A Cop's Hot Cup Of Suburban Joe

It is the God Given right of every adult suburbanite to enjoy the azure sky on a crisp Saturday morning, to drop some pants at the dry cleaner on that same morning, and to enjoy the hubbub of rushing around to various retail outlets in slow moving traffic.

This continual weekend turmoil takes its toll however, and the adult suburbanite can often be seen scurrying around looking for some sort of panacea to relieve his or her "screaming child-too much traffic-I ought to have stayed at home-induced migraine." Fortunately for this tortured soul, such a cure-all exists. It is the bagel. It is the coffee. It is there for you, tortured soul.

Suburbia has much bagel and coffee inventory to sooth and calm its inhabitants. We are absolutely loaded with it, I must say. All kinds. "Sumatra Blend," "Welsh Blend," "Colombian Roast," "Secaucus Blend," "Maui-Light-Macadamia Vanilla-Raspberry Blend," "This," "That" and "The Other Blend." Lovingly procured and roasted by specially trained Java professionals wearing lime green visors and brown coveralls to hide the inevitable coffee stains. There are brand names for the blends like "High Mountain," "Mountain High," "Bali Low," "East of West Vermont," Green-Green Beans," "Mr. Green Beans," "Brother, Can You Spare Some Beans" and "Kansas Prairie Fresh Roast." All of them wonderful. All of them flavorful. All of them aromatic. And all of them a lot harder to remember than plain old "Chock Full Of Nuts."

Former stockbrokers, laborers, housewives and "you-name-its," all so "jiggy" with caffeine and tired of their regular jobs that they figured it was time to find new professions, decided collectively to jump on the Starbucks bandwagon and open their own coffee shops. "Heck, I make coffee every morning," they collectively shouted,"why not quit my mundane stockbroker/laborer/housewife gig and serve up some coffee for a living?" And so they did.

But of course, tortured souls, gals and guys do not live by coffee alone. Thou must have thy bagels or other sorts of pastry. And what a selection of bagels the suburbanite has!

"Plain," "Wheat," "Sesame," "Garlic," "Salt," "Cinnamon Raisin," "Egg," "Sun Dried Tomato," "Rain Wet Arugula" and that old stand-by "Just Like Uncle Sidney Used To Make," which has vague hints of thyme with a kind of camphor aroma. Might I suggest that when you are out for your weekend jaunt around town that if you have some spare time you look for the very rare "Bittersweet Chocolate-Broccoli" bagel and have it with some "Sing-Sing Big House Roast," which is a quite tasty combination and a favorite of the incarcerated. Be forewarned, however, that few coffee/bagel establishments feature this regularly, as quality broccoli is many times out of season and the coffee beans are very rare as they can only be grown organically by a Tibetan Monk in a small New Hampshire town that features the one acceptable climate for their development. And this is only in May of odd numbered years.

It should be noted that if you don’t’ care for bagels there is a wide selection of other types of pastries you can purchase at these establishments, most homemade or by some local bakery, most with the word "Berry" in their names, most costing at least $3.75 or more, and most only visible by means of an electron microscope. Which brings me to the story of my Uncle John.

On one particular suburban Saturday morning not too long ago I was the "screaming child-too much traffic-I ought to have stayed at home-induced migraine-tortured soul" who I mentioned previously. There I was, searching for a Suburban Coffee Bagel Place that featured the tonic I so desperately needed to sooth my pains. Although my headache was induced not by a screaming tot but rather by my cantankerous Uncle John who was visiting from Arizona, where he spends his days eating grapefruits from his own tree and palling around with Wyatt Earp, which is appropriate because my Uncle John is a retired member of New York’s Finest. He did his time for twenty-five years at a precinct in the Bronx (or as it is more commonly referred to by him "Da Bronx"), where he grew up, and he has one of those gravelly, gruff voices that sounds as if it was induced by decades of Chesterfields. And he never even smoked.

