Paying for Chicory
By Pete Lieber

At dawn, a clean, chilly wind sweeps off the Mississippi where it slithers like a serpentine through the bottom of Bayou country, slapping the Big Easy tourists who ventured out requisitely unclad in the previous warm, early evening to collect beads and hangover ammunition. They shiver on their totters back to neglected hotel beds, even as their blood is warmed with Bourbon St. bourbon or one of sin city south's other notable concoctions.

Christos pulls a sweatshirt on in the half-light of his apartment and jerks the hood up over his tired head. His nose fills up with the morning air, clearing out the nesting schnoz urchins that inexplicably find their way in there during the night. It runs. He wipes it discreetly on his sweatshirt sleeve and walks briskly to Cafe du Monde to wake himself up with the culturally vogue offerings of one of New Orleans more notable coffee joints.

He likes the quiet of a cafe in the morning and the smell of the coffee bean and not the hordes of people with their shower gels and perfumes and Bath & Body Works collections melding together to knockout the experience. He's taken to reading his morning paper there, but today it is a bit too chilly to sit outside. He enters and takes down his hood like a fighter revealing himself, strolling to a quiet corner table where the burnt orange smolder of the dimly lit cafe can support him with sufficient reading light.

A petit, young, fatigued but rosy-cheeked server shuffles over to him to ask what he'll have and he orders some beignets and a Cafe Au Lait, but only with a quarter of steamed milk. He wants to taste the chicory. He thinks, "If I'm to spend my money these days, I will taste what I am paying for."

Christos shifts in his cast-iron chair and his warm-up pants eject his homemade money clip across the floor. A debit card, an American Express, a supermarket discount card, his driver's license, $10 and the yellow rubber band wrapping them together slide like a hockey puck off the wall and under the next table. Christos, too eager to jump into the Want Ads, doesn't notice. His thoughts center on how to pay this month's electric bill, the heat, the rent, car insurance, student loans, credit cards. He shuffles numbers in his head on two sides of his brain. One side flashes what he'll need this month. The other whispers what he has.

He thinks about resumes and interviews and the rampant subjectivity of the marketplace and stares up at the unmoving ceiling fans and wonders how long it will take them to start collecting dust if no one turns them on. He mulls over how long it will take him to start collecting dust of no one's subjectivity turns him on.

The rosy-cheeked girl brings him his coffee and beignets and he blows across the top of the Cafe au Lait, pursing his lips and filtering in just a nip to test it for temperature. He bites into a pillowy beignet and powdered sugar takes up residence above his upper lip. He turns his attention back to the paper and circles three jobs Ð proofreader, market research analyst, sales rep. He smiles at his own hypocrisy. He grins at how his choices have forced him to consider jobs he never would have considered. He imagines himself in sales, turning corporate tricks, being "that" guy, the one who cold calls you in the middle of your dinner, the one he abhors, the one you abhor. But the sides of his brain still talk to him. One number flashes. One number whispers.

Outside, the bustle emblematic of city mornings begins to stir. Cafe du Monde livens. Two types ramble in. The first have purpose. They strut to the bank teller counter windows and spew their French-roasted desires with pointed linguistic distinction. They say, "Cafe du Monde is important, and so am I. I belong here, so get the hell out of my way."

The other group wants to go back to bed. They need the caffeine. Christos relates to them. He sympathizes. He wishes he had their plight. He would switch places, put up with whatever scathingly mundane responsibilities they face in the day ahead. They are hurried too, but there is a look about them that begs for someone to slow them down. They look for the perfect excuse to be late. "Somebody rob the place, hold us at gunpoint. Keep me here for just an hour. Let me sit in the corner with my coffee and enjoy it. Please don't take my coffee. Please don't make me crank up the act. Not yet."

Rosy cheeks brings Christos his check and he reaches down into his warm-ups to pick out his money. He pats at the pants, frantically trying to distinguish whether he forgot his money, or if he had lost it. He remembers clutching it as he walked through the French Quarter with his hands in his pockets. He searches the floor around him. It laughs at him blankly. The cafe is crowded now and body sprays and fragrances threaten the deep, pungent smell of coffee beans. He is on his hands and knees and numbers still flash and whisper in his head and this is all he needs. "What else?" he thinks. The tables fill up around him and somebody kicks a chair and it grazes his ear and he fumes and stays controlled and looks up to find a group of men sitting down at the table next to him. One of them kicks a wad of cards with a yellow rubber band and Christos sees it glide across the floor and his heart comes to a rest as he grabs it and stands up. He leaves rosy cheeks the ten dollars and looks down at the cards in his yellow rubber band, thanking the saturated air around him for small mercies.