As Preto Velho answered my questions, I studied Neva’s face. It had crumbled in half. Her eyes seemed to have disappeared into two wrinkled puckers of darkness. The voice was still hers, but now shivered with age. Spittle drooped from her lips, and her breath reeked of tobacco, the smell seeming to come from every pore in her body, as if she’d been smoking that pipe for centuries. It was utterly convincing, and while I’m not quite sure I was speaking with the archetypal spirit of all enslaved Africans, I’m not sure I wasn’t; I’m absolutely certain Neva thought I was.
While Preto spoke with me, Walter and the lady in the hair curlers chatted about the weather. This bit of mundane behavior made the whole situation more plausible. The lady in curlers finally asked if I had any more questions. I said no. Preto blessed first me and then the lady. There was a quick shiver, Preto Velho was gone, and Neva was chattering excitedly about an upcoming fiesta. It’s so hot in here, she said, why don’t we go out in the yard?
“So,” Neva asked as we were leaving. “Did Preto Velho speak with you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”
On the drive back, Walter and I were both silent. It had been his first visit, and although he was a Catholic, he’d been impressed. She was, we both agreed, “muy formidable.” I asked if he wanted five or ten dollars for the gas. He wanted fifteen. I was a tad disappointed that we had not roasted the coffee beans, as they did in Ethiopia. Neva had said it was not necessary. “What, he has wine and cigars—that’s not enough for the old man?” I just thought it would have been nice to share a cup with the old fellow, who, despite all the suffering the bean had caused him and his people, still loved the brew as much as I.
Of course, I still had no idea what future he had foretold for me. I found out that evening, when I bumped into Mario and Walter at the counter. Mario burst out laughing.
“So,” he said, with one last lascivious wink. “Your questions are answered! You’re going back to New York to marry that girl Nina, eh?”
Officer Hoppe
What do you call a large, low-fat latté made with decaf espresso?
A tall- skinny- why bother.
Graffiti at the L-Café, Williamsburg, NY
THE UNITED STATES WAS THE first Western nation to be born completely caffeinated. Conceived, even, because Captain John Smith, who founded the Jamestown colony in 1607, had met joe while putzing about the Middle East. The Mayflower that brought over the first pilgrims also contained a mortar and pestle for making “coffee powder.” By 1669, coffee laced with cinnamon and honey was being poured in New York. America’s first legal coffeehouse opened a year later in Boston under the proprietorship of a woman named Dorothy Johnson.
Like their counterparts in Mother England, America’s colonial cafés quickly developed a reputation for brewing bad coffee and big business. Boston’s Merchant Coffeehouse was the scene of the first public stock auction, while Wall Street’s Tontine Coffeehouse became the New York Stock Exchange. This started to change in the 1700s when Britain began its historic transformation from a society of coffee lovers to one based on tea. It’s complicated, but essentially England, despite its enormous colonial territories, had failed to acquire any significant coffee-growing plantations. France held most of the Caribbean, Portugal controlled Brazil, and Indonesia belonged to the Dutch. This meant that every cup of Java downed by British subjects put money in the pockets of European competitors. Mind you, Great Britain didn’t have any tea-producing colonies either. The only drug production they controlled were the opium farms of northern India, a product useless to the British but coveted by the Chinese, who, as luck would have it, had gargantuan tea plantations. So the Brits began trading Indian opium for Chinese tea.1 They started with reasonable exchange rates, which, as more and more Chinese got hooked on heroin, they raised. By 1750 they were selling tea to the English for half the price of coffee and with a significantly higher profit margin. The company then launched its insidious “The Cup That Cheers” ad campaign and Europe’s first great café society became an historical footnote.
We colonials were in the process of making the same switch when King George hit the colonies with a tax on tea. At first Americans boycotted the drink. Then a group of patriots disguised themselves as Indians and pushed a shipload of the stuff into Boston Harbor, precipitating the American Revolution, and ensuring that coffee forever after remained the only cup a red-blooded, gun-loving, TV-addled American would be seen drinking in public. We became a nation of Java junkies, wired from dawn to dusk, intent on running faster, getting richer, dancing harder, playing longer and getting higher than anybody else.
