You walk this route every day on your way home from work. It’s a nice walk at first. You get farther away from the cafe and town though and things change. It’s pretty much the intersection where Bloom Street crosses with Elmbranch View. The sidewalk cracks and weeds grow high in the yards of each house you pass. There’s this one dog--it’s at 237 Bloom Street--it always tries to jump the fence to get you, barking and gnashing vicious teeth. You’ve never seen a more hellish looking hound. That’s about the point where you hasten your step. If there was a sidewalk on the other side of the road you’d be over there. 

After a solid twenty in the sun, you arrive at your apartment complex. It’s a very simple place. Twelve units, spread across two separate buildings that don’t really look much alike save for all the doors and awkwardly small windows. The place could use a new coat of paint. And a dedicated landscaping service--and not just Frank from B5 who has a lawn mower in storage and a deal with the landlord. Actually, this place could use a few other things, too.

Like a new landlord.

Speaking of which. 

Mr. Boliard stands right at the bottom of the stairs leading up to your unit. Great. You paid rent on time, right? Was it the loud music a few nights ago that Mrs. Douglas in A6 complained about? No. He would’ve been here sooner if it was about that.

“Mr. Boliard,” you address him politely with pursed lips and a nod. Your forehead is dripping sweat and you’re pretty sure you’re sunburned already.

“Charlie,” your name on his tongue sounds like an insult and you struggle past to get to your unit without scowling in fury. 

Nothing more is said and with a quick look back you see he’s still standing at the bottom of the stairs, his back turned. That stupid suit he always wears. So gray and dumb. Who wears a suit out in the sun in this kind of weather?

Jerks. That’s who.

Your apartment is unsurprisingly warm, possibly just a few degrees cooler than outside in the sun or maybe even the surface of the sun. Give or take.

 A meow escapes the cushions of your raggedy couch and you hurry over to free Donut, your trusty, fluffy little sidekick who has a knack for getting trapped in the couch itself. 

“Donut, you dweeb,” you tell her with the utmost adoration. “I’m gonna sit on you one day and then that’s it.” It’s not really a threat, more of a sad fact. Donut gets it. After a good petting and cuddle session with the cat you decide that a nice, cool beer is in your very near future. And so is heart shattering disappointment.

Your refrigerator is off. And everything inside has that very mild level of coolness to it that tells you it’s been off for at least the entire day. A hasty, precursory glance around your apartment tells you that there’s actually no power running to anything. Excellent. Maybe this is why Mr. Boliard is here standing around doing nothing. 

Or maybe his jerky-jerk presence just shut off power to the building. 

Well, you decide on an almost lukewarm beer anyway and choose to ignore the fact that what few groceries you had purchased and placed in your fridge yesterday are now all ruined. Leave that thought for your second beer. 

The bus stop near your apartment is always the sketchiest place to be no matter what time of day it is. But it’s a necessary evil to stand and wait for the bus when torrential rains would otherwise turn your 20 minute walk to work into 22 minutes of total, drenched hell. 

Like most days, the creepy bus stop hermit is there. You think his name is Gavin. And you think he’s been lurking at this bus stop since the beginning of time. Or at least when the town got public transit back in the late 70s. 

You stand awkwardly far from Gavin with your umbrella half-covering you. You don’t know it yet, but your backpack is going to get more wet than you had planned on. Sucks. Gavin nods at you from the bench, soaked to the bones. He never has any stuff with him and this bothers you because at any given time, he seems to be here on the bench at the bus stop. But with only the clothes on his body. Once he did have a packet of cigarettes sitting next to him though but he didn’t interact with them at all. For all you know they had climbed up there and were waiting on a bus too. 

“It’s gonna keep raining,” Gavin croaks, not diverting his deep set eyes from your shady form. You shake your head in reply. It’s somewhere between agreement and please-don’t-talk-to-me. Gavin presses on, “This is it. From now on. Just rain.” His statement is so cryptic and wrong that you want to reply by showing him the weather app on your phone. 

