The Robbed Cafe

I awake to the sound of glass shattering from my cafe downstairs. No louder than a plate slipping from someone's hands, crashing to the floor.   

Struggling to get out from my heavy blankets, I grab the small metal bat that my father gave me after telling him I was going to start my cafe. My grip around it trembles.  

I pause, maybe I had dreamt the sound?  

My hopes are cut off by light footprints treading downstairs.  

Then I had been so determined to set off on my own, situations like this were put on the back burner.   

My mind starts to spin from holding my breath, expanding like a balloon as I make my way across a rippling floor.   

The bat feels as though it would slip from my hands at any moment despite my knuckles turning white from their grasp on its cool exterior. My legs are now trembling.  I dread whatever was exploring downstairs. 

 Perhaps it was one of those tall skinny aliens you saw in horror movies because of how light it stepped. Right now, that seemed better than the alternative...someone attempting to rob my little café, even though there was a prominent coinvent store just down the street.  

I inch across my closet-like room, to the hall, not wanting to turn on any lights. I would sooner this new robber assume I'm still asleep, judging from how quietly the window had been broken, only a light sleeper would be able to hear. Or someone with insomnia.   

I'm reaching the end of the hall, my foot nudging every bit ahead of me. I hear another clatter downstairs, a chair falling over from how hard it clunks.    

The hall has gotten longer since I started, and I’m nearing the end. Finally.  

I'm at the first step down when I hear a chair gently give off a loud groan as it's pulled across the floor downstairs.   

Confused, I venture forth. Why they would need a chair is beyond me.  

My whole body is tingling, and my mind is scrambled at what to do. There's no way I could beat someone with this bat, I'm sure everyone in our town knows that. Something I was always yelled at for. Something I had cried about. Something I cried about after grieving spilled milk.  

Maybe it wasn't a robber, maybe it was some old person confused as to why my shop was closed. A regular customer coming in for a donut.   

I'm at the square at the end of the stairs when I hear a larger clatter, they're behind the counter now. Steps away from me.   

My legs tense and I slowly shrink into my shoulders.   

I sharply inhale before peaking around the corner separating the stairs and the green café, nearly dropping my bat at the sight. My head recoils as though it had been slapped, or offended.   

A little boy, barely reaching the top of my breast-high counter displays, is crouched over an open fridge filled with cookies I made before going to sleep.   

I watch him as he takes the basket, and places it on the counter, jumping as a cookie rolls out onto the floor. He pulls a plastic bag from his pocket and dumps the cookies in. 

He reaches for the basket behind the one he took, his movements stiff.   

“Excuse me” my voice is shrill. 

It reminds me of whenever I try to sing as if a bug is filtering the sound coming out.   

His head jerks upwards, hitting the top of the fridge.   

I take a few steps to the sidewall, flicking on the glowing lights in the back right over the broom closet.   

He turns around and bolts trying to jump over the counter, rattling it, sliding back down.   

“Stop!” I shout, but he's still trying to shimmy his way over.  

"You're not in trouble” I call reluctantly, and he stops trying to shimmy over.   

“But what are you doing?” I ask, still squinting from the light.   

He looks back at me slowly, with wide eyes, purple bags shadow underneath.   

We stand for a moment until I walk over to the small floral push to door behind one counter, holding it open for him to walk through.   

He stands behind the counter still, a too large orange shirt swaying.  

“I don't have all night” I sigh, tilting my head.  

He sheepishly walks around the L-shaped counter to the small door and walks through it, breaking eye contact with me only when he bumps into the wall separating the stairs.   

Worried he might dart for the door, I bellow “Sit down at a table or I'll call the police”.  

He stops a few feet from me. His hands curled around the white plastic bag of cookies, crumbled against his tiny chest. I follow his eyes down to my silver bat that hangs by my side.   

To my right is a wooden booth against the wall, abstract art hangs above it from when an artist asked to hang it. I place the silver bat on a cushion that lay limply on the booth, giving up on its once glorious color.   

The boy walks to the table beside the table missing its chair, and sits. His feet dangle off the edge.  

Every step I take towards him is as though I’m inching towards a deer to get a better look. I'm worried any brute moves would scare him off.   

Why would he break into my café for cookies? He didn’t even look twice at the full tip jar sitting idly on the front counter.  

