Coffee Shop

I sat alone at a corner table. Feeling down. Morose. Don’t you just love that word? Morose. Often I say it out loud - seriously loud. Never fails to cheer me up.

The coffee sucks. My mug no more than tasted, no way was I going to pollute my body with even more sludge so soon after those awful, dark days where the coffee was even worse. By then I’d discovered DDT, Deep Dark Truth, from Truth Coffee Roastery in Buitenkant Street, just around from the Book Lounge (brilliant book shop – go for the vibe) and, not coincidentally, just around another corner from Cape Town Police Central.

In truth any coffee after Truth is sludge. Especially once that stunning barista girl in a steam punk waistcoat, (black leather, shiny chains), had shown me that the only way to brew DDT at home is in a cafetiere a piston (French Press to the unwashed). Not those cheap cafetieres with rubbish plastic plungers. Spend your money and then don’t be stingy with the ground coffee either. Better still grind your own beans. Have a little fun mixing up the Continents. If you resent the price of excellent coffee then go buy Nescafe. Once your grounds have steeped, then slowly depress the plunger: don’t ram it down, you’re not backfilling a Jo’burg pothole. 

Truth Coffee Shop is the best in the world according to the oracle: the Daily Telegraph. I was on to something when I discovered that place. Good to know that my never humble opinions are shared so illustriously.

It was late summer, end of March, and the second day of the Admiral’s Cup Regatta, out of HBYC, and the first race start of the day had been delayed. The bloody south-easter was pumping and it was clear to me that racing was off for the day. So why wasn’t it clear to the race committee? Shmucks. Not only that but the skipper/owner of the yacht that I was crewing was a loudmouth asshole. Last race yesterday he rounded the top mark too close and touched it. He was aware that he’d touched it - that I know for sure because he’d looked around to check if he’d been seen by other boats. Then he simply carried on. Called the trimmers to “ease for the run”. He didn’t take the 360. Yentzer. Awesome boat though. Super fast. Hotshot industrialist, but he has no clue how to motivate his crew. No clue how to speak to people. I didn’t like to think how he treats his workers. Putz. I’ve come across plenty people like that before. Mostly politicians or cadres, (political appointees), and recently, in my work, ex work thank goodness, it’s those appointees that I most loathed. Inept, almost all, and I mustn’t mention their venality. Out of their depth (most would be out of their depth in my bath at home and that’s not big). It was they who refused to accept a word of the Minority Report. Too scared of its implications. 

I wasn’t about to spend the morning sitting around upstairs in the yacht club with the skipper and his surly crew (mostly anyways) whilst waiting for the wind to drop. Instead I’d gone for a walk to Victoria Road and into the village. If by a miracle the wind did drop below 25 Knots, and if I didn’t make it back in time to jump aboard before she cast off then good riddance. Instead I would take a slow drive around the twelve apostles and maybe go for lunch in Sea Point: where the wind doesn’t blow. Maybe at La Boheme, on their outside deck, and watch the girls and the tourists stroll by (some of those Sea Point nannies can be real cute too). Or maybe I’d sit at the Winchester and watch the cars and listen to the Sunday jazz.  

Meanwhile I was amusing myself writing Haiku. For those of you that don’t know Haiku from beer battered hake it’s an odd form of Japanese poetry (but then Japan does odd very well). It tells a story in 17 syllables in the format 5,7,5 - “brevity” is an understatement.

“Bloody wind today

Spoilt my sailing day. So now

I mentally drown”.

(I know, I know – you don’t need to spell it out).

Now back to my story. The coffee shop door crashed open. Yep, the wind was still howling. A tallish guy came in, (though not as tall as me), his salt and pepper hair cut in what most people would call a crew cut: but it isn’t. My ex was once a stylist so I know how it’s done. The back and sides are a number 2 buzz cut and the top is scissored. His was the kind of hair that the ladies like to run the flat of their hands over (I did that to him one time after we got to be best buds and it felt just like satin tickling my palm). He’s nice looking too. Chiselled they call it in Mills and Boon. Not Brad Pitt but still hot(ish) I guess. More like a younger Harrison Ford before he got so dog-eared. Late 40’s I’d have thought. Athletic looking, the active, outdoors sort with big shoulders. He came in first to hold the door open against that howler and was followed by his crew. The first time I’d seen him was at the Royal Cape, (Yacht Club that is, not the golf club – note which one gets the lower case - it’s not a typo). Before the after I’d seen him Wednesday nights for the racing around the cans. Sammy or Manny or something like that. Maybe a Jewish name. I’m Jewish of course and it could be that he was too. Thinking about it, he often looked a little distant as though he was somewhere else in his mind and sort of just going through the motions. Not preoccupied. Dreamy more like. Though that’s not something to call a guy. Unless you’re in a Green Point gay bar.