9 a.m. - 2 p.m. SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS,’ -- which means end-of-times rain here. 3 p.m. and on till… Tuesday… CLEAR. 

So, get a grip, Gavin.

But you don’t show him your phone. It would get wet probably, you’d have to engage with him, and he might eat your arm. 

Still though, Gavin continues, “Ya’ll pissed off the Moon Queen... “

“What the fuck are you talking about, Gavin?” You snap, immediately realizing you have broken your silence to this man that you’ve maintained for.. What, eight-plus years now? 

The old hermit quirks a brow--comically--and croaks back, “Who the hell is Gavin?”

You shake your head in what is now a mix of disagreement and please-stop-interacting-with-me-in-any-and-every-way-shape-and-form. Gavin was only pausing though, “The twenty-second. That was her birthday. Someone from your town was supposed to bring her a sacrifice.”

You promptly spin on your heel and walk to work. This bus is never coming. And by the time it does, you will have been devoured by this crazy old man. And then no one is gonna get their damn coffee from their least favorite barista. You don’t look back, but you do hear the trailing, cryptic words of the hermit, “It’s not too late…” This is when you begin to remind yourself that drugs are very bad and $7.50 plus tips is enough for you to stay on the straight and narrow somehow.

Your least favorite sound on earth is the jingling bell of the door into King Java Cafe. It’s also the door of King Java Cafe. But you’re using the door to walk in and you’re eight minutes late and Randy is pitching a gods-damned fit that makes you wish you had slipped on the sidewalk and drowned in one of the shallow streams that flows down every single road on this side of town. The sewer system here is just the worst. Maybe $7.50 plus tips isn’t enough. Not when your boss is barking--you swear he sounds just like that dog at 237 Bloom Street--at you and all over you. And your bag is soaked. Which is great in a kind of “Oh hey everything they say about Mondays is true!” way. 

You empty your bag and try to dry your book, journal and other possessions with a dish rag before attempting to dry yourself off. The door jingles and your head hangs low. 

Apron on. 

Stupid, pointless, weird mockery of a crown--King Java Cafe, get it?--donned atop your thankfully dry and perfect hair. 

And then you’re clocked in and ready to bow to King Randy for the next seven hours and forty-five minutes. 

“Hi,” you say with zero interest, hope or humanity to your first customer of the day. It doesn’t matter. It’s Gary. And he hates you. And he hates King Java Cafe. You literally cannot win, even if you harvested the beans of his coffee for him and forged a cup for him out of your own bones. Gary only comes here because he works next door at the guitar and amp shop called “Amped Up,” and because he’s too fat to walk much farther than that. Sorry, that was mean.

“Double mocha cappuccino,” Gary replies in greeting. 

“Oh wow. Spicing it up today,” you say as sarcastically as possible. Gary usually gets a caramel latte. So, this is quite a turn of events. Gary says nothing but his heavy breathing becomes more strained, a sign of inner-wrath boiling up inside. 

You go about doing what you do best--making coffee drinks in their various forms. And that’s not to say you’re good at it. Because you’re not. You’re just fine. Acceptable. And that’s perfectly okay. You’re fine at a bunch of things and that’s possibly the real key to success. You’re not sure. Anyway, focus. 

Within a couple minutes you finish with your barista witchcraft and place a double mocha cappuccino in front of Gary. He pays, you say something witty and he then leaves with a grunt. That was a goodbye grunt, you’re sure. His exit spawns the entrance of another customer. And you help them. And when they leave a third enters, and a fourth, and believe it or not it continues in this way until what Randy lovingly calls ‘THE MORNING RUSH’ ends. That’s the signal for your well-deserved break and you take it by the horns. That break is your bitch. You own it. And then ten minutes later Randy is barking out the back door for you to come back in for another ‘RUSH OF CUSTOMERS.’ 

At least you managed to finish an energy drink and count six rats scurrying around the dumpsters in those ten minutes. So, you really did make the most of it.

When you make your way back inside you’re quite startled to see an unfortunately familiar face in the crowd of upcoming customers. It’s Gavin. Yeah, the crazy hermit Gavin. The same Gavin you’ve only ever seen at the bus stop near your house. 