Funny that we never learned how to make the stuff.
MY ORIGINAL PLAN, AFTER FLYING FROM BRAZIL TO NEW YORK, had been to drive across the United States in search of the perfect cup of coffee. The deepest, richest, most fragrant drip; the loftiest cappuccino; the pithiest espresso. Caffeinated Kerouac. Quest for the Holy Grail. Whatever.
“That’s all wrong, man,” Jeff said. “Real American coffee is bad. You should be looking for the worst cup, not the best.”
Jeff and I were sitting in Odessa’s, a classic coffeeshop in Manhattan’s East Village, waiting for Nina. My fears regarding myself and Nina had proved happily imaginary, by the way, and I’d soon wormed my way into her squinch-sized apartment in aren’t-we-artsy Williamsburg. Jeff was Nina’s friend, a grizzled gentleman, leader of the legendary Lefty Jones Band, and dedicated drinker (not necessarily of coffee). His theory was simple: I should not search for mere technical perfection but rather seek the truest, most soulful, of cups, American soul, which flourishes only in the bottom of a mud stew poured out of a Pyrex coffeepot by a farm-faced waitress in a gingham dress and frilly apron; and poured again and again and again and again and again until the customer runs screaming into the night. How could I disagree? America is celebrated the world over not only for using the foulest of beans, but also for brewing them in the most offensive manner possible. And ironically weak—a true-blue joe is both as watery as the Mississippi River and as plentiful, as illustrated by this anonymous turn-of-the-century tale of how the world’s first bottomless cup of coffee came into being.
According to the story a traveler, stopping at a country hotel in Mississippi, astonished the owner by drinking cup after cup of coffee. “You seem to be very fond of coffee,” the host could not but remark as he tendered the stranger his fifth cup.
“I am indeed sir,” replied the other gravely. “I always take one cup of coffee at breakfast, and I am still in hopes of arriving at that quantity before I leave the table. Will you favor me, sir, with another cup or two of this preparation?”
“Yeah, like that,” said Jeff, hearing the tale from me. “That’s the kinda cup you gotta find.”
Nina J. arrived, friends in tow, and three hours and seven gin-and-tonics later it was decided we would take Jeff’s golden Cadillac2 along the legendary Route 66 in search of the worst cup America had to offer. Five brave souls took vows that night: Jeff and his girlfriend, Chris, Nina J. and Stewart, and Nina’s best friend, Meg. They flaked, one by one, until, two weeks later, the two surviving members of the expedition, Meg and Stewart, met to make the journey. Jeff’s Caddie had been replaced by a driveaway, a Honda Accord of inscrutable hue, which we had one week to deliver to Los Angeles. We equipped ourselves with an unlimited supply of cassettes and half a dozen versions of the caffeinated experience, including Stimu-Chew (caffeinated gum), Water-Joe and Krank (caffeinated water), and various types of caffeinated candy. Our prized possession, though, was a vial of pure, gleaming caffeine. I’d scored it from one of the Internet’s myriad caffeine fanatics, Seric, who had a site hung with twitching eyeballs.
Meg and I set off around eight P.M., shooting straight south through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, then alongside the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia and Kentucky through Georgia and on into Tennessee. I drove all night. Dead bugs, white lines, and gas stations from outer space. Meg with her feet on the dash
board. She’s a tall girl, maybe six feet, with a head of frizzy red hair, and bulging blue eyes that give the illusion that she finds everything you say fascinating. Meg took the wheel at dawn. My next memory is of stepping out into the little town of Athens, Tennessee, at ten A.M. It was already ninety-four degrees. I looked over at Meg and sneered at her appearance. She returned the favor. Then we staggered into a coffeeshop called the Breakfast Nook.
“Morning, folks,” said the waitress. “What’ll it be?”
It was a squirt of a joint, just a counter facing a griddle. The menu was a creamy white sign with magnetic letters. There were Belgium waffles, links, eggs over easy, eggs Benedict, blueberry pancakes, and scrambled eggs.
The waitress caught me eyeing the sign.