I also recognised one of his crew from the club. Well who wouldn’t – she’s a serious looker. Tall, willowy, stacked and blonde. Exudes both competence and confidence. Funny thing is that even with looks to die for she still seems approachable. Another was a guy I’d seen frequently, (but not at the club), who gave no sign at all that he’d seen me before – good, very good. A young black guy, maybe early twenties - it can be hard sometimes for us whiteys to judge black people’s age: their skin doesn’t sun damage like ours, lucky buggers. Just shows this is their continent, not ours. He’s really built, like a rugby player, and very black, maybe from Zim or further north. Cool manner. Smiling about something. The kind of guy you naturally like and want to have your back. There’s another woman, in her thirties I would have thought (turns out she’s a sailing rock star). Later I noticed her eyes: green, with a slight hint of hazel. Light, yet luminescent. The green of Chartreuse.

Mr. Almost Harrison Ford immediately showed he’d noticed me. Funny thing that – one can almost always tell when one is recognised even though that person really doesn’t want to show it. Maybe it’s a slight stiffening, or an almost imperceptible double take, or a tiny widening of the eyes. Nothing that anyone else can see.

He crossed to my table and held out his hand.  

“Hi, I’m Danny, I’ve seen you at the Royal Cape? Perhaps we can all join you?”

“Sure”, I said, playing along, “I need the company. I was feeling deeply morose until you guys came in.”

Well, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be close to Cape Town’s hottest woman? And she sails. I bet she drinks beer as well - (turns out she does. God dropped the mould after her).

I pointed to my coffee, “Don’t bother with the coffee, rather go for the rooibos, maybe they won’t cock it up, but make sure they use Laager, their other brands are rubbish”.

I stood, (I do know how to impress. Besides I wanted to make sure that Hotty sat opposite me). I introduced myself to them all.

“Hi I’m Joel Levy Rabinowitz. Jale, to you. JL get it? J-a-l-e was how my mates first wrote it and Jale it’s been ever since". And ever since it’s been a brilliant nickname. Awesome chat up line. At a party, or wherever, I smooth up to some smoking hot chick. You know, with an almost imperceptible shoulder twist. I throw one shoulder forward at a time as I walk, but, like, subtly. I’m a subtle guy. I once watched an ancient Travolta movie on Classics channel “Saturday Night Fever” and he walked like that but hugely more exaggerated. Then again he’s a dancer. Loose joints. He’d be in big demand in Green Point. Anyways it’s my walk, shows I’m confident, sure of myself. Not cocky though. Chicks go for that. Then I go, “Hi, I’m Jale.” Works every time. Guaranteed. Absolutely guaranteed. They all come back “Jail! What sort of name is that. You a gangster or something?” Then we’re talking and I’m in. Now I think of it that’s how I met my ex. At a larney salon opening. I’d gone with another girl. No, a woman. Definitely a woman. What’s that about? Women in their fifties call their friends “girls”. “A book club night with the girls”. Let guys call any woman over 20 a girl and see what happens. Unless you’re a rapper. “Yo girl, y’all ready to party. Bitch, you wanna hook-up wid me?” Those rappers can get away with anything. They don’t need my technique.

Danny and crew had decided to give it until 1pm for the weather call. It was now 11am so a good two hours to kill. “What a pleasure” I thought. We chatted a little about sailing and then got around to our working lives. As one does. I already knew much, maybe too much, about Danny: but still he needed to go through the motions. The big Zim guy with biceps bigger than my thighs (not really but you know what I mean) turned out to be Shorty. Naturally. He spoke like Prince Charles. With that accent he must be Zim: St George’s College probably. Hotty was Maddi and Chartreuse was Susie.

Me, I told them that I was an electrical engineer and had recently left Eskom. It was a time of rolling load-shedding and that absurd drama at Majuba Power Station, (also the time of my personal absurd drama; Danny’s too of course).

I also needed a little personal load-shedding (well a lot really) and, whilst there, I certainly shed more than I should: what with the Secrecy Act and all that. But I didn’t tell them how close our country had come to a nationwide collapse. And how close it still is. I didn’t tell them how easily a cascading shutdown can happen, what the trigger points are. I didn’t tell them about the 72 hours hypothesis. I didn’t tell them then, and haven’t since, that I had been seconded to the Eskom Doomsday Scenario Planning Team. I didn’t tell them of our conclusions - the minority report. The conclusions that forced my suspension, and then forced my contact with the investigative journalists – and with Danny: their boss. I didn’t tell of my weeks in solitary at Central.

I didn’t tell them of my personal security detail - a big guy, built like a rugby player, with an extra bulge under his left armpit who, until the coffee shop, was never too close, staying just within eyesight.