New readers may learn about me here.
We’ve reached the time of year where clothing has become less of a debate and more of a forbidden practice. Sunblock substitutes everywhere except where my boy shorts hide dark secrets. Well, maybe they hide less secrets than others’ do.
This morning I flippered my way along my “start of the day” walk, which inevitably brought me to the Stanley R. Wexley, Proprietor, cuban coffee emporium, who had set up operations within sight of the southernmost marker.
There was a line. There’s always a line. Both for Stan’s elixar and selfies with the marker.
“Chairs are for customers,” he said, seeing me flop down into one instead of standing in the waiting gaggle.
“I’ve been here four days this week. I’m a customer.”
“No order today.” He worked his magic with beans and things and the ‘zing’ sound that means someone is getting a cup of heaven came to my ears. “You’re not a customer, yet.”
“The problem with you, Stan, is that you’re too locked into the present. You should learn to leverage history.” I reflected that my statement clashed with the music coming from the bottom of the cart, which was probably first written down on sheep skins, or rocks, back when pencils were in short supply.
“Seven dollars. Cash only. No ID,” he said, handing over the cup to a twitchy-looking tourist who was probably recovering from too much Key West Fun (tm). The hippy paid his dues and departed, sipping while his one working eye tracked the sidewalk.
“You hand out that rocket fuel like nobody knows the FDA should be investigating,” I said, nodding at the jug of dream sauce on his cart. “Eventually that’s going become your ‘before’ situation.”
“There’s no audit trail on square groupers.” He pointed at another person in the crowd, and received an order for a double espresso latte with chocolate chaser, extra dreams. “It’s not traceable.”
“Speaking of history,” I said, refocusing, “You never have said what you did before this.” I waved generically, bringing the local area into discussion.
“There is no ‘before’,” he said, just before launching the grinder that reminded me of an F18 on full burner. After the grinder died, we returned to our focus as Stan squeezed water through a half pound of compressed grounds.
“You can’t tell me you just poof’d into existence.”
“Before isn’t today.”
I studied this for a moment while elixir operations continued. Stan did two pump from the jug labeled “Rocket Dreams” into the cup before offering it to his patron.
“Twenty dollars, no ID.” A crisp tourist twenty exchanged hands and the next person moved up, selecting a Cuban Cofebano, which was something nobody on Cuba had ever heard of.
“We came here a year and a half ago,” I offered. “That was ‘Before today’….”
“Why?”
“Same reason everyone else is here… we like it here.”
“Why?”
The conversation seemed to be circling, and my uncaffinated brain was having trouble finding the off ramp.
“Same reason everybody comes,” I repeated. “We like it here.”
“That’s today.”
“It was true yesterday.”
“Yesterday isn’t here.”
“Stan...”
“What?”
“You realize normal people have conversations differently.”
“You define normal your way.”
That was technically true. Somewhere off to the side of me a man wearing nothing but a banana-print speedo was explaining cryptocurrency to a family from Iowa. Maybe they were from Iowa. Ok, they looked like they were from Iowa. Or California. Somewhere it snows a lot. I wouldn’t define either the presenter or the topic as normal, but then again, I’m pretty judgy on some fronts. Gus in a similar outfit would not be a problem. Although the banana print could throw off his vibe.
Stan pointed at someone in the line and I realized I had missed a cycle while musing about the cryptocurrency presentation.
“Next.”
A woman stepped up.
“Double Cuban. With Rocket Dreams, if it’s not too fruity.”
He nodded. “It’s not fruity. Twenty dollars.”
She blinked and shifted her view to me, in my chair, and then back to Stan. “The menu says seven.”
“It doesn’t.”
She looked around the cart and pointed. “Right there, it says $7.”
“It’s not current. Prices went up.”
“It’s still the menu.”
“Not today’s menu.”
She handed over the twenty anyway, and I thought that I had caught Stan in his own paradox. I pondered next move, studied the flow of tourists, and listened for wisdom, hoping something, somewhere, would help me make sense of pre-oh-seven-hundred on Island Time. The smell of fresh espresso drifted across the sidewalk and briefly distracted me from proving Stan was wrong, which was fortunate because I wasn’t making much progress.
“I still don’t understand why you say there isn’t a ‘before.’”
He tamped another basket.
“Can you change yesterday?”
“No.”
“Can you order coffee there?”
“No.”
“Can you drink it?”
“...No.”
He shrugged.
“So why are you standing in it?”
The grinder exploded into life, this time sounding like somebody had fed the F-18 a handful of gravel and I pondered this latest round. He wasn’t wrong, and that by itself irritated me.
When the sound of civilization returned, I tried again.
“So nothing before today matters?”
“Not what I said.”
“You absolutely implied it.”
“I implied you’re visiting a place you don’t live.”
“I live in Key West.”
“You live today.”
I stared at him. It felt like I was losing ground. I studied the purple tinsel boa wrapped around one of the cart’s handles, seeking clarity in a cloud of cotton puffs. Resurfacing, I tried again.
