by Jon Berger
I worked at a coffee shop and I was the only dude who worked there. It is a new coffee shop and the guy who opened the coffee shop hired me for closing shifts only. I worked with college kids. All the college kids I worked with were going into nursing or education. All my coworkers were girls and they came from two different areas. They are from small towns up north or from Detroit, but like the nice areas of Detroit which Detroit people say are not actually part of Detroit, but I can’t tell the difference. Anyways, my job at the coffee shop is to take out the trash. I’m the trash guy. I always smoke a cigarette between the two big red Billy’s dumpsters in the darkness with a burnt-out street lamp above. The red cherry glowing like the evil eye of a monster peeking out of a cave. My job before this was working in a prison and the guy who owned the coffee shop hired me to take out the trash and make sure the girls got to their cars at night but he said it was important that the girls didn’t know my job description. I was to be another employee like them. We sat in the interview room and we stared across from each other and we both knew.
I was the worst barista on this side of the milky way galaxy. I knew nothing about coffee.
I was leaning against the wall by the dish tank, arms folded over my chest. I was working with Megan and Brianna. Soapy water filled the dish tank, being pumped out of a green tube. The dish tank had a bunch of parts in it from the espresso machine. Megan was going to college to be a nurse and so was Brianna. I was about 5 or 6 years older than them. They were up by the cash register counting out the till and splitting up the tip jar.
The girls made me try weird coffee drinks they invented. They’re fucking gross. The drinks, not the girls. They’re cool. One drink they made me try was supposed to taste like birthday cake but it tasted like puked up craft fuck beer. The girls found this hilarious. I could still taste the drink in my mouth even though I tried to wash it out. They were still laughing about it.
Megan was in a sorority. Her sorority was throwing a big party that night and Brianna was going to the party with her and they wanted me to go but I’m not going to a sorority party. I’m going home to my bedroom, which is in a cold dark basement, the size of a shoebox, and I’m going to watch a documentary on YouTube about Cossacks. The Cossacks were from Ukraine before Ukraine was a real country. The Cossacks started out as undesirables and criminals who were either banished or fled western and central Europe and they eventually made their own culture and their culture traded and lived with the Mongolians. The Cossacks were the only group of people who could successfully fight the Mongolian Horde so the European countries would pay the Cossacks to make sure the Mongolians would not invade Europe. There is a recorded letter from a Khan stating how the Cossacks cannot be conquered as they were too savage. Many of the Cossacks were part Mongolian themselves as both cultures interbred and fought on horseback in the steppe.
I was keeping an eye on this guy who was sitting on the bench just outside the coffee shop. I wasn’t too worried as he was smaller and he had a bicycle. Why he had a bicycle, I have no idea. He didn’t look homeless or on crack, but more of a…cyclist, if that makes sense. I wasn’t worried about it.
My phone dinged.
I took my phone out of my pocket.
It is a text message from my brother. I opened the text message. The text read: hey uncle steve died today.
I texted back: how did he die?
He texted back: idk I just found out.
I texted back: well shit.
I put my phone back in my pocket.
The last time I saw Uncle Steve I was driving through town and he was sitting on a bench in the center of town and he looked like he was ready to die. He just sat there like a statue with no facial expression. I don’t remember where I was going but five hours later, when I drove back through town, going home, he was still sitting there in the exact same position. This was maybe a week ago.
I was thinking about how my uncle was a security guard at the college. I thought about how, in a way, we had the same job.
Megan walked back to give me my tip money. She handed me the money and I took it and stuffed it into my pocket robotically. She was saying something to me but I wasn’t paying attention.
My ears felt full of static and I don’t know what I was looking at but it seemed to be a blurry mist from the spirit realm. I didn’t know I was looking at it and neither did anyone else, but the blurry mist from the otherness knew everything. The mist was a security guard at the college my coworkers went to. Maybe the invisible mist was my uncle checking in. Maybe this mist will be at the sorority party tonight, making sure nothing bad happened.
“Hey!” Megan nudged me in the shoulder, taking me out of my trance.
