-Working at coffee shops and bars, your hours smeared together quite frequently. I attained a job at the second coffee shop I worked at (working at three of their separate locations) from an encounter with their owner, who was a semi-regular day drinker at the bar that I also worked at. He’d seen me on my computer at the bar one day posting my bed for sale on craigslist. He asked if I was moving and I told him that I was simply broke, I’d bought a new mattress and might as well sell it and sleep on my futon to make rent. Needless to say he’d watched me work at the bar over the passed year or so and hired me on the spot. The business was one I was proud to work at. Each and every “disposable” that the company used was compostable, fair trade and hand made. Every bean and farmer was identified, dignified, visited and socialized into our little growing group. They took such responsibly for every act associated with the business and they allowed their eager employees opportunities to travel hand paint signs in unknown towns, become farm hands and really learn self sustainable lifestyles. My position there was easy. Counter work, barista, secret hand shakes with two sets of identical twins I worked, one of which I lived with. My years at that shop made me feel content and happy. Throughout my time there I had lost, laughed and loved. This particular story is about the death of a coworker. Her name was Jasmine and she was beautiful. Jasmine was a comedian and an artist. Eager to return home to spend time with her Mother and get married to her future wife. Two days before her death we sat on the front steps of the location near NYU. We discussed how eager we were to move home and get close with our mothers again, to designate time for the artistic mind and take a break from the bustling world. She was full of excitement towards this idea. Full of life and anticipating the future. Her mothers first trip to New YorkCity was to identify her daughter’s body. She was thrown under a bus on her bike after a parked driver opened their door without looking, returned to the party she was at and waited to tell authorities. Friends wrote beautiful poetries turning the blood into sprinkles and flooding sunshine into the street and I remember reading it and feeling like it was the perfect homage to such an incredible woman.

-Working at coffee shops, I’d made some great friends.  Some of those friends I still see in NYC, some have moved far away, some have transitioned into their true selves, some are even running for city council of those places they’ve relocated and I couldn’t be more proud to know  each and every one of them.  Other amazing people I was lucky enough to interact with while serving were Antony now Anohni formally from Antony  and the Jonhsons), I even once waited outside of his building with the last rice crispy treat knowing she loved them but was too star struck to give the offering when they exited the building,  Orlando Palotoy (Orlando) and Jack Ferver  (Jimmy Tickles) from Strangers With candy, Todd Barry, David Cross and Janeane Garofalo.

-I worked at a coffee shop in the LES with an asshole for a boss. The owner was a misogonystic steroid case who valued the wrong things in life, not just his own. I’ve witnessed him beat a homeless man in front of a crowd of people gasping and covering their mouths for using the rows of benches we dragged in and out eat night, lining our business for people to rest and enjoy the establishment. I’ve seen him try and offer sex acts to the more attractive employees. The seediness didn’t end there. As an Internet cafe we had all sorts coming in to use the computers. A large majority of people we dealt with were Hasidic Jewish men thinking they were secretly looking at soft core porn sites. It gave me the urge to yank off the yarmulkes. Once after I separated ways with that coffee shop I was owed some back pay and tips. $500 to be exact. After a series of shitty back and forth with the awful owner he agreed to leave it for a me on a day off and I could go pick it up when they closed that evening. He knew I lived a little deeper in Brooklyn through a section that was not the best. I went to go pic up the check and greeted the staff closing up. He had left me the money, two hundred dollars short and in one dollar bills, knowing I’d have to carry the brick of money home alone. Guy. Man oh man, he was such an asshole.

 

-The two story hookah bar I worked at was definitely a seedy place. It masked itself in dank femininity with the use of thick, velvet curtains and low lighting. Shutters over the front window and low couches with God knows what on them. Overall the pungent smell of hookah coals and cigarettes masked everything else in a haze dream world. They would throw S and M parties in the basement. I had to squeeze through these parties to get to the office to count and record my money. I once was choked very hard from behind on the dance floor and unexpected was not as gratifying as you’d think. A man named Georgio T. more commonly known in the NYC Club scene as “The Human Carpet”, a refugee from Malta, into crush fetishes and felt connected to rugs, was known to be laying around on the basement level. They would post up a sign near him that simply said “step on the carpet” and we would, as he was rolled up in a rug in front of the bar. When I switched positions from door to coat check, one of my bosses asked me if I wanted a bump. I took five and joined him in the one person bathrooms. We did the drugs and he refused to move from in front of the door and allow me to go back to work without kissing him. After trying to move him for several minutes I caved and returned to my post. I hated that part of New York.