His situation piques my interest, more than curdling anger that dwelled in me moments ago catching him in the kitchen. 

I pull out the metal chair with delicate swirl patterns on the back and sit.   

“What are you doing” comes out of my mouth as if it were a polite response.   

He looks up at me, his large peeking eyes hidden behind black dusty hair that flew in every direction.   

“...I..” He opened his mouth but closed it promptly and darted to look down at his bag of cookies.  

The lights from the back softly hum, and a gentle summer breeze floats through the broken door window.  

My arms prickle at the breeze coming in, and the boy's disarrayed hair moves a bit.   

“Why would you break in here?” I ask, catching my tongue.   

He shrugs and looks back at me, now with his brows furrowed upwards slightly. 

“And for cookies?” I raise my brow mischievously. “Though I do make the best in town, I don't blame you for wanting more”.  

The unnerves of the situation make my chest seize, I feel another wave of anxiety come crashing down. I look for 5 green things in the room, knowing that it's the most abundant color here.   

The boy unfurrows his brow, even looking amused for a moment, before stiffening again.   

“Yeah,” he barely peeps above his breath. “I wanted them...to bring home for my mom and dad”   

“Oh... why not bring them here during the day for cookies?” I ask gently.  

His hands twist around the bag, and his right shoulder lifts a bit.  

“We did...a few days ago,” he says a little louder.   

I nod and place my hands on the table.   

He looks down at them, then back at me.  

“...they only got a cookie for me” he uncrumples the plastic bag from his chest. 

“And you wanted them to have one?”   

“...yes”.  

“that's very kind, and thoughtful of you... but they could've gotten their own if they wanted one, I don't think they would like you breaking into a place to get them a cookie”.   

“They did want one,” he says instantly with confidence before it's broken and he crumples back into his seat.   

“They did, they told you?” I ask, trying to emphasize the question as a kindergarten teacher would.  

“...yeah” he places the bag on his lap in defeat. “Dad said once he gets a job, he can get a cookie”   

A realization dawns on me and I look down, hot in the face that I hadn't realized this until now. It was the same sweet gesture I had seen before, that I had done before. When my father had counted pennies on the counter of a café, my memory blurring everything but his leather like hands separating each coin, the cashier taking it, my dad handing me a small treat for breakfast.   

“He couldn’t afford one for himself” I soften my voice to a near mumble.   

It's as if coffee had been shot through my veins earlier, to fight whoever came in. Now my stomach churns as I plummet through ideas. What should be done? As if there is a set answer to begin with.   

The silence in the café is stiffening, it irons out each idea that comes to mind with everything that could go wrong.   

If I simply let him go with a bag full of goodies, more kids would come. I run a business after all, not a charity. Though I wouldn’t be opposed to having a charity, yet I still need to make a living without having to worry about being broken into every night.   

I sigh and readjust my numb legs under the table. People who spend hours sitting here amaze me when they simply get up and walk off, I would be walking out like a stickman.   

“So.” I break my darting train of thoughts “what to do.” 

The boy doesn’t say anything, he sits idly with his feet dangling in defeat.  

“I can't imagine your parents would be too impressed if I were to call them to come to get you,” I say “do they even know where you are right now?”  

“no” he answers abruptly, looking up his eyes are round saucers shadowed by pleading eyebrows.   

“Look... I can't go out handing free cookies to everyone...”  

“I-” he goes to say.  

“But I will make an exception this one time. I understand why you did it, I did something similar when I was younger. It doesn’t make stealing right although” I say.  

I tuck my loose hair away, and take a deep breath waiting for his response. 

“I’m sorry” his eyes water and he look back down at the bag to avoid me watching.   

“You can keep the cookies, but if someone comes in here claiming I give out free cookies, I’ll half to call the police to make a report about this break-in, do you understand?” I warn, trying to suppress the feeling of throwing up. Trying to sound mature.  

I can't imagine calling the police about a break-in that happened 2 weeks ago instead of calling them now is the way it works. I only hope that it doesn’t go that far.   

He nods, and wipes his eyes with his arm, tears making his cheek shine in the dim light.   

I feel reluctant to let him go, and look over to the broken door window. Its glass is speckled around the floor, a few pieces reflecting the dim light to the ceiling.   

