THE DEADLINE CAFÉ EPISODE #9

 Hank tugged on his L. L. Bean Maine hunting boots, his beat up Navy pea coat, and the colorful Peruvian knit cap Lissa’d picked up at 10,000 Villages, then opened up the back door just wide enough to peek out and look down the alley to make sure the coast was clear.

“You look like an astronaut, “ Lissa giggled, handing him the list of supplies she’d scribbled.

“One small step for a kind man,” he quipped, but the door’d already closed behind him. The snowstorm of the century was well underway.

Making his way down the dark, unplowed alley past the Omniscient Hotel’s side service entrance, Hank nodded to a guy having a smoke. He recognized him as a semi-regular Café customer.

“Cold enough?” Hank asked.

“…could say that,” the guy said “You staying open tonight?”

 “Yup, got to.  Customers are stuck. You want a coffee, come on over.”

The guy smiled.  Walking away, the word “furtive” popped into Hank’s head for no reason at all, as though he were preparing for NPR’s on-air quiz with Puzzlemaster Will Shortz.

Got to focus on the task at hand, he said to himself and pulled out Lissa’s list: Sugar; Paper cups (So much for going green); Tea; Milk; Cream; Candles (We opening up a French restaurant?) ; Baguettes (Guess we are.); Butter ; Cheese; Smoked turkey; Salami; Cupcakes; Carrot Cake; Hot dogs, buns, yellow mustard; Pop ; Mineral water (Screw that! Our water pipes haven’t frozen, not yet.); and two surprises: 312 Beer and Yellow Tail Wine, she’d written, then added, “lots.”

Was Lissa serious about serving booze without a liquor license?   That’s all we need now is for Evanston’s finest to shut us down on our busiest day of the year.

Hank gathered everything off the list plus a few other things that he thought they could use and was in the check-out line when Lissa called him on his cell to see where he was. “The storm’s worse than anyone thought,” she said.  “No one’s going home. We’ve even got a few out-of-towners who can’t find rooms anywhere.  Oakey’s gone over to the hotel to see if we can get some blankets and pillows.”

“I’m gonna need some help getting all this stuff over there,” he told her as he pulled out his Chicago Cubs Master card and said his usual short prayer that it would swipe and clear. “I mean we’re talking a couple of pack mules, Lissa.”

“You’re on your own there, Buddy, I can barely hold on here. You get any Chai?” “Wasn’t on my list.”

“Well, we need some.  Fast.  And get donuts.  Sorry, gotta go….”

Hank’s card cleared and he circled back for the other items.  At the donut display he ran into—who else?-- Jimmy the Campus Cop.  The two of them quickly muscled everything into Jimmy’s cruiser and with lights flashing Jimmy inched his car cautiously toward the café through what was now a blowing blizzard. 

They were welcomed at the back door by Oakey, who was stacking up the hotel’s monogrammed blankets and pillows with the guy who’d been having a smoke.  The two them looked, well…furtive.  “Lissa’s been looking for you, Hank.  She was worried.”

Before Hank could come up with something funny, like, “Hi Honey, I’m home!”, Lissa laid into him. “Where the hell have you been? I can’t do this all alone.”

Sherman the cat, who’d been sleeping peacefully up to this point, woke up with a start.

“Sorry, Sherm,” said Lissa.  “And sorry, Hank.” She hugged him and Jimmy and apologized again, explaining she was just worried.  They all started unpacking the goods, and Sherman trotted off on big cat feet looking for a lap.

When Hank finally went out into the café, he was gobsmacked.  That was the only word he could think of; “stunned” and “amazed” weren’t strong enough. Every table, every chair, and some folding chairs that Lissa and Oakey had found in the basement—every available space and then some was occupied. The word, “teeming” came to mind, and “throng.” Coats, hats, boots, gloves, books, packages, shopping bags, strewn everywhere, and hanging up to dry from every possible light fixture or empty wall hook.   

Across the room, not in their usual seats, the Whittler was teaching Mrs. Worthley how to play cribbage. Sergei and the Professor were discussing Twain.  And Lissa’s grad student friend was getting cozy with a co-ed.

Someone turned up turned up the sound system to the oldies and the café turned into a Breughel painting, peasants dancing, cavorting, laughing. It was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose, if the roof didn’t fall in first.