“I liked you better when I thought you were just eccentric.”
“I’ve always been eccentric.”
Stan pointed at the next guy in line.
“Cortadito?” he asked.
Stan looked at him. “You sure about that?”
“Yes. Cortadito. With dreams, please.”
The production cycle cranked up again, followed by one large pump from the dream bucket.
“Three. No ID.”
The guy handed over two crumped ones, three quarters, and two dimes, turning his pockets out inside out in the process. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“Close enough.”
I waited until he’d wandered off.
“I have questions.” I was working to assemble a foundation under my position, but it was tenuous.
“You always have questions. Never any answers, though.”
“Why was his three dollars?”
“He only needed three dollars’ worth.”
“That’s not how prices work.”
“It is here.”
“I paid seven yesterday.”
“You needed seven.”
“I need seven today.” The conversational thread was hanging together, barely, my mud-pile of a foundation melting under my feet.
“You haven’t ordered today.”
Damn. I hate it when certain people named Stanley R. Wexley use facts against my world view before breakfast. I was considering what to do next when a large woman in a white wedding dress and New Balance loafers collapsed into the spare chair in the waiting area.
“Good God Almighty! This place never sleeps!” She was flushed, lubricated, and might have been from out of town. “Pedro! Gimme a double shot of expresso with a TwistySwirl bun!”
I wondered what expresso was, what a TwistySwirl bun was, and then decided I didn’t care. I also wondered why her dress was hacked off at knee length but her train, which was looking pretty ragged, was still extra long. More questions that probably deserved answers in a different universe.
“The bars closed at oh three hundred,” I offered. “Private event?”
Her had lolled back and her mascara had seen better days. “I’ll say. It’s still going, somewhere over there.” She waved a hand that took in, more or less, the west side of the island.
Stan shot her a sideways glance. “Espresso is $31.50, exact change only, ID required.”
“Shoot it to me, baby. I’m on a roll.” I wasn’t sure that was agreement on the price, the product, or even the location, but figured it was Stan’s problem. I shifted in my chair, gaining interest in what was coming next. “You come here often?” This last was to me, I was pretty sure.
“Every now and then.”
“Freakin place is awesome! Sixteen hours left before I gotta roll. I figure there’s at least five more parties to hit.” She made a face as she snorted oxygen like it was on giveaway pricing. “Snap it up Pedro, the lady’s got places to be!”
Stan handed me a cup. “Cortadito. One dream shot.” He shot side eyes at the wedding party of one in the waiting room.
“I didn’t order this.”
“You were going to.”
“I was, but not that dream stuff - which is probably illegal in fifty one states.”
“You need dreams. Seven.”
I handed him the money.
“You know, one of these days the IRS is going to show up. Probably with the FDA and a Miami prosecutor.”
“They’ll have to wait in line.”
“Hoya con dios, baby!” I took that to be some sort of greeting or well wishes from the wedding dress. “See you on the boat!”
I took the cup, while watching the dress to see if she was going to offer other unexpected explosions and call them art or infusions or possibly just offensive.
I sampled Stan’s elixir, and of course it was three percent over perfect. I’m not sure what the dream sauce is, but I may order again. “I still think there was a before.”
“There was.”
“...There was?”
“Of course.”
“But you said—”
“I said it isn’t today.”
He turned to the dress. “Thirty seven twenty five. Exact change only. ID required.”
I left before it got interesting.
By the time I reached Simonton Street, the coffee, or dream sauce, had successfully rebooted the portions of my brain responsible for basic reasoning and locating my own flippers in the dark.
I realized Stan had never argued that the past didn’t exist. No, he had only said that I kept trying to have coffee with it. At least, I think that’s what he said. I sidestepped a hen hunting overnight discards along the edge of the sidewalk and carried on.
I never paid for yesterday’s coffee today. Maybe Stan was on to something. This profoundity carried me for half a block
The things that happened before had already done whatever they were going to do. But today was still before me. I wondered what boat the wedding dress was headed to. The west side of the island isn’t that big. I could probably hunt it down, just listening for the music, given her condition and outlook.
At some point, I realized the only thing about today was me, making decisions. In the present.
That was a slightly uncomfortable realization before nine in the morning.
I’ll probably ask him about it tomorrow, if the dream sauce let’s me live that long. I want to see Kona on this stuff. Maybe that’s tomorrow’s present.
-Mills
Millie, Stan is impossible in the most enjoyable way: part coffee vendor, part philosopher, part unlicensed distributor of whatever “Rocket Dreams” is doing to the human nervous system. The pricing logic, the banana-speedo crypto lecture, the wedding dress with New Balance loafers, and the recurring refusal to let “before” become “today” all make the piece feel delightfully unhinged while still carrying a real point. I loved the turn where the joke becomes clarity: Stan was never denying the past existed, only noticing how often we keep trying to order coffee there. Grateful for the humor, absurdity, and sly wisdom in this one.