Simon Sellars: Sleepy Brain Archives

by Jane Ormond

Illustrations by Daniel New

—————————————————————————————————
This is an excerpt from Cardigan Press’s recent anthology, Machines Will Not Give Change. Thanks to Cardigan Press and Jane Ormond for permission to reproduce it here. For more on Cardigan Press, see here.
—————————————————————————————————

I am Cleopatra, Queen of Denial. I lie here, refusing to acknowledge it is 6am. I lie rigid in my warm bed, nagged by the snooze alarm, staring at the water stain on the ceiling. Unless my eyes deceive me, it seems to be growing. It was just a brownish blob; now it looks like a brownish blob with a handle on the side. Like a coffee cup. Oh god.

“De-caf latte, thanks.”

Christ, here we go already. I try to smile when I say, “We don’t have decaf, sorry.”

“You don’t have decaf?”

“No.”

“Why not? ”

“Well I guess because decaf isn’t real coffee.”

“Fuck you.”

It’s now 7.47am, clear, but so cold I can’t feel my feet and way too early for sanctimonious decaffers. Whenever I sense one approaching, I wish I could just pick this coffee cart up and wheel away, oblivious to their whiney little calls, although that could be construed as slightly bad customer service.

I work a shiny, faux-Italian black and gold mobile coffee cart just outside the Arts Centre every morning, Monday to Friday, from 6.45am till just after 10. The early starts break my soul, especially now that it’s winter, and I am aware I must occasionally cut a pathetic figure, standing behind this cart, squinting against the cruel wind, red-nosed and clutching a small jug of steamed milk to my rakey chest, willing the warmth to forge within. But at least it forces me to get out of bed and it is just a stone’s throw from the art school I’m at, so I can just mosey on afterwards and get on with things. Plus the coffee’s free and I get to make it exactly how I like it.

It’s 10.45 by the time I get to school with a sniffling nose, wheeling my bike along with one gloved hand and holding the last of this morning’s free long blacks in the other, AC/DC’s ‘Hell’s Bells’ inexplicably stuck in my head. Brodie, my eternally relaxed housemate, is reclining on the park bench outside the sculpture department, smoking meditatively, squinting and haloed in the winter sun by his organic, free form afro. I park my bike against the back of the bench and sit down beside him.

“Brodester.”

“Jeff, my man.”

“How you doin’?”

“Oh, hey, I’m livin’ the dream. And you’ll be glad to know I cycled past a mighty fine three car pile up on Punt Road this morning.”

“Really? Which intersection?”

“That messy little black spot just this side of Victoria Parade; I never remember what it’s called but naturally I thought of you. I was going to stop and pick you up a few little auto treats but people were still exchanging addresses and, you know, I didn’t want to look like a ghoul or anything, but you should be safe now; free to go forth and gather your bounty.”

“Any good hub caps? I need hub caps.”

“Not sure. Definite headlight action though, I definitely recall that particular crunch.”

“Oh yeah, that is a great crunch. I’ll ride down in a minute. Thanks mate.”

“No problem, my man.”

Brodie piffs his ciggie onto the gravel in front of his feet, slowly gets up and goes inside to work on his surprisingly aggressive and phallic wooden sculptures. I find his languid manner incredibly comforting and soothing to be around. He tempers my bouts of middle class neuroses with his lazy smiles.

I sit alone on the bench, cross-hatching lines with my thumbnail into the now empty polystyrene coffee cup, thinking about my art and the boy with the green and hazel eyes who often buys a latte from my cart. I first noticed him because his green eyes were flecked so chunkily, as if by a toddler with a finger full of hazel paint. I don’t know his name, so I trace question marks down the cup before I flip it into the bin and cycle down to the intersection Brodie spotted. I’ve been working on sculptures made entirely of the detritus of car accidents – sugar bowls full of windscreen crumbles, hub cap fruit platters, bumper bars split into pieces to look like undiscovered exotic plant life. It’s all about the increasing mechanization of even the simplest things in life, which I realized the night I discovered spreadable Spam in the supermarket.

Depressed by the knowledge that our fridge held nothing more promising than a punnet of sludge (nee alfalfa sprouts) and a jar of Brodie’s mum’s quince jam that neither of us liked, we were ambling the aisles like so many pathetic, inept scarecrow boys before us. I was scanning the shelves for Vegemite when my eyes fell upon a tiny can of horrors – Spreadable Spam with Pineapple. I gingerly picked it up, awed and terrified. The ingredients list mesmerized me.

“Brodie, what’s mechanically separated chicken?”

