Coffee With No Cream
by Anna Ciferno
They both sat in the booth three tables from the corner
covered from head to toe in camo.
She has her leg in a cast resting up beside her.
No small talk
Coffee, no cream
They were done trying to lighten anything up.
She was nervous, shaking- looking at the wall.
He is big and strong.
His bone structure flattering his jaw, clenched shut.
He changed his mind.
He didn’t look at me when he ordered.
He just stared at the newspaper that he wasn’t reading.
He whispered “Tanqueray on the rocks.”
He didn’t ask for a twist of lime, no decorations.
And under his breath I thought I heard him say
that after the war, everything
everything smells like hell and liquor.
I smiled.
He looked like he wanted to beg me to stop
but I smiled, it was my job.
His eyes were playing a movie,
the kind that makes every part of you nauseas, even your fingers.
The kind that gives you the worst nightmares of your life, if you could ever sleep.
He looked like he hadn’t slept in months.
What happened? What did you see?
I wondered what he looked like fresh out of high school, a boy
when he signed away his soul.
And if what the devil showed him was different that he expected.
Last Sunday a windstorm knocked the power out at work.
The trees swayed like the world was ending.
We all sat outside smoking cigarettes, trying not to blow away.
Two dishwashers sat on the bench across from me.
I started eavesdropping when I heard them say Vietnam.
One lifted his sleeve to show a kiss from a bullet that skid across his skin.
He covered it up when he saw that I was looking.
I thought of that young man in the booth.
I wondered if thirty years from now they’d throw him a rag too
and tell him to scrape off the left over food from the dishes of the citizens
they told him he was saving.
I wondered if they’d tell him “thanks, but this is the best we can do for you.”
Its minimum wage and chain smoking cigarettes with your whisky,
He was, I think,
The saddest man I have ever seen.
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