Uncle John complained about everything while he was here in lovely suburbia. "Its too cold in New York!," he grunted. "Its too hot in this apartment!," he yelled. "When the heck are they going to paint Sing-Sing?," he asked. And the most cutting to my ego, "Your coffee stinks!" I am not known for my wonderful coffee. As a general rule I go to a price warehouse type of place and buy a ninety gallon can of no-name ground beans for $1.50 and leave it in my refrigerator until it turns to concrete, at which point I use it to fill the potholes in my parking lot.

So I figured I would save Uncle John from the fate of my bad Java and take him to a Lovely Suburban Coffee/Bagel Establishment. One of my favorites as a matter of fact.

We entered the coffee/bagel enclave. It was a beautiful, wood paneled room with dark brown tones and various pieces of fine literature and newspapers strewn about. There were quaint little tables with chairs, some of them featuring various inlaid game boards. If you are someone who is able to affect an English accent, you can actually go there and pretend that you are in Sherlock Holmes’ study. Uncle John looked about warily, as if he were in a Bronx Warehouse about to uncover an illegal contraband ring.

"Is this Howard Johnson’s?," he asked suspiciously.

"No, its a Lovely Suburban Coffee/Bagel Establishment.," I responded.

"Ahhhhh…let’s go to Howard Johnson’s.," he mumbled. The jazz music playing over the strategically placed speakers seemed to calm him a bit.

"Is this Jerry Vale?," he inquired.

"No," said I. "It sounds like Thelonious Monk." The teenager working behind the counter quickly chimed in.

"It’s Thelonious Monk. He’s some sort of a piano player or something."

"He certainly was." I responded. I started my career as a struggling jazz musician before I became a struggling writer. Statements like this always floor me.

I continued. "I wonder if he is the same Monk who grows the beans in New Hampshire?"

The teenager looked at me with quite a serious expression. "I’m not sure. But I don’t think so." A lifetime of listening to Brittany Spears and two weeks of working in a coffee shop and the teenager was a jazz expert.

"Would you gentlemen like something?," the teenager asked.

"Yes, we certainly would," I said. "I’d like an El Grande size ‘Western Allegheny French Roast’ and a ‘Toasted Mozzarella and Gefilte Bagel with Aged Pine Nuts.’ Not too heavy on the pine nuts and not too aged, please. How about you Uncle John?"

"Huh?" he asked.

"WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE?" I asked a little louder. He’s a bit hard of hearing. Actually, he couldn't hear an earthquake if he was lying down on the fault line.

"Oh. Gimme a regular coffee and a plain toasted bagel with some butter," Uncle John answered.

A deadly silence enveloped the Lovely Suburban Coffee/Bagel establishment and all eyes turned to Uncle John as if he had said "E.F. Hutton." The teenager behind the counter expressed a look of complete and utter horror. I was obviously embarrassed, turning various shades of crimson and chartreuse, all in a matter of a milliseconds. No one EVER just orders a plain toasted bagel with butter and a regular coffee in a Lovely Suburban Coffee/Bagel establishment. Its gauche. Its common. Its pedestrian and provincial. It does nothing to contribute to my town's growing reputation as the "Town With The Most Lovely Coffee/ Bagel Establishments East of Dodge City." It doesn't help the owner to pay the lease. Uncle John had done the unfathomable.

"And, I don’t care for this music.," Uncle John said gruffly.

"I can put on some Dorothy Parker if you like." the teenager said, swallowing the words, still horrified beyond recall.

Even in my mortified, humiliated state I had enough musical integrity to correct the teenager.

"That’s Charlie Parker.," I admonished.

"Whatever.," said the teenager, walking away disgustedly to get our order.

All the Suburbanites slowly regained their composure (yet they still flashed us dirty looks) and went back to the activities that Suburbanites in Lovely Suburban Coffee/Bagel Establishments engage in, such as screaming at children to sit down, playing Chess and discussing socially relevant topics such as whether or not Stalin wore a rug. But we were both ostracized from the fun, lepers on the face of Suburban Coffee Society as a result of Uncle John’s faux pas. Fairly soon, about an hour and half later, the teenager returned with our order.