Brodie stood behind me, reading the label over my shoulder. Then he clapped one hand on my back, the other on my chest and said, “That, my man, is progress.”

Staring at the cup-shaped stain on the ceiling this morning, I had a tiny idea to charm the green-eyed boy. As soon as I had set the cart up, I took one of the polystyrene cups, scratched the words ‘Hi I’m Jeff’ around it’s middle with the tip of a plastic teaspoon and put it aside. I saw him approach at 8.30. I felt instantly aware of my tissue-sore nose.

“Latte.”

“Sure.”

My hands were shaking as I reached for the cup and fed it under the espresso jet. I steamed the milk until the froth was obscenely smooth. I squeezed the lid on and handed it to him, inscription outwards. I didn’t make eye contact but I noticed how tanned and smooth his hands were, like puppies bellies. I didn’t expect him to notice the scratching in the polystyrene there and then, but I envisaged he would notice it later, maybe as he was sitting on the concrete edge of some planter bed near his work or studio. He’ll drain the cup and, while holding a cigarette between the smooth index and middle fingers of his left hand, he’ll boredly, distractedly start scraping patterns into the outside of the cup and then, all of a sudden, like a beacon in the snow, this mesmeric little message will appear before his eyes. He’ll look around him, confused, excited, then realize, oh, the coffee guy! That’s what I’m thinking. Let’s see how he reacts tomorrow. Maybe next time I’ll do an enigmatic quote, or my phone number; something he’ll get a kick out of. I’ll take a few cups home tonight and work on them there.

That night, I sit down at our paint spattered kitchen table, set up the cups and a plastic tool box of glues, paints and nubs of charcoal, while Brodie seasons his new wok.

I decide to make two versions of the cups for tomorrow. If my bravado decides to turn into a shovey stage mother and push me into the spotlight, I’ll give him Version I. If it decides to wander off for a ciggie and a slash and leave me stranded, I’ll use Version II. Version I has a band of red around the base, my name and phone number in gold above that, then a band of burgundy flames to top it. Version II has an inch-high band of gold paint around the base with ‘Can I buy you a cup of coffee?’ inscribed in it in sepia brown ink and a cheesy little graphic of a cup with heart-shaped steam rising from it.

“Whoa Jeff, how twee can you be?”

Brodie is examining the gold version, holding it by the lip, one eyebrow raised like a tick.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“The heart-shaped steam? That is so Hallmark. Come on Jeff, you can be bigger than that!”

“Leave me alone, I’m trying to seduce someone.”

He holds up the cup, gives me a ‘with this?’ look and says, “Good luck my man…”

My bravado geeked out on me. I was primed to be sassy and bold but when I saw that moody fringe and the flecks in his eyes, I fell apart. He looked a bit tired and thin, a scarf loose around his smooth neck. The purple smudges of sleeplessness under his eyes made the green of his irises vibrate like a tuning fork. I was trying to keep myself together as he approached, trying not to give in to the kittenish giggles, and make casual yet loaded eye contact with him, to give him the opportunity to respond to the cup of yesterday.

“Latte?” (Me, half smile, gray eyes full of hope.)

“Thanks.” (Him, no smile, green eyes full of…nothing.)

That’s okay, I’m thinking, yesterday’s was pretty subtle, wait till he sees this one. Feeling suddenly cavalier and death-divey, I grabbed the red phone number cup, made his latte and tried to be nonchalant as I handed it to him, although I’m smiling like a six-year-old giving their mother a necklace they’ve made out of macaroni, and I hate myself for it.

Nothing. No response. Didn’t even look. Just took it and left. I feel half-crushed and in limbo. Now I have to wait until Monday. It seems I might have to pull out the big guns.

I spend that morning feeling tetchy. Things don’t seem to be going as I planned which was not, well, in my plan. Instead of working on my sculptures, I devote almost two hours to replicating the iconic New York coffee cup design on a blank one – the cornflower blue Grecian motif with ‘We are happy to serve you’ emblazoned between columns. On the back of this one, I write ‘Fly me to the moon’. I discuss this one with Brodie. He agrees it is not exactly Hallmark, but he’s not sure what it is instead.

After a painfully obsessive weekend I am up and ready, bouncing like a boxer, springing on the spot with adrenalin. Today I am bound to get a verdict; the red, the phone number, something’s got to give.

“Latte thanks.”

I don’t care if he’s playing hard to get, he’s wearing a black skivvie and his glasses are framing those hypnotic eyes like the devil.

“So..ah..good weekend?” Feeble, I know, but I have to kick this along the tracks a bit.