I stared at her wide-eyed with a numb feeling on my face.
“Are you okay?”
I inhaled sharply and shook my head and torso in a quick shiver like I was expelling demons. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just daydreaming.”
She looked at me side-eyed and with a raised eyebrow. “Well, you kinda creeped me out.”
“Oh, sorry.” I rubbed my face and stretched my clenching jaw and blinked my eyes like I just woke up from a nap.
“The water is overflowing.”
“What?”
“Jon, the water is overflowing!” She spoke like I was a child and pointed at the dish tank; as she spoke, I heard water splash on the tile floor.
“Shit.” I quickly turned and flicked off the water and soap dispenser levers.
I turned around and sunk my hands into the hot soapy water and it brought me back to reality. But as my hands soaked in the water it suddenly became too hot and I took them out, splashing more water on the floor.
“Are you on drugs or something?”
I shook my head, “No, I’m just tired.”
Brianna cupped her hands over her mouth and mockingly yelled back to the kitchen, “Come to the party tonight. It will be fun.”
I gave a fake smirk and laughed. “I’m too old.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Megan.
“Pussy!” Brianna yelled back.
“Come on, you should really come to the party tonight. It will be fun. You can meet our friends.”
I had a hard time making eye contact with her for some reason. I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone now because my eyes were not looking at anything on this plain of existence.
“Not tonight. Sorry. Maybe another time.”
I turned back around and sunk my hands back into the scalding dish water and fumbled around until I found the dish rag, then my other hand fumbled around under the soap water and found an espresso shot glass to wash. I made my two hands meet and wash the espresso shot glass under the water. The movement under the suds caused other forms of dishes to bounce and thud against each other and the metal walls of the basin.
I could tell they were put off by me. I was usually lighthearted and I joked around and teased them back but I was quiet and just did the dishes even though the water burnt my skin and turned my hands red. The burning pain in my hands kept my nonslip shoes grounded to the wet tile floor. I made a conscious effort to breathe.
Well, shit.
When we closed up the guy with the bicycle was still sitting on the bench in the dark, not moving. His back facing us. He was looking out at the street.
Maybe he was dead. Like maybe he took too much heroin and was frozen dead. These things happen.
We were getting our stuff together to leave and shut the lights off. I’d become quiet and awkward. I was trying my best not to be.
Brianna pointed out the lobby window. “Jon, that guy is still there.”
I nodded. “Yeah I see him. I’ll go out first. You two go to your cars.”
“Did we do something to make you mad?” Megan asked. “Was it that drink we made you try? It was just a joke.”
“What? No. You didn’t do anything. I just want to go home. It’s been a long day.”
I saw them both exchange a quick look they didn’t think I saw.
I opened the door and they walked to their cars and waved goodbye. The air was crisp and it was 10 at night in October. I nodded back and closed the door to the coffee shop behind me and locked it. The cyclist sat on the bench like a ghost and didn’t react to us.
I turned to the cyclist. He looked up at me with an all-knowing deepness in his glassy eyes. His eyes seemed to look right through me like I was a just like the mist that visited me by the dish tank. He reminded me of a forest elf you would find on your travels.
The girls were walking to their cars.
“Um…can I help you?” I asked him.
He pursed his lips, “No.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Not shit, dude. What are you doing out here?”
I shrugged. “Not shit. Just leaving work.”
He nods like every horrible thing in the universe suddenly made sense to him and he was not surprised by any of it.
The girls were getting into their cars.
I looked at his bike. It was a bikepacking bike. Loaded up with bags full of stuff.
“Where are you going?”
“Just been riding around the country for a while now.”
I notice he has a different accent but I couldn’t place it. I felt like I’d heard his accent in movies.
“Where you from?”
“New York City, friend. You?”
“I’m from right here. Did you ride your bike from New York City?”
“Sure did.”
“That’s cool, man. I want to do something like that.”
“Are you okay?” he asked me. I’m not sure why he asked me that. If anyone in this conversation was going to ask that question, it should’ve been me.