“First I want you to sweep that up” I turn back to look at him. “Don't touch the door, I don’t want you getting cut”  

He nods his head bobbing back and forth. 

I get up and walk over to the closet near the stairs, my steps echoing the silence. I pull open the closet door painted the same color as the walls, brooms falling out around me.  

I was in a hurry shoving them in last night, worried I was going to burn the sweets I had been making while trying to multitask.   

Brooms roll across the floor around me in every different direction as I yank out the first that fell on me from the tangled stack.  

Either I need a new spot for brooms, or one or two has got to go. Though I haven't been able to part with any, seeing as I've given each broom a bit of a personality for the job they cater to. My mom gave me the one I’m holding after I had moved out into the cafe, it’s only good for getting larger objects as the matted straw curved too much to pick anything small.   

He gets up, springing down from the chair, and takes the broom.   

“I’m going to get something for the smaller bits,” I say, and turn to the kitchen to fetch a cloth.   

We work silently, I don’t know what to say and he looks too nervous to speak. The time of night is weighing down on me, soon it feels as though I'm swimming at the bottom of a large pool.   

“You're pretty good at this,” I smile, plopping my cloth into the square sink. 

He tips the dustbin into the trash, glass clinking out and hitting the bottom.   

“My dad taught me” he beamed, quickly trying to mute his smile before looking back at me.   

“He taught well”   

I flick the tap on, its water cooling my hands.   

“I don’t think I've seen you in here before, have I?” I ask, in a small town like this it's usually easy to pick out new people.   

“We moved in last week,” he shares, while placing the broom back into the closet.   

“Last week? It must be hard with everything so new”   

“It is” he walks back over to the chair from where we sat earlier, and I follow.   

“I don’t think people like us” he continues “When dad went to hand out papers some people didn’t take them”   

“Papers? Like flyers?” I ask, wondering what he meant.   

“He told mom he was looking for a job”.   

I nod.   

“They're sad, mom cried about its last night”  

I frown, understanding. He scans my face, and shifts to leave the chair.  

The sky is starting to lighten, I want to go to bed as much as he wants to get home.   

“He hasn’t gotten a job yet?” I ask.  

“Not yet” he looks towards the door. “Can I go?”  

“Just wait for a sec,” I say, trying to gather my thoughts.   

I’ve been looking for someone to hire for a while now, running the café with a handful of people was manageable at first, but now with more customers and tourists stopping by, it's made everyone on edge.   

I wonder if I'm being too soft momentarily, if anything has taught me to be more assertive and tough it's running this café.   

“Did your dad bring one of those papers here” I finally ask.   

“Yeah, that’s when he got the cookie”.   

Perfect.   

“Alright, that’s all.” I walk over to the broken door, opening it for him.   

The cool air floats in and makes the hairs on my arms stand. I want to crawl back into bed, it's too cold out.   

We walk up to the door, looking as though he's considering each step as a newly walking baby.   

“I’m-” he pauses, looking at the door. “I’m sorry. I just wanted them to be happy.”  

‘Them to be happy.’ It echo's in my mind, the same words I use to live by. Every day wondering if this, if that, if I only did this a little better if I had only done that... I wanted them to be happy. After all, if they were happy, they seemed to love me more.   

I had been so eager to please them, it seemed like a wistful dream compared to now.  

“I understand,” I say.  

“Can you get home by yourself?” I ask, looking outside.   

He nods, and speeds out the door before I can object, his plastic bag of cookies flying beside him.   

He runes down the damp grey sidewalk, and turns a right. The street is silent again.   

My eyes are starting to water, shocked by this peculiar night. I feel relieved it's over, but still sick and tense.   

The broken window looks at me, its edges illuminated with the light from the back.   

I turn to go find something to cover it for opening tomorrow, entering into the office in the back.   

Empty boxes and random papers are scattered, it looks like my mind right now.  

Grabbing a sticky note from the stack on the desk, I bend down and scratch the words ‘call’ with an old pen.   

I reach into the basket where I keep resumes, a few sits in there, and I leaf through until I find his fathers.   

I skim it. Already knowing the answer.  

It looks well overqualified for me, but we could use someone like that around here, and stick the note to it before plopping it back into the basket, before grabbing a box and tape to temporarily fix the broken window.