Black Coffee

Andrew Minyard wasn’t poor. He just wasn’t rich. The difference between the two was that not being poor meant working two jobs was just enough to keep food on the table and the lights on. Being rich meant that he had enough money to get the hell out of Palmetto and not look back. Next time you begin to think that there is no distinction, realize that there is-and it is astronomical.

Six days a week at Hatford’s Coffee, tutoring kids at the local high school whenever he could, and whatever time he had left was spent doing online courses. This was the life of Andrew Minyard. It wasn’t an ideal situation but he didn’t really have a choice, did he? After being adopted by his biological mother at the age of sixteen, Andrew had spent the last two years working tooth and nail just to provide for her and his brother. Sometimes he thought that the only reason Tilda took him in was because she didn’t feel like working anymore. After the papers were signed he could've run, but he stayed for Aaron. Everything came down to his devotion to his brother. If Aaron told him to jump, all Andrew would have to ask is how high. It didn’t really matter in the end anyway. He was out of the system, and in a few months, he’d be out of high school. He could endure this for a little while longer. Whatever this was. He’d endured worse, after all.

“Andrew, did you get any of that?” Stuart Hatford wrote something down on a clipboard. His accent made Andrew wonder what he was doing in South Carolina. Running a small coffee shop couldn’t have been the answer, it just seemed too simple. He guessed that it was all just a front for the mafia. His position didn’t offer him clearance to information like that though.

“No.” But he did. Stuart's sister and nephew were in town. For how long, Stuart didn’t know. The nephew was going to be working with Andrew behind the counter and blah blah blah. He’d probably quit within the month like everyone else. Andrew was the employee under who'd been under Stuarts hire the longest. Renee only worked during summers, the rest of the year was reserved for Exy. There was Seth, but he quit just as soon as he started. Roland was arrested. Andrew could probably put a name to every face who stood next to him, brewing coffee. He didn’t waste time proving it but he could.

“He starts tomorrow. Do you think you could train him or do I have to ask Renee to come in?”

“Will we have to split the tips?” He always tried to split tips with Renee, even if he pretended not to notice the way she slid more bills into his cut than her own. 

“Don’t put me in the middle of that. You two decide when he gets here.”

“Aye aye, captain.” 

Hartford left, and Andrew continued to work his shift. No one was in the cafe other than a few college students working on their up-coming bestseller novel or screenplay and a couple of locals. He allowed himself to look at his phone. 

He didn’t have many notifications considering he was what others would consider an “outlier”. There were a few emails from students asking for tutoring sessions. Cat videos from his cousin, Nicky. Nicky was in Germany but that distance didn’t seem to stop him from bombarding him with texts all hours of the day and night if you applied the six-hour time difference. It didn't matter how far he was, it still wouldn't be far enough from Nicholas Hemmick's constant badgering. A text from Aaron that said:

This new kid started a fight on D1 

His phone dinged again:

Katelyn sent this to me

Aaron had been trying to get Andrew and Katelyn to make friends with each other for months. When was he going to realize that it wasn’t going to happen? Andrew was too busy for friends and if that wasn’t reason enough, he just didn’t like Katelyn. 

Attached to the texts was a video of some redhead arguing with a person much bigger than him. He went from pointing fingers to throwing punches. It went on for a few seconds before they were pulled apart. Neither ended up triumphant but the video was entertaining enough and the boy in it wasn’t boring either. He replayed the video a second time at a slower pace, pausing every few frames to get a better look.

“Ahem.”

“Yeah?” Andrew didn’t look away from his phone. What was Stuart going to do, fire him for being rude to one customer? Then who would work in this shit-palace?

“What do you recommend?” 

“The frappuccino menu isn’t terrible.” It really wasn't thanks to Andrew and his expert taste in sweets.

“Really? Isn’t that kind of…” The customer trailed off and Andrew gazed up to make sure he was still there. 

The person in front of him had his blue eyes trained on the chalkboard menu. He wore a faded blue hoodie and his red hair was riffled into an incomprehensible mess. 

Looking back at the paused video, he realized the boy was also wearing a blue hoodie, but it was too blurry to see the exact quality of it. He asked, “Did you get into any fights recently?”

“What?”

“Do I really have to explain what a fight is?”

“No.” He looked confused before saying, “I mean, yes, I was in a fight today. You saw it?”

“I see everything, you’d do well to remember that. Are you going to order?”

“Are you usually this creepy?”

“Do you usually take this long to say you want a coffee?”

“Aren’t fraps really sugary? They don’t even count as coffee.”

