Why won’t white girls serve black men espresso over ice?
Attempting to break my caffeine routine, I decide to try a new coffee shop I’ve heard about: The neatly tucked away Village Coffee and Goods located in an area of Kingston, NY that was previously unknown to me — but shouldn’t have been.
Its geographic location would technically be considered “Midtown” Kingston — a place simultaneously lauded for its potential dangers and fabulous under market value real estate deals. However, like that level in Super Mario Bros. 3 where you can crouch and slide behind the level’s backdrop, this area is conspicuously separated from people that would likely be unable to afford the area’s commercial offerings. Though if you follow a magical bridge that goes Over the Niggers and Through the Woods, to Village Coffee We Go…a hidden path will appear, leading new affluent upstate homeowners to an effigy of the excess they’d just escaped.
Cruising down this road in my ’92 5-Series, parallel to the proverbial railroad tracks, I pass a sensory deprivation tank facility and find myself at a dead end. I glance around for a moment, not seeing my destination, but realize the front facade is blocked by a black Range Rover a girl dressed like Huckleberry Finn is loading produce into. I sigh and enter.
As I approach the counter, a girl with a habitat for humanity t-shirt floats past me towards the exit and I order an espresso over ice from a bearded Australian gentleman with Warby Parkers on. He first places the ice into a cup the size of a thimble and realizes it may be too small.
“Probably need a larger glass, eh?” he asks.
I shrug and his redhead female co-worker makes note of his adjustment. After I pay and begin to walk to my seat, she fires at me in what I’m sure she thinks is a humorous tone — but comes off like an accusatory shrill white woman — that I’d, “Better not fill that cup with milk and make a free latte!”
This is the second time in 7 days I’ve tried to order a fucking espresso over ice and had some issue arise — both times at the hands of a self-righteous white girl coffee Gestapo.
“You know,” I start, trying not to get immediately niggerish in this quaint establishment. “You’ve got a pretty bleak outlook on humanity. All of us scheming to save a dollar on a latte.”
“I knooooowwww,” she concedes. “I just used to do that all the time when I’d go to Starbucks.”
“Well then you’re a horrible person,” I say with a glib smile, hoping my countenance reflects my inner Charles Grodin.
She smiles back with no eye contact and behind me a man and woman dressed like that famous depression era couple wander in. The man drags his worn vintage chuka boots across the exposed wood floor like a hungry Kodiak bear entering an unzipped tent. His female companion in tow asks how his boat and house (two separate entities) are doing, but the man can’t remember which ones she’s seen. They order — an orange juice and something in a very tiny glass she sips on like a Hummingbird — and he pays for both their beverages from a large wad of cash loosely resting in his torn, faded Levis jeans pocket. The girl quips, “Do you want a wallet?”
“No…” in a slow, low, lazy drawl of indeterminate origin. “My wallets too big.”
I sip my espresso over ice, which is very good, and stand up to explore the cafe’s mid-century-modern-farmhouse-chic-whatever table top displays crammed with every possible accoutrement of “we just bought a house outside a city” goods including: Biodegradable food storage bags, organic household cleaning solutions and $4 rolls of paper towels. I crouch down to look closer and confirm the price, disappearing from the redhead baristas view for several seconds, and rise up again.
“Oh!” she barks, startled. “I was like, ‘where’d he go?!’”
“I was trying to find the free milk,” I mutter.
Nervous laughter preempts, “I thought you were going to do ‘the elevator’ trick.”
“Yeah, I’m out of tricks,” I respond flatly.
I go back to my seat at the wrought iron based table with faux reclaimed wood top and ponder the other time this week a white girl had a conniption fit over my preference for espresso over ice.
After an evening of arguing with a romantic interest’s co-workers about the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and proper polling methodologies at The Big Hunt in Washington, D.C., I stir into consciousness. My head is ringing with the cheap Pollack vodka she and I thought was a good idea to do shots of before doing an impromptu Bluth Family Chicken Dance in her apartment. Processing all of this, I slither out of bed to rummage for my clothes.
“Do you want to grab a coffee?” she asks, already halfway through her morning routine, sliding her long toned legs into her running shorts.
“Sure,” I say. “I was going to head to Starbucks.”
She laughs. “We can do better than Starbucks.”
I blink flatly, shrug as I slide my Topsiders on and we make our way to The Coffee Bar.
As we approach, the front outside seating area is a garrison of stoic D.C. white people who sit with an eerie stillness, quietly murmuring to each other in what could be construed as “conversation” but lacking emotive gestures one would typically associate with the act. We enter, approach the counter and I notice “TUMERIC LATTE” scrawled on the chalk board which sounds appealing. The Runner orders her beverage and I begin to order mine.
“Can I have the Tumeric latte?”
“Sure,” the polite young black counter girl says.
“Can I have it with almond milk?” I amend.
“Oh…we only have oak or hemp milk.”
“I…don’t know what those are. Just a shot of espresso please.”
“Okay.”
“Over ice,” I add.
Time stops. I get sheepish, bashful, averted eyes and she stays still for a few beats like she’s trying to avoid a Tyrannosaur and then, without acknowledging me, resumes pulling the shot.
“Over ice, please.” I repeat.
Seemingly materializing out of the wall like T-1000, the barista’s manager, a tall lanky thing with a hook nose and aggressive Bible Belt eye shadow, turns around and informs me, “We don’t do that here,” while scooping ice for something else.
Now, it’s important to note that I in fact owned and ran a very successful coffee shop — into bankruptcy — in my early 20s. While it’s longevity certainly reflects my business acumen, it shouldn’t reflect my knowledge of coffee. Or at the very least earned me the right to order it however I want. However, I’m hungover. It’s a Mid-Atlantic 89 degrees and all I want is my espresso, cooled over blocks of frozen H20. Yet it seems as if I’m in 1993’s Demolition Man and I don’t know how to use the Three Sea-Shells.
“Ok…can you just give me an espresso and then give me a cup of ice. For water,” I negotiate.
More sheepishness.
Eventually, I’m handed a plastic cup of ice and my espresso. Everyone behind the counter is watching me as if I’m wearing an explosive vest and have my thumb on the detonator. Bated breaths abound, I pour the espresso over the ice and the hook nosed manager clenches her jaw and closes her eyes like she just lost a soldier to an IED in Tikrit. “Just so you know,” she snarls. “We probably won’t give you a cup of ice next time.”
Can’t a nigga get some iced espresso?