The shock of seeing him here, in an establishment--dare you think, your establishment--is enough to freeze you in place long enough for Randy to veritably snap, jamming an elbow (the pointiest elbow you’ve ever met) into your side. That’s going to bruise. A minor curse of annoyance escapes you and stokes the enraged fires of Randy’s King Java soul and you stumble up to the counter and begin taking orders. And it’s weird--you’ve never taken orders from so many people and managed to give absolutely zero eye contact before. Well, now you know it can be done. But you don’t even think of it. Your only thought, racing and screaming and quaking and resounding in your mind, is “Why are you here?” And you gain the smallest shred of peace and satisfaction when you manage to finally ask Gavin that to his wrinkled, leather face. That face breaks into what you interpret as a smile. How does this man eat, you wonder. He has so few teeth. But he does have his canines and they’re particularly sharp you notice. Oh shit, he said something and you didn’t even notice. 

“Wait, what?” you ask, a bead of sweat rolling down your forehead. Suddenly you have this palpable fear. He says something else and you watch his crusty, paper-thin lips move but not a sound moves past them. That smile returns, all five or something teeth on display. 

In a weird panic unlike anything you’ve experienced before, you wheel around and turn to Randy--heroic, brave Randy, one worthy of the title of king. With your back facing Gavin you say loudly and more for your boss to hear, “You’ll have to speak to a manager about that.” Randy meets your eyes with what appears to be equal levels of confusion. 

“Who the hell are you talking to, Charlie?” he asks with a flavor of annoyance that you’ve grown used to, but savor in this moment. You aren’t spontaneously deaf afterall! Congratulations! You chance a look back to Gavin and feel your heart sink (literally, it hits your feet and draws every bit of heat and color out of your body with you, splattering and dispersing onto the floor. Randy’s gonna make you mop that shit up.) 

Gavin is gone. And that bell--the stupid, fucking jingling bell--it didn’t make a sound. The customers are all still here, all seated and chatting and docile and dumb. 

“Where’d the old hermit go?” You ask in a panic, again loud enough for everyone at this point to hear. A couple customers look up from their espresso drinks with interested looks as if it’s now trivia night and they’ve just heard the prize is a vacation to a certain hotly-desired exotic beach locale. Randy chimes in, “What old hermit? Are you trying to get those last five minutes of your break by pretending to be overworked? Because if you are, it’s working,” Randy steps closer and you can feel his hot, managerial breath linger on your face, “You know those five minutes are yours, Charlie. I wouldn’t keep them to myself. I’m not that kind of manager.” The sincerity in his voice makes you want to turn inside out. Your lack of reply drives the man to somehow move closer, whispering, “Charlie. Are you high right now?” 

You blink probably four times and then give what is likely the dirtiest look you’ve ever created. Randy steps back, “Okay, okay. Just.. Just go take your last five. Hell. Have six. Not six more, not eleven. Just six total,” he stumbles over his words for a moment and sighs in frustration, “I mean have a free minute, Charlie. Just. Go on. It’s fine.” Perplexed, Randy goes and refills something and then wipes some stuff down, his eyes watching with a hunger for new customers. 

You don’t bother wrestling out of your apron, or take your King Java crown off. You just walk to the back and look out the window, waiting for those rats. But there are no rats by the dumpster. They left. You want to leave. You wish so hard that there was a back door, and it’s weird that there isn't one. Shouldn’t that be a state law or something? Your mind trails off and by the time those six minutes are up, somehow you’ve distracted yourself completely. Old hermit possibly named Gavin who? Never heard of him. 

Randy looks pleased as a peach when he sees you return to work not only on time but somehow more determined and focused. And your shift passes by with relative normalcy and a relatively mind-numbingly slow pace. You do get a reassuring and genuine pat on the back from Randy at the end of your shift, something that evokes deeper confusion in fellow employee Erin as she takes your place. “Looks like you guys bonded,” she says in a stinky, jealous tone. You frown. And then leave with your damp backpack.