I should’ve stopped to ask my uncle if he was okay, too.
I paused. My mouth hung open like I was trying to trap the night insects like a snapping turtle. “I don’t know. I guess my uncle just died,” I blurted out.
“Oh, sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, thanks. I just found out.”
“Like you just now found out…?” He tilted his head.
“Yeah, when I was at work…doing the dishes,” I pointed stupidly into the closed coffee shop, “when I found out.”
A cricket chirped.
“Oh, shit.” He slowly leaned sideways and moved his bike helmet from the bench to the ground by his feet and told me to take a seat.
I sat down next to him on the bench and for some reason my body felt very heavy and tired, like I finished riding my bike across the country. I sat down slowly and it hurt to move.
Megan pulled up next to us, her window rolled down. “Hey, are you coming to the party tonight?”
I could hear rap music softly booming in her car.
We stared at her. She seemed confused that I was now sitting next to the bicycle guy.
“Nah, next time. Thanks though. You have fun.” I waved.
“Alright, well have a good night. Be safe.”
“You too.”
She rolled up her window and pulled off into the street.
The sky was silent again as Megan drove further away. Neither of us said anything for a moment.
The bugs chirped.
I turned my head. “What are you riding your bike across the country for?” I asked as I rested my hands in my lap like I was praying.
“My fiancée died, so I quit my job and here I am.”
I nodded. “Sorry to hear that,” I said awkwardly. “Where you riding to?”
“I’m gonna make my way to US 2 and take that to the west coast. My sister lives out there. I’ve always wanted to do that so figured why not.”
“You should take 28 instead of 2. It’s more scenic along the coast of Lake Superior. It’s called the third coast.”
“I hadn’t heard that. You been up that way?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “It’s beautiful. I used to work in a prison in the UP. Going along 28 will take you a little longer but it’s worth it to ride along Lake Superior.”
The elf guy looked to the stars for answers and said, “I think I’ll do that.”
I pulled out my phone and opened Google Maps. I showed him on my phone a couple different ways to make it to 28 once he crosses the Mackinaw Bridge. I showed him the most desolate route with the most gravel roads and he mapped it out on his paper map. I showed him where I used to live.
I lived in an old elementary school that was turned into apartments. The school was at the junction of where 28 and 2 meet in Gogebic County, right before Wisconsin, and then it just turns into US 2 and goes all the way to the west coast.
“You need to stop in Duluth, dude.”
“Really? Why?”
“Duluth is cool. I accidently got drunk there with some guys from Australia.”
It's dark out. He laughed at the night sky. He said he will stop in Duluth.
The sky maddingly desolated itself at our existence in the stars.
Well, shit.
I followed him on Instagram so I could follow his journey to the west coast.
We talked about bikes and bike parts and I told him about my bike. He knows about my bike.
My bike is part of a weird subculture of steel American built hardtails. Most people don’t know about my bike but people who know are a part of that rare group who know other things most people don’t.
I told him how I started riding mountain bikes in the Western UP when I moved up there to work at the prison, but since moving back home there’s nowhere to ride and I miss riding my bike in the woods.
He was riding a Surly bike that was built for long distance, all-terrain bikepacking and he had an expensive setup.
We talked about bicycle handlebars for a while.
“Where you staying tonight?” I asked, leaning back in my chair as the night got colder.
“Holiday Inn,” he said.
I pointed, “The one up the road?”
He nodded.
We both agreed that we better get going.
We shook hands, he followed me back on Instagram.
I got in my car and started it up.
He threw a leg over his bike and pedaled out of the parking lot like a magical elf floating back into the dark mysterious forest.
I left for home.
I drove down the road.
I passed him. He was pedaling down the side of the road.
His bike lights blinked like a UFO.
Well, shit.
______
Jon Berger is a teacher in rural Mid Michigan. His short story collection Goon Dog and his poetry collection Saint Lizard are available from Gob Pile Press. He has work forthcoming at Southwest Review and Farewell Transmission. He tweets @bergerbomb44.
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