"One El Grande size ‘Eastern Allegheny French Roast’ and a ‘Toasted Mozzarella and Gefilte Bagel with Aged Pine Nuts.,’" said the teenager morosely, and then pausing to create some Vincent Price-like melodrama added, "AND… a regular coffee and plain toasted bagel with some butter."

At least the teenager had gotten Uncle John’s order right. I had ordered the "Western Allegheny French Roast," not the "Eastern Allegheny French Roast"(The Eastern is slightly more piquant than the Western, and has sort of a nutty aftertaste). But given the gravity of all that had transpired I was not about to complain.

"That’ll be $14.95.," the teenager emphatically stated.

"$14.95!," Uncle John shouted. He can’t hear anything well except for cashiers saying prices. He continued.

"What the…! You can get a cup of coffee and a bagel in the Howard Johnson’s on Fordham Road in the Bronx for 45 cents!" Leave it to Uncle John to mention a restaurant that hasn't existed since the ice age. But he was on a roll. I couldn't stop him.

And its so dark in this place I can’t see anything! And I still don’t like the music!"

"I can put on some Miles Standish if you’d like.," replied the teenager.

"That’s Miles Davis.," I corrected.

"And why the heck is everyone playing checkers!," Uncle John shouted to all the Suburbanites in the place.

"You’re disturbing our socially relevant conversation about Stalin’s Toupee!," an upset Suburbanite yelled.

"And ruining our chess game!" another two Suburbanites chimed in.

"And infringing on the bonding I do with my children by screaming at them to sit down in Lovely Suburban Coffee/Bagel Establishments!," still a third added.

"You go Dad!!," shouted the children in unison.

"Pay your bill and get out!," screamed the teenager.

This time around I simply settled on one shade of Chartreuse-ish-Crimson, turned that color, and stayed that way. The owner, who had been in the back obliviously roasting beans, decided to come out. He must have heard everything from the back, because he just glared at Uncle John and I. He was a pasty man who wore black jodhpurs and a white Stetson, in an attempt I believe to look like Juan Valdez from those old coffee commercials. He didn't quite pull it off, however, and looked more like Ichabod Crane about to go out on a Fox Hunt. I didn't find him intimidating, but his constant glare was unnerving. I paid the bill and started to leave. On the way out the teenager threw a CD at the back of my head, and it hit the wall by the door, narrowly missing me. I would have picked it up but had it actually been by Dorothy Parker or Miles Standish I wouldn't have been able to bear the strain.

Uncle John and I drove back to my apartment in silence. I was upset. Here I was trying to introduce my Uncle to the wide variety of coffee, pastry and bagels in suburbia and all he could think about was some old Howard Johnson’s in the Bronx. Actually this shouldn't have bothered me too much, as Uncle John called every restaurant Howard Johnson’s. Soon he’d be going back to Arizona to eat oranges from his own tree and pal around with Bat Masterson. Soon I would be in peace, able to spend Saturdays frantically running errands under the azure blue sky, stopping to cure my headache by entering a Lovely Suburban Coffee/Bagel Establishment. Soon I would be free.

We entered my apartment. Still not speaking, we sat down at the table and I arranged all the items we had ordered, ready for consumption and still hot thanks to some insulated bag they packed the stuff in. I started in on my “El Grande size “Eastern Allegheny French Roast” and “Toasted Mozzarella and Gefilte Bagel with Aged Pine Nuts.” Except for the coffee’s nutty aftertaste and the fact that the pine nuts were a little too aged, everything was fine. I avoided looking at Uncle John, but when I did I noticed that he was voraciously devouring his (God Forgive Me) “regular coffee and plain bagel with butter.”

“Almost as good as Howard Johnson’s. The coffee’s a little cold though.,” he said.

Some folks just never appreciate anything.