Quiet Moments

I write this in my parents’ kitchen in a Johannesburg suburb, sipping on a foolish attempt to replicate the bittersweet dichotomy that is a New York deli coffee. I’ve tried the most unsophisticated of ingredients - from instant coffee that requires at least 4 spoonful’s to make the water taste of anything else but water, to full cream milk from a plastic bag, slit in the top right corner – but my efforts have thus far been in vain. I want that shudder with the first sip that emanates from deep within the bowels, shocked by the burnt flavor of the deli coffee, and rises quickly into the brain, giving the impression that I have just drunk a cigarette, the shudder that a year ago told me I was living in the greatest city in the world. It used to take just dollar to wake me up to this fact.

My first coffee in New York City was an overpriced cappuccino at a Starbucks. I felt completely out of my depth. I unpacked my bags in my new apartment in Riverdale in the Bronx and set about exploring the area – completely alone for the first time in a long time. I mused at the twists of fate that I, an Archie comic aficionado, having read the books religiously since being introduced to them at the age of five, would find myself living in Riverdale, their iconic hometown.

In that way, perhaps I had a subconscious certainty that I would find myself here one day. But with the first sip of that aggressively bitter, overwhelmingly milky cappuccino, I immediately thought I had made a mistake. Starbucks was a pastiche of New York and the idea that the city was real was as difficult to swallow as that ghastly drink.

I’ll never forget my second cup of coffee. I’d accidentally disembarked at the wrong bus stop and found myself in the south Bronx in the middle of the night. The only open shop was a Yemeni bodega, run by a thin old man and a confident Persian cat.

“Coffee please,” I said, eyes downcast.

“Cream? Sugar?” he barked, which made it difficult for me to understand. I stared at him and he sighed, deciding he knew what was best. A prickly moment later, he inserted a cup into my hand with a foil-wrapped lump on top and impatiently dismissed my attempt to pay.

I unwrapped the foil to discover a homemade baklava, which turned out to be the best I ever tasted. I looked back and he was standing outside his store, waiting for me to get on the bus. I waved and smiled. No response. I took a sip of the sickly sweet concoction. I shivered. It hit the spot.