For the love of my country

Posted 3/3/22

The coffee shop was pretty much the same one that you’ve seen in 1000 different street corners across America.

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For the love of my country

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The coffee shop was pretty much the same one that you’ve seen in 1000 different street corners across America. The room was dark. Perhaps the low lighting was designed to put you in the mood to buy as much caffeine as you could safely take in. It was decorated in an English garden theme and one entire wall looked like it was plucked right out of Sussex or at least somewhere in England.

The coffee bar itself separated the employees from the customers and behind it, the back wall was lined with all kinds of exotic coffees and fancy, expensive cups. An ordinary can of Folgers lay hidden under the counter. A confusing list of the different types of coffee hung centered above the bar. Who knew coffee could come in so many flavors and octanes?

The baristas were all well trained “coffee artists’’ with extensive knowledge about all things caffeine. They could whip up a mean Café au Lait in the time it took you to figure out how to pronounce it’s name. Barista is the Italian word for barkeeper and in this place they doubled as occasional peace-keepers.

It was mid-afternoon and the place was fairly empty. The lunch patrons had long wandered off and it was a little early for the afternoon “pick me up with caffeine” crowd. A young, serious man in his late 20’s sat in an overstuffed leather chair with his legs up on the coffee table and an iPad in his lap. He would furiously tap something on the keyboard and then wait a few seconds and read the reply. He would start taping again and this process was to repeat over and over all afternoon.

A young blond sat at a table near the window wearing a light sleeveless dress. She had shorter hair and a wedding ring on her finger. She was reading something from a piece of paper she held in her hand.

From time to time, people walking by would place their face on the glass window, hands over their eyes, mouths ajar, trying to peek in to see what was happening. They looked pretty silly from the inside.

An older gentleman with a gray beard sat over by the faux garden wall typing his first novel into a computer. He wore a little French beany rakesly tilted to one side. He felt so continental. He was stuck on the sex scene and was a little embarrassed at what he wrote. It is said that everyone has a novel in them and his was best kept inside.

Over in the corner near the bathrooms, two men leaned into each other, their voices rising and falling. These men had been best friends in high school and each served in Viet Nam. One wore a red hat, the other blue. They were fiercely debating who was the better patriot and who loved their country more.

Red Hat yelled about the need to keep this country first! “Screw the rest of the world, look what we’ve done for them. Let them worry about us.” he puffed.

Then Blue Hat came back with “We’re not even going to have a country unless we do something about global warming.”

“Yea but what about the border?” Red Hat interjected. “Them sonsabeaches are overrunning our country and you can’t have a country if you don’t have borders.

Also your people are lazy,” he grumbled. “They all want to live off the government’s teat.”

“I don’t know about lazy,” said Blue Hat “but your people are all pretty dumb if you ask me.”

“Who’s asking?” answered Red Hat.

“Well it’s pretty obvious who loves our country more.” said Blue Hat. “I have a big American flag in my front yard waving for freedom for all.”

“Yea,” said Red Hat “My flag has a light on it at night!”

They went back and forth, arguments rising and falling until one of the fancy coffee makers in her green apron came over and asked them to settle down. A fresh free helping of coffee for each sealed the deal.

After the barista/referee left, Red Hat had to get in at least one more jab. “Everyone knows we love our country more than anyone! No one has suffered more for America!” he said with gritted teeth.

The young blond quietly stood up. Her latte untouched. She walked over to the two men. Without a single word she dropped a tear stained piece of paper in front of them and walked out. It was from the Department of Defense. It read: “We are sorry to inform you that…”

Comments? Profotoguy@hotmail.com

patriotic, patriot, patriotism, republican, democrat, politics, Greg Stangl, short story

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