaker, sizzles on the hot surface of the warmer. I fill the top half of my cup with coffee, another drip falls, sizzles. I put the pot back and the sizzling intensifies. I look for cream. No cream. It’s been replaced by non-dairy creamer. There’s probably chemicals in that shit, I’ll drink the coffee black. Fugazi again in my head, “we release our poisons, like styrofoam!”

I consider grabbing a paper towel and wiping off the warmer, but I don’t. As I head for the door I think about rented homes and my landlord and a workshop I went to on how to save energy costs, put on by some environmental group trying to reduce energy use. Most of the workshop amounted to ‘spend money now and save in the long run.’ If you’re a renter any serious improvements are investments in your landlord’s property in return for lower heating bills. If reducing energy costs is a social good, landlords have no and renters have little financial incentive to do so. The arrangement encourages antisocial behavior. This runs through my head as I walk out of the kitchen, novel tucked into an armpit, to the sound of coffee drips boiling away under the coffeepot.

I take a sip of my coffee. Fresh from the percolator, the coffee is really fucking hot. I blink for a moment while the tip of my tongue cooks. I spit the coffee back in the styrofoam cup. Saliva in my coffee now, I think. Mine, but still. That thought is interrupted as the half-mouthful of coffee drops into the cup, flinging droplets onto my shirt and into my eye. I blink. Am I blinded? I blink again. I suppose if it was hot enough to blind me I wouldn’t be calmly asking myself that question. I wipe the hot-but-not-blindingly-hot coffee from my eyelid, survey the line of five large dark circles running down my shirt.

I set my coffee cup down on the drinking fountain, take a sip of water to cool my stinging tongue, and splash a handful of water on my shirt. The coffee spots are darker circles inside larger lighter circles of water. I pull a crumpled napkin from my hoodie pocket, apparently I had that in that pocket and apparently part of me knew so, and dab at the water. I hear someone walk by behind me. I grit my teeth and breathe, refusing to turn my head and look. Somewhere in the back of my head a voice laughs, “I told you so.” I zip my hoodie up over the spotted shirt, walk toward my desk. I pass two guys in suits, I’ve never seen them before, their backs are to me, they’re laughing. I imagine throwing the cup of coffee in their faces. As I pass I see they’re both looking at the one guy’s phone. I set my things down at my desk, sit in my chair, look at my laptop and at the novel, deciding which one to open. I type this, taste the coffee, it’s gone cold.