“Don’t you pay any ’tention to that, honey,” she said. “That’s older than me.” She pointed to a grease-smeared card taped next to the griddle. “That’s the real menu. But all we got today is biscuits ‘n’ gravy.”
“Oh,” I said. “What’s gravy?”
“Well, gravy is what you pour over things,” she explained.
This universal covering proved to be a slurry dotted with droplets of yellow fat and curly meat byproducts. While I struggled through the mire, Meg chatted the waitstaff up. There were two of them, both the same shade of overheated pale, both wearing frayed jean shorts.
“Memphis? Y’all taking 240? That’s about twelve hours,” they said.
“But it’s only two hundred miles. That’s slower than the train from Addis Ababa,” I said.
“Haven’t been over to Addis,” said one. “Where you folks from?”
“Manhattan,” said Meg. “New York.”
“That so? You know, I didn’t know they had reds in New York.”
“Reds?” Meg asked.
“Well, like you, honey. Do you mind me asking if it’s real?”
“My hair?” said Meg. “Yeah, sure. It’s really red.”
“Well, there you said it,” she chuckled. “Y’all drive careful now and keep an eye peeled for patrol cars. There’s lots of speed traps on that road.”
She spoke the truth. No sooner had we crossed Athens’ city limits than a Tennessee state trooper forced us to pull into a Kwiki convenience store/gas station. One of our brake lights didn’t work, so the officer just had to check our license plates, IDs, car registration, and insurance. We also were subjected to a slew of intrusive and unwarranted questions about our personal lives. His name was Officer Hoppe, and I’m sure the resemblance to Ken Starr was a coincidence. He wanted to know where we were going, how we’d met, and although he didn’t actually ask us if we were sleeping together, he clearly had his suspicions.
In the end our papers checked out. He asked me to step back to his patrol car one last time.
“Well,” he said regretfully, “everything seems on the up and up.” He leaned close and gave me a piercing look. “Now, can you guarantee me that there’s nothing illegal in that there vehicle?”
The answer was sad but true. We’d wanted to bring some hashish, but Meg’s pending entrance into medical school had made the risk too great. Doctors are only allowed to deal legal drugs.
“Nope, nothing illegal,” I said.
“That’s good. So you won’t mind me searching your vehicle then?”
I immediately thought of the vial of caffeine. Totally legal, but there’s no denying that a vial full of white powder might raise some eyebrows.
“Well,” I hemmed, “can’t say I’m terribly enthusiastic.”
“Now, why might that be? You did promise me that there was nothing illegal in the vehicle, didn’t you?”
“Indeed I did, officer. And there isn’t. But I should warn you that you might find something that looks illegal. Only it’s not.”
Hoppe gave me a condescending smile. “Don’t you worry about that, son,” he said. “I know what I’m doing. Now, I need you to sign here giving me permission to search your vehicle.”
This was like a burglar asking for a receipt. If I refused, Hoppe would take us down to the station while he tried to get a warrant. At the very least, we’d have to wait around Athens all day. And if some idiot actually give him a warrant, he’d never believe the caffeine was anything less than Burmese heroin.
“You gave him permission! Are you crazy?” Meg and I were now locked in the back seat of Hoppe’s patrol car. Two other cops had joined our friend and were going through the Honda with a fine-tooth comb. Very thorough, for a bunch of bumpkins. “I would never have given him permission! He has no right.”
“He does have a gun,” I pointed out. “I am a coward.”
“Great!” said Meg. Hoppe was marching over with a gleeful smile. He had the vial in his right hand.
“Now, didn’t y’all promise there was nothing illegal in your vehicle?” he asked after rolling down the window.
“Yes,” I said. “Didn’t you promise me your back seat was going to be air-conditioned?”
“And what’s this?”
“It’s one hundred percent caffeine, one hundred percent legal.” I mentioned I had bought it through the Internet.
“The Internet?” Obviously a dark and mysterious place in the mind of Officer Hoppe. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to place you under arrest for possession of a suspicious substance.”
“If you think it’s cocaine, why don’t you just taste it?” I said. “Cocaine makes your gums go numb, right?”
