[420] in Humor
HUMOR: More coffee-related madness
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Fri Aug 19 13:01:08 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 94 12:38:17 EDT
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 94 08:53:26 PDT
From: Connie_Kleinjans@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
-------------------------------------------------------------
This is from "The Best of Bad Hemingway, volume 2".
For Whom The Coffee Brews
In the mornings we would walk to the river, and it was always there.
Later we went for coffee at the cafe across from the square in front
of the cathedral. The waiter would bring us demitasse cups filled
with coffee, steaming hot and black and sharp with the taste of
chicory. We would stir sugar into the cups and drink the coffee while
it was still hot. Except Rico, who did not like sugar in his coffee.
"A man should drink his coffee black," he said. The steam from the
coffee would curl up slowly past his nose and eyes and forehead and
into the cool morning air of the cafe.
"A man should drink his coffee the way that is most pleasing to him,"
said the Dutchman.
"It pleases me to drink it black," said Rico.
"It pleases me to drink it in silence," said the colonel. He stared
at the other two with his good eye. They did not reply. They drank
their coffee. I drank my coffee and said nothing.
When we had finished our coffee, we would go across the street to the
square and watch the artists who had been out since sunrise to set up
their paintings and easels and stools along the iron fence that
enclosed the square with its statue of the general who had once saved
the city. Sometimes we would watch while a tourist sat to have his
portrait painted by one of the artists. Other times we would listen
to an argument between an artist and a tourist over the price of a
painting.
When we grew tired of amusing ourselves in this way, we would talk of
the good coffee we had had in other cafes and in other days and in
other countries.
"The best coffee is the coffee of Colombia and the best coffee in
Columbia is to be found in Cartagena, a small cafe called Manuel's,"
said Rico.
"The coffee of Manuel is indeed good coffee," said the Dutchman. "But
the best coffee is to be found in Florence, at Harry's Bar & American
Grill. It is coffee like no other."
"The coffee of Manuel is indeed good coffee," said the colonel, "and
the coffee of Harry's Bar & American Grill is indeed like no other.
But the best coffee is the coffee of Turkey. And the best coffee in
Turkey is to be found in a coffee shop in Ankara. It is called
Achmed's Coffee Shop. In the mornings, before he opens his shop, even
before the muezzin calls the faithful to their prayers, Achmed begins
to brew his coffee. The coffee is rich in aroma. It is an aroma like
no other on earth. It is an aroma that makes a man forget he is
married if he is married and that makes him forget he is not married
if he is not married."
"A man cannot forget he is married if he is married," I said. "But he
may forget he is not if he is not."
"A man may forget anything," said Rico.
"He may never forget he is a man," said the Dutchman.
"No, he may never forget he is a man," said the colonel.
"Once he has forgotten he is a man, he is no longer a man," I said.
"If he does not drink his coffee black, he is no longer a man," said
Rico.
"I drink my coffee with sugar, and I am a man," said the Dutchman.
The colonel stared at the two of them with his good eye. We did not
say anything more. We stared at the people on the square in front of
the cathedral. They did not know that we were staring at them and
talking of coffee and of being a man.
-- Michael James Bounds
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Flotsam & Jetsam, MS., P. 37"
Then the door swung open.
"These pants are welded steel," announced the stranger striding stiffly
into Harry's Bar & American Grill.
"It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times," said Concha
Ortega y Ruiz de Montoya, the whore who accompanied him. She was
honest, and the men respected her. Even Harry the bartender. Harry
made the best daiquiri in Florence. He squeezed the limes behind his
knees. On the floor. He did it by himself, and it was hard. Not as
hard as the Caesar salad but it was hard.
"What will you have?" asked Harry.
"Two bottles of Fundador, six bottles of Chateau d'Yquem chilled to the
point that the moisture forms so heavy and wet on the bottle that you
can't read the label just like in Ronda, a couple of your lesser reds,
and a small Coke. The lady will have a stinger," said the stranger.
Harry looked at him. He did not look like a bullfighter. But it wasn't
like it used to be. They didn't. He would have known if it was
Belmonte. It wasn't. Joselito was dead and gored before his legs went,
and it was hard.
"To go," asked Harry, "or do you want to drink it here?" He knew the
answer but asked anyway. He was a kind man in spite of the Great War
and all it had done to him, and there would be no time to forget. It
showed, and he knew it.
"Here," said the stranger, reaching for the first bottle of Chateau
d'Yquem with the moisture running down the sides, like the bulls in the
streets of Pamplona, obliterating the label and making it hard. Just
like in Ronda.
"Give me another estinger," said Concha Ortega y Ruiz de Montoya,
glancing toward the door. She was a good whore, and the men respected
her. She worked the side streets and didn't cause trouble, but it was
hard.
"Sure," said Harry.
It was dark in Harry's Bar & American Grill. The stranger leaned over
the zinc counter and looked Harry in the eye. "Do you fish?" asked the
stranger. Harry shook his head. There had been a time before the Great
War when he had threaded more black grasshoppers by the thorax than any
other man alive but not anymore. It was too hard.
"Well, we can't all, and some of us don't," said the stranger, reaching
stiffly
-- Sandra Borgink
