Who Is Le Doux?
Starbucks off Route 1, Glen Allen, Virginia. Visited on July 2, 2021.
A guy double-fisting 20-ounce coffees also holds a bag of breakfast sandwiches pinched between the ring and pinky fingers of one hand. It is a precarious situation, and something is wrong with the order.
He tries to hand the beverages back without dropping the bag, and huzzah! He is successful. The barista in the yellow beanie makes everything right. The guy with the coffees and the breakfast sandwiches is another satisfied customer about to
SAVOR THE DAY
It’s 71 degrees outside and pouring-down rain. So many people buying their coffees are dressed inappropriately for the weather, but I wish them well from my perch at a long table with a half-dozen chairs on each side and a green-and-white sticker in the middle that says
IF YOU LOVE SOMETHING, GET IT FREE
I’m drinking caffeine. I don’t drink caffeine anymore, on account of I’m old and have a sleeping disorder and sleep like shit even when there’s no caffeine in my system.
I love caffeine. I miss caffeine. But when I drink caffeine it’s like tossing an electromagnet onto a circuit board. So I only drink it occasionally as a reward for exhibiting some modicum of discipline, and for a few hours after I take it into my body, it’s like I am Bradley Cooper in Limitless. I sense everything is connected in a big-picture kind of way. I see 12 steps ahead.
green aprons whirl behind the counter
the jarring sound of a scoop
sinking into ice
falling into a blender
the rattle of ice
crushing ice
the whirr of the blender
Music pipes through the speakers – I can’t make it out. The air conditioning unit is too loud. All I hear is someone strumming a guitar, someone plucking a bass, and some guy wailing no doubt about the kind of heartbreak and loss that nobody has ever really experienced except in an archetypal way.
the best and worst
break-ups of my life
have never been reflected
in song; no song
about lost love
has ever comforted me
in the way I needed and need.
A couple of moms drag chairs from their predetermined positions. An interior designer was probably paid big money to decide exactly where they should go, but money never prevents humans from acting in unexpected ways, and these moms are rearranging the space so their children can run, explore, play.
ARE YOU GOING TO EAT THAT MUFFIN? THAT’S MY WATER
The tiles behind the counter are pentagons, which makes me think of the Pentagon, which makes me think of the administration and organization of war, the spreadsheets and ledgers, the antiseptic slide presentations taking place in SCIFS, and all around in general the fact that war is a profession. It also makes me think of how much I hate when big companies like Starbucks approach commerce as a battlefield. Maybe they should have made the tiles hexagons, so I’d think of honeycombs and honeybees, as if that’d be less distressing.
GROUNDS FOR YOUR GARDEN. TRY ADDING THESE TO YOUR GARDEN AND SEE THE MAGIC POWER OF COFFEE GROUNDS. TAKE ONE! IF YOU WANT MORE, PLEASE SEE A BARISTA.
Once upon a time, a young woman was given a bag of coffee grounds by a barista at her local Starbucks. She took them home and poured them into a hole in her garden. She covered them with soil. The sky opened that night and dumped several inches of rain on the ground and caused the nearby creek to overflow. The day after, there was nothing but sunshine. On day three, the young woman was tending to her garden and noticed that out of the hole a shrub had sprouted, two times taller than she was.
GLEN! HERE YOU GO!
What happened to the young woman in the story is … I don’t know. Without a deadline, I find it easy to start and difficult to finish anything. I am easily distracted by whatever is happening around me. Like, right now I can’t help but notice the baristas wear masks. The barista with the yellow beanie wears a mask. The barista with a baseball cap wears a mask. The barista with the gray-and-white polka dot bandana wears a mask. The barista with the black beanie wears a mask. They wear masks because everything has opened up, but the pandemic isn’t really over, is it?
MOMMY! MOMMY!
Across from me, a shelf full of merchandise: Stainless steel thermoses, plastic water bottles imprinted with rough brush strokes of paint that resemble pink flowers, neon colored gift cards, pour-over attachments, and K-cups. On the wall next to the shelf are two canvas prints hanging side by side, both signed by Le Doux.
WHO IS LE DOUX?
The print on the left is a collage of black-and-white illustrations: A hand holding a circle between two fingers (the circle is a bean). A spoon that rises taller than a skyline. Squiggles representing steam. A rainbow. The print on the right is mountains, an elephant, some sort of feline, a volcano, water drops, a bird, coffee plants.
WHATEVER YOU’D LIKE …
My legs are tired. They lack lightness and bounce. I wanted to exercise today, but I have been taking a lot of long walks. To walk every day as I have been walking would be counterproductive. I need rest. I know I need rest, but it irritates me that my body needs stillness when I am ready to act. This irritation is something I learned from my father. It is a state of mind I am trying to unlearn.
I’LL GIVE IT RIGHT BACK
The Starbucks is empty sometimes, sometimes full. The store of energy I draw on to write is full sometimes, sometimes empty. Lacking purpose, I am easily overwhelmed by a powerful familiar feeling that time is running out and I am failing to notice something that would make sense of all this.
HOW ABOUT YOURSELF?
To be at the mercy of external constraints (the need to make money, etc.) and internal time (can’t force creative breakthroughs) is frus-tra-ting. All anyone can do is commit to the process. Maybe what I’m failing to notice doesn’t yet exist. Maybe if I write, it will emerge. Maybe I will coax it into being.
Our heroine takes the free bag
of coffee grounds.
She takes them to her garden,
buries them in a hole.
That night, it rains so hard
the creek overflows.
The next day,
the creek recedes,
and the sun makes everything grow.
On the third day,
Quinn discovers
a shrub has sprouted.
It is two times taller than she.
A monstrosity, Quinn says
to her friends Rabbit and Bird.
She chops down the shrub.
She digs up its roots.
She runs shrub-and-roots
through a wood chipper.
Rabbit and Bird watch
as Quinn bags the mulch,
puts the bag on the curb
next to a sign:
FREE: ESPECIALLY GOOD FOR STARTING FIRES.
It smells wet. The air is damp. Again, a scoop crunches the ice, the ice rattles when it’s dumped into a blender, and I hear the high-pitched whirr and grind of the blender fracturing the ice, breaking it down, like it’s telling me to notice … to notice … to notice …
BUT DO YOU LOVE THIS WONDERFUL WEATHER WE’RE HAVING?