Hoppe gave me The Look. Boy, it said, you jes’ blew your story.
“I couldn’t say if cocaine does that, sir. You two just sit tight. We’ve asked a federal marshal to come by and take a look.”
Another patrol car pulled up while we waited for the feds. Then another. Soon there were half a dozen Tennessee state trooper cars camped out around us, and the officers were strutting about, laughing, and passing our little vial from hand to hand.
“They’re creaming their pants,” moaned Meg. “They’re going to throw a couple of New Yorkers in jail. This must…oh my God.”
A dark-blue sedan with tinted windows had roared into the station. An overweight officer, wearing a polyester suit and wraparound sunglasses, jumped out. The feds had arrived.
“Glad to be of service, fellas!” we heard him boom. “What seems to be the problem?”
One of the officers pointed to where we sat giggling in the car. (“Look, those drug addicts are beginning to go through them withdrawals, I reckon.”). Mr. FBI eyed us contemptuously and then held the vial up to the sun. He shook his head in disgust. Another officer, an older man, ran me through the same old questions. He was nice enough, however, to let Meg go get something to drink in the convenience store.
“Caffeine?” he said after I’d explained again. “I’m not even sure if it is legal. If that’s what you got in the baggie.” He jerked his thumb to where Efrem Zimbalist was fumbling about with his high school chemistry kit. “We’ll know pretty soon.”
“Oh really?” I said. “Did you read in the newspaper about the guy who had his grandmother’s ashes in his car and got searched, just like this, but when they tested the ashes they identified it as cocaine?”
“That so? Now, where do you get that stuff anyway?”
I explained how caffeine extracted from decaffeinated coffee beans supplies the buzz in soft drinks (which, by the way, supply almost 50 percent of the caffeine Americans consume). An average cup of coffee has from one hundred to two hundred milligrams, soda pop about fifty to one hundred. So the ten grams in my vial equaled about one hundred cups of coffee and would probably have killed me if I’d taken it in one go. Pure caffeine like that is concentrated enough that you can take it via tongue absorption, thus avoiding the upset stomach that is the drug’s main drawback.
“You put it on your tongue?” said the officer. “Now that jes’ can’t be legal.”
Meg bounced up back to the car. She’d spilled a bottle of water on her T-shirt, and the result seemed to put the local officers in a more ac
commodating frame of mind. Not Efrem, though. He completed his tests, ordered me over to his car, and told me to place my hands on the hood. Meg was told to get back in the patrol vehicle.
“That’s right my friend,” he said with a smirk. “I’m afraid your toys tested positive. One hundred percent pure cocaine.”
“Are you serious?” This was getting out of control. I knew it was caffeine, but if their tests were off…Then again, did I really know what Seric had put in the vial? “It can’t be cocaine.”
“You don’t sound so sure about that.” He eyed me with delight. “They say you bought it off the Internet, is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you don’t really know what the hell this stuff is, do you? How much did you say you paid for that, boy?”
“Ten dollars,” I said. “It’s about ten grams, so if that’s cocaine…”
“You got one hell of a deal.” He laughed and slapped me on the back. “One hell of a deal, boy.” He and the other cops had a laugh. Then he got back into his car and roared off.
Hoppe and his gang gathered round.
“Now, look here, we don’t know what this stuff is,” said Hoppe. “It might be legal and it might not. But we’re going to let you go. On one condition. You’re going to have to pour it out onto the side of the road there, with all of us watching.” He handed me back the vial. “It’s for your own good. If they caught you with that in Kentucky, they’d hang you.”
“So you mean to say I’ve got to destroy it even though it’s perfectly legal?”
“Now, we don’t know that for a fact. It might be illegal,” interrupted Hoppe. “But you’ve been cooperative, and we’re willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Well, thank you, Officer! I felt like saying. But, frankly, Athens was becoming old news. So I marched over to the highway and poured the white powder onto the blacktop. I’m surprised they didn’t take pictures—Another Victory in the American War Against Drugs! The cops seemed happy, never mind that they’d violated my civil rights, forced me to destroy perfectly legal property, and generally been schmucks. But courteous. They even gave me a “receipt” for the search.
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