“Uh huh.”

“Umm…sugar?”

“Nuh.”

How wonderful. He has not noticed a thing. Okay, I’ll hit him with this one, my New York cup. I pass it to him, holding on to it a little longer than I should. He takes it, firmly, and leaves without looking up or saying thank you.

“One last chance. I’m giving him one last chance,” I snap at Brodie as I perch on the edge of our fetid futon sofa, smashing the quote “Love is an act; faith is an ability” into a defenseless new cup with a hard-tipped pen.

“Where are you going with that line, Jeff? You sound like a psychic hooker …”

“Well, I’m throwing down the gauntlet, seeing what he’s made of. Seeing if he’s man enough to rise to the challenge.”

“Ooh, vicar!”

“Shut up. Plus, if he’s really clever, he’ll realize that it’s a quote from a movie called ‘Flirt’. And that’s what I’m doing. Being a flirt. I’m flirting with him. I’m being a flirt.”

“Say it a few more times and you might actually believe it.”

I am eagle-eyed. I have everything ready. The second I spy him rounding the corner, I snap into action. I steam milk, brew espresso, assemble his latte, and as he is striding up to the cart I reach over, slap it down, writing out to face him and point accusingly at it.

“Latte.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“$2.50.”

I take his money (warm from his pocket – damnit), he leaves, and I need a pair of pliers to unfurl my angry mouth. He can’t possibly not have noticed the cups. Couldn’t he have just said “nice cups”? At least acknowledged them? Acknowledged me? It’s hard to take rejection when someone hasn’t even noticed your advances. He doesn’t even look me in the eye. Huh. Well, he may be gorgeous, but I’m going to fix his little red wagon.

The next morning, when I realize my flirt quote was like water off a dickhead’s back, I deliberately make his latte quadruple strength and with low fat milk, so it is really rough going down, with a hideous and lingering aftertaste. Inside the cup, at the very bottom, I had written ‘I’m as bitter as this coffee was’. My demeanor belongs to a café terrorist. I decide to meld my art with my life and drop a crumble from a shattered windscreen into his Wednesday cuppa. When he comes back for more on Thursday I figure he deserves it, so I plop another one in, this time with a Britney Spears quote inside the cup that says ‘Oops I did it again’. And it goes on. I dig out brutal quotes like ‘you deserve to be exactly what you are if you could bear to get that way’ and metaphorically spit them into his coffee, like a form of voodoo.

I’m leaning against the cart, with my back to any customers, scrawling ‘It is important to acknowledge there is no experience in life that is beneath your dignity’ on a cup. I hear someone say ‘excuse me’. I am feeling bored and lackluster and sigh as I turn around to see… Him. He hands me a postcard.

“I’m having an exhibition; I thought you might like to come. It opens tonight.”

“Oh, well okay, sounds great…” I’m still clutching today’s vitriolic polystyrene in my left hand. I wave it and ask, “Latte?”

“Okay, why not.” He squints at my hand.

“What does that one say?”

Uh-oh, busted. I’d felt an enormous freedom of expression, thinking he hadn’t seen any of the things I’d written to him; a freedom to vent, to spill, to purge. And now I was getting that hot, prickling feeling that someone had just read my diary.

“Oh, nothing, you can ah, you can read it later.”

“Great. Great. Thanks. Bye.”

Funny how you try to dress like someone when you’re trying to impress him or her; like they’d obviously prefer to see themselves in the mirror more than you. I cycle over to the gallery in Clifton Hill, wearing a sixties suede jacket and black scarf and now I feel like I’m in fancy dress, a crude approximation of a cool guy. Damnit. I see people in the overspill outside the gallery, bathed by the lighting within. There’s quite a crowd. I park my bike by a tree and make my way through, feeling sick and hyper.

Then the floor shifts and swells.

The first thing I see as I walk into the gallery is a beech wood box frame with a cup inside that says ‘it is important to acknowledge there is no experience in life that is beneath your dignity’.

And further around, ‘fly me to the moon’, ‘love is an act; faith is an ability’, the whole fucking inventory. Each one box framed at eye level, the windscreen ones containing miniature frames within them to hold the piece of screen like a rare jewel. I feel sick, embarrassed, violated. And furious. Everyone is loving it.

James sees me before I see him. He weaves through the crowd and puts his hand on my arm. I glare at those slim fingers around my sueded arm; those smooth hands I daydreamed about; those light fingers that shoplifted my feelings. I am speechless.

Apparently, I have had an exhibition.

:: …The End.