CoffeeBeanShop

Smelling the Coffee

by Diane Dees Tobiason (bio at end of story)

Two stick-thin men in well-worn bathrobes sat at the round oak table and waited for Sister Clarise to appear with the tray. A beam of sunlight made its way through the beveled glass in the front door and highlighted the rough grain of the wood and of the men's hands. They looked like the hands of old men, yet they belonged to Hugh and Billy, both in their early thirties.

Hugh and Billy didn't sleep much at night, and by seven, they were at the table, waiting for the first pungent waves of French roast to travel through the air from the kitchen to their nostrils. Sometimes they had toast or croissants, sometimes they were too weak to eat. On a good day, they had company: Joey or Michael might appear. The other three were too far gone to get out of bed, and sometimes they didn't know morning from night.

"Good morning, gentlemen."

Sister Clarise appeared with two white mugs and some milk and sugar. Clarise had never been out of New Orleans and couldn't care less that most of the world drank coffee without chicory. She had never tasted dressing without oysters, either.

"Quick," Billy deadpanned, "Put some milk and sugar in it, or it'll kill me before the k.s. does."

When she wasn't too busy, Sister Clarise heated the milk and did an authentic au lait. But she was getting busier every day, dispensing medication, preparing meals, writing letters and training volunteers. Very few people in the neighborhood knew that the two-story green house with cream trim was an AIDS hospice. The few who did stayed away.

"Anyone feel like eating this morning?" Clarise asked.

"Well, I was hoping you'd take us to Brennan's, but do you think we're overdressed?"

Hugh crossed his legs and smoothed the seam of the dark blue robe he'd worn every day since Clarise had met him, six months ago. Hugh weighed about a hundred pounds, and like Billy, his arms, legs and face were covered with the purple splotches of Kaposi's Sarcoma. He always limped, and he frequently had a high fever. Only a month ago, he had almost died of liver failure.

"You don't behave well enough to get into Brennan's," was all the nun said, but she rolled her eyes like Mary Tyler Moore, which cracked both men up, which led to one of Hugh's coughing spells.

Moans came from one of the rooms. The patients all lived on the ground floor, and Sister Clarise used the upstairs as office and storage space. When she had first opened the house, right before Billy and Hugh moved in, every cough and moan had set her on edge. Gradually, she came to realize that moaning, coughing and gasping was a way of life for these men, and there was little she could do to relieve their pain.

Hugh and Billy decided they wanted toast and jam, and Clarise went into the kitchen to make it. When she came back, she brought more coffee. Hugh's hand shook as he reached for his mug.

"Look at me. I look like an alcoholic."

"You are an alcoholic, you fool." Hugh was the best straight man Billy ever had.

Hugh's partying days had come to an abrupt end when he started having night sweats and thrush, and then lost thirty pounds within days.

By mid-afternoon, Billy and Michael had dressed and were able to play cards and watch television. Dr. Mallory came to see a few of the men, wrote some prescriptions, and gave Sister Clarise some money to help run the house. He was usually too busy to spend much time at the Hospice, but some of the patients were now too sick to travel to Charity Hospital to see him at his makeshift clinic.

Sister Clarise saw President Reagan's face on TV, and sat in the living room to see what was going on.

"Just something about the Middle East," Billy told her. "He'll say the "A" word when either hell or New Orleans freezes over."

Billy snorted. "Let's say one could die waiting for any of that crowd to talk about it."

"I don't understand it at all," Clarise said. "I don't understand how this could happen."

She looked so sad that Hugh took her hand and squeezed it. He knew what she was thinking-that she couldn't even get a priest to come to the hospice. Once a week, Clarise drove over to St. Paul's to pick up consecrated host.

Nuns serving as eucharistic ministers were frowned on in the parish, but the church was suddenly eager to do anything that would keep the clergy away from Clarise's patients.

Days at the hospice were all about the same. A few volunteers came in and wrote letters for the sicker men, or read to them during their periods of consciousness. Michael sometimes didn't know where he was, and Joey threw up a lot. Brian, Jimmy and Dennis slept most of the time.

All of the days wound through the same pattern: A few men got out of bed, had coffee and watched television or read. The others moaned. Billy told Sister Clarise that he relied on the aroma of her coffee to convince himself he was still alive each morning. "You don't really understand 'wake up and smell the coffee' 'til you've lived with Our Lady of the Dark Roast here," he told the others.

