WARREN BEATH

“Coffee ennobles the man,” waxed the great poet and songwriter Bob Dylan, a modern troubador if ever was.  Spot-on, the warbling Jewish poet laureate of his generation understood the attributes of this black elixir.  It also jumpstarts the process of elimination for those unfortunates who have difficulty with regularity.  Well, it was a cheery thought, anyway,  Rich Dick thought as he brought his cat—- a lynx—- to a boil by stroking it subliminally.  Subliminal massages had been a nattering annoyance since his early days in the laundromat yes he remembered the rough handling of the spin cycle after a bracing second-rinse.  It was at this time he became addicted to bleach which he took straight from the bottle.  It burned going down but did magical things to his kidneys.  And why two, anyway? 

These and other thoughts formed parentheses to his chief and overriding concern:  What is the point of life, and why are we here?  These existential musings often took place in the garage where he had stored the hundreds of defibrillators he had accumulated during a long and varied career of lifesaving.  Lifesavers were his favorite hard candy so it was no accident when you stop and think about it.  But if you stop in the middle of the street you are taking your life into your hands, but why not you rather than a stranger?  Who should you trust?  These and other random thoughts pummeled his imagination as he stroked his cat on the way back into the house.  He was drawn by the wafted aroma of the boiling coffee on the stove.  Unfortunately there was no coffee pot and he was alarmed by the seemingly independent life of the boiling coffee, which he found to be scalding to the touch as it greeted him with its flavormatic tastiness.  He herded the ennobling black brew into a cup and drank deeply, and for a moment he was Bob Dylan himself.  But not the Bob Dylan of the folk period, or even the Bob Dylan who slept with Karen Hamm a minor actress in the sixties, but the Bob Dylan who was booed during the electric period. 

Going electric was an unpopular idea at the time but practical when you think about it, for if one Bob Dylan was a poet laureate then a fleet of electric homunculi could also corner other markets like folk/rock and electric/folk and even the original Bob/Dylan.  All this was thought in the time it took to quaff that first draught of hot coffee, and it was time well spent.  Tired from his musings he resumed stroking the cat with a subliminal massage that pleased both cat and pet owner.  He wondered at the hyphenated-nature of much of modern pop-rock, and acid-jazz.  He thought of music a lot, and had learned to think about it without humming it, or even snapping his feet.  On Fridays a dead cod would suffice and he would hold its jaws and clap them together in time to Edith Piaf or Bobby Blue Bland when Slam Smith was unavailable—– odd names all, which originally had attracted him to that decisive kind of music.  And there was a lot to be learned from the music.  It calmed him and took him to faraway places—- some of which were uninteresting as when it took him to Des Moine, Iowa, or Dry Prong, Louisiana, but an outing to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, was well worth it especially during the sweltering days of summertime when the living is easy. 

Well it was one of those days and he sat and enjoyed the finer things in life—- one of which was a cup of coffee.  To be able to appreciate such small pleasures was a gift, and one which he was better able to unwrap because he was on public assistance and had plenty of time.  So there you have it, a cup of coffee in the morning and the simple pleasures of life, while you and I and such as we are struggle to work and carry on through the mist and confusion.  Wouldn’t we run over his cat if we could?  I think so.