“Fuck you, they count as coffee.” 

“How?” He laughed. It wasn’t a bad one either. It was the kind that sent a pleasant chill down his spine.

“They’ve got caffeine in them, don’t they.”

“I guess...can I just get a black coffee?”

Andrew regarded him for a moment. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m contemplating whether or not I’m going to spit in it.”

“Well,” he pulled five singles out of his pocket and set them on the counter, “does spit cost extra? Because I don’t know if I can afford spit and a tip.”

“It’s on the house.” Andrew put three dollars in a glass jar marked "TIPS", pulled a plastic cup from a stack, and took the Sharpie that sat on his ear. “Name?”

“Nathaniel. My friends call me Neil.”

“That’s stupid. I’m putting down Junkie.”

“Rude...Junkie?”

“Yeah, Junkie.”

This entire conversation seemed to be entertaining to Neil and Andrew would be lying if he said it wasn’t entertaining to him either. “What exactly do I have an addiction to?”

He flipped his phone screen around and played the video. “Starting fights.”

“Whatever, he started it. Said I was short.”

“You are short.”

“Still.” And then, “You’re shorter than me.”

“Whatever you say, Junkie.”

-

Andrew went home $56 dollars richer that night. Nathaniel’s laughter still rang in his ears and he had to fight off a smile. Today wasn’t all terrible, even if someone made pasta and left it out on the stove. Even if no one did the dishes, the apartment was a mess, and he still had two classes left to complete before midnight. It wasn’t terrible at all.

Aaron’s bedroom door was open, which meant Tilda wasn’t home. That would explain why the car wasn’t parked in its usual spot and why there was no yelling.

He heard her before he saw her. Katelyn, pencil in hand, working through some worksheet with Aaron. 

She said something about integrals. Aaron said something about her cheer practice. 

The change in the atmosphere when they noticed Andrew standing in the doorway was intense. He didn’t want to find words for whatever was in front of him, but if he did, they wouldn’t be nice ones.

“Hey,” Aaron gestured at the space in front of him, cluttered with papers and erasers. “Calc homework.”

“Okay.”

“Katelyn’s really good at it.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

“Andrew-”

“Aaron.”

The awkwardness was palpable. So was the tension.

“I’m going to go do...” he allowed himself a glance at Katelyn before continuing. “School. Keep it down.”

No one really knew about the existence of Andrew Minyard, either because he didn’t want to be known or he didn't make it easy to be known. He took online classes, so he wasn’t around people his age much. Sometimes people came into the cafe and mistook him for Aaron, and other times people went to school asking Aaron for free drinks. If this angered Andrew, he didn’t show it. But there was a lot that Andrew didn’t show. Katelyn only knew of his existence because she frequented the Minyard residence more often than he was comfortable with.

“Sure. Goodnight.” Aaron offered. 

So maybe today wasn’t terrible. But Aaron and Katelyn alone in his bedroom, obviously flirting, didn’t make it good.

-

If Andrew overslept and missed opening Hatford’s, sue him. Or don’t. Either option wasn’t going to change the fact that he was supposed to unlock the front door nearly two hours ago. Five was too early to open anyway, Stuart would have to settle for six-thirty. That’s how he figured he’d justify it when Stuart eventually questioned him about it.

“6:52” was what his phone said by the time he reached the Hatford's Coffee. No one was waiting outside, but he undoubtedly missed the early risers. He unlocked Hartford's Coffee and was surprised to find that the lights were already turned on, even if the curtains remained closed. Someone was standing behind the counter in an apron. He said:

“Hey! Spit man! I was waiting for you to get here. Some people yelled at me when I came in so I told them to fuck off.”

Andrew said: 

“What the hell is going on?” 

The boy, who Andrew now knew as Nathaniel, (Neil to his friends) replied with:

“Stu gave me keys yesterday. We’re going to be working together, spit man.”

“Don’t call me that.” This was Hatford’s nephew? There was no family resemblance at all, and that worked in Neil’s favor.

“Frap boy?”

“Somehow you’ve thought of something worse than ‘spit man’. Congratulations.”

“What do I call you, if not a witty nickname?” Neil picked up an apron that was folded on top of the counter, “Oh, wait a second…”

“I wouldn’t call them witty.” After fiddling for a name tag, Neil deciphered the lettering, then flashed it up at Andrew while wearing the biggest grin in the world. “Andrew. Has a nice ring to it. Like ‘Andrew, why do you have such shit taste in caffeinated beverages?’”

Oh. He hated Neil immediately.