One afternoon, Clarise was checking on Michael when she heard clapping and whooping from the living room. When she got as far as the threshold, Billy and Hugh were on their feet, waving their arms, and singing along with an MTV video. They screamed about feeling "all shiny and new," and someone from one of the bedrooms let out a weak laugh.

"God, don't you love her?" Hugh said, then, "Oops, sorry, Sister."

"For what? First time in years anyone's talked about virgins."

This got an even bigger laugh from the bedroom.

"Sister Clarise," Billy told her, "Madonna's got nothin' on you, darlin'--well, you know what I mean."

The synthesizer beat was still in Clarise's head when she heard a thump at the front door. She opened it, and then saw spray-painted on the steps: Faggots deserve to die. She called a volunteer to come scrub it off, afraid that her own disappearance would arouse suspicion and the men would see the red paint. From that time on, Clarise kept a sharp eye on the porch, the front of the house, the mailbox and the yard.

She had begun sending a little newsletter to the relatives and home churches of the hospice patients, sometimes asking for money, sometimes begging for volunteers. But what Sister Clarise really wanted was for the people who used to be in her patients' lives to return. Few of them did.

One morning, while he was drinking his coffee, Billy told Clarise how his father had introduced him to café au lait.

"I couldn't have been more than four. My mother would give me some milk and cookies, and my father would put a spoonful of his coffee into my milk. If my mother left the room, he'd put in some more. I loved it. When I got a little older, he'd say, 'Billy and I are going to have some coffee,' and I'd drink my coffee milk while he drank black coffee from his mug."

"You were very close to your father."

Billy swallowed, and made an obvious attempt to hold back tears.

"He tells his friends I'm dead. That he doesn't have a son."

"Should I call him? What about your mother?"

"She does whatever he does. I don't have any parents, Sister. It's okay. I'm used to it."

Their stories were all similar. Family members were either hostile, or they found constant excuses to stay out of the hospice. One man had already died, and Clarise had had to find a distant relative to take care of the funeral.

One morning, she walked into the living room to find Hugh alone.

"Where's Billy?"

"He doesn't feel too good, Sister. He's sweating like a wrung-out dishrag, and he's having trouble breathing."

Clarise called Dr. Mallory, and when he arrived that afternoon, he confirmed her suspicion--Billy had pneumocystis pneumonia.

"He won't last long," the doctor told her. His lungs will probably go before the cancer finishes him off. I'm sorry."

"Sister," Billy called for her. "I could use some of that coffee."

She brought him a mug of coffee, but he was too weak to drink it. Then she steamed some milk, put a little of the coffee in it, and--placing one hand under his head--gave him a spoonful of warm coffee milk. She did this on and off for about a half hour, then Billy fell asleep.

The next morning, Sister Clarise found him in his bed, no longer able to smell her coffee, and no longer able to feel his pain.

© Diane Dees Tobiason. All Rights Reserved.

Finalist - Smelling the Coffee by Diane Dees Tobiason

Diane Dees Tobiason is a psychotherapist and writer in Covington, Louisiana. Her short stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in many publications, including: Thema, The Raven Chronicles, Southern Ocean Review, The Melic Review, The Dead Mule, and Bikwil. Diane is a columnist for the ezine, Moondance, and she and her husband, Orvin, are the webmasters of www.princesscafe.com (this link will open a new window), a virtual rock and roll restaurant. Her dislike of dark roast coffee is tantamount to a crime in Louisiana, but they let her live there, anyway.

Editor's Note: "Smelling the Coffee" was chosen for the first round for the following reasons: Lead-in that seemed surreal at the beginning - wonderful technique to elicit emotion from the reader for this topic as the reader goes forward. Excellent writing, correct punctuation, no spelling errors. We were also struck by the twist to the theme. This was a bold and handsome tribute to the disease of AIDS, as well as for the subtle tie to love and coffee. The details of the region, as well as the finely woven incidents compounding the horror of this illness are solid and profound throughout the story. Believable dialogue, with humorous notes for contrast. This was the only entry on AIDS. We had no doubt from the front end that "Smelling the Coffee" would make it here for final judging, based on all the above.

Back To Top