Confessions of a Barista

IN RE MARSH V. LONGBOY S.S.C. CASE NO. BD 619 171

I, DEREK HENRY MARSH, am the Respondent in this proceeding. I have personal knowledge of the facts in this case and if called upon could and would competently testify to the following:

1. This declaration is offered in lieu of personal testimony, and I request the Court permit further evidence and offers of proof as necessary, pursuant to Washington Code of Civil Procedure and Godzilla V. The Board of Education (1954). (Don’t bother researching that last one, I just made it up. My public defender has abruptly abandoned my case, claiming I am an “impossible client.” I am thus forced to rely on my imagination to simulate the walls of verbiage which the legal system erects in an attempt to prevent feckless civilians such as myself from approaching the inner sanctums. No offense, your Honor.)

BACKGROUND

2. I am disputing various assertions on the part of Petitioner, Clive Hubert Longboy. (Hereinafter “Longboy.” Don’t ask me what’s up with that middle name.) Most significantly, his claim that I have stolen $20,000 (twenty thousand dollars) in prize money. However, this is only one of numerous false statements on Longboy’s part.

3. To begin with, Longboy acknowledges that he hired me to manage a Fremont franchise of “Longboy’s Roast of the Town.” (Voted one of the city’s top one hundred and fifty coffee shops which, let’s face it, in Seattle is kind of like getting a participation award.) However, he claims he did so despite my having “no knowledge about coffee whatsoever.” This is demonstrably incorrect. Six thousand years ago, an Ethiopian goatherd name Kaldi discovered the potential of coffee beans when his goats ate some and became extremely wired. He brought the beans to a Sufi monastery, where the head monk cast these performance enhancing drugs into a fire. The smoke smelled so good, Kaldi and the other monks raked the beans back out, ground then up and dissolved them in hot water. Thus was created the world’s first cup of coffee.

4. Think about that for a second. A fifteenth century goatherd in Africa, and they still remember his name. That’s what a big deal this Kaldi turned out to be. Me, I’ll be lucky if anyone remembers my name by the time the crematorium cools off.

5. From there, it was just a blink of an eye— in geological time, anyway— ’til we got to the world of cappuccinos and cafe oles, micro-lots and macchiatos and grande mocha frappucinnos (well, that one’s a registered trademark, you won’t find them at Longboy’s). Your Honor, I can spell every one of those things without even looking them up. My first week on the job, I learned to operate a fifth generation Nuova Simonelli Aurelia Wave Digit espresso machine, a coffee maker so sophisticated it’s suspected to have spontaneously developed artificial intelligence. So how’s that for “no knowledge of coffee?”

6. In point of fact, I brought a great deal of practical knowledge to Longboy’s business. If I hadn’t, why would he have hired me in the first place? The job should’ve gone to his kid, Tommy, only Tommy was (and is) a degenerate pothead. He used to play “Magic: The Gathering” at Burnout Comics in the Pike Place Market; I was store manager there at the age of twenty-three. That’s how I found out about the opening at Longboy’s. Tommy didn’t want the gig, he was too busy getting high and working on becoming a Bearded Mage or whatever. So he turned me on to it, and put in a good word with his dad.

RESPONSE TO ALLEGATION OF FRATERNIZATION

7. Although not as serious as the charges of theft, I am equally sensitive to Longboy’s claim that I “fraternized” with Roast of the Town employees who were technically beneath me in the chain of command. Specifically, Ronin Wakefield and Serena Lehrer. Now, I’m perfectly aware that “fraternization” is a euphemism for sex, and I won’t deny that I found my assistant manager Ronin Wakefield attractive, in a late night softcore porn channel sort of way. Before starting at Longboy’s, she was rumored to have worked at one of the topless coffee shacks that have sprung up all over the city in the last few years. But Ronin would sooner have had sex with the Nuova Simonelli than me. She made that perfectly clear from day one, when she referred to my trademark fedora (the one the bailiff has asked me to remove on more than one occasion) as “an incel hat.” I didn’t know what that meant, assumed it was a compliment, and proceeded to remark on her name. “Ronin” is what they call masterless samurai, you know, and it also happens to be one of my favorite films— Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, great car chases— I highly recommend it if the court hasn’t seen it yet. Ronin said it sounded like a “real incel movie.” At that point I was compelled to Google the word “incel.”

8. What is “involuntarily celibate” even supposed to mean, anyway? Is anybody voluntarily celibate? Besides priests, obviously, and frankly, I have my doubts about them.

9. That leaves Serena Lehrer. And here, your Honor, I must abandon my objective tone. For Serena truly did get under my proverbial skin. She was hired at Longboy’s about a month after I took over, and the desire I felt for her was immediate and monumental. Her first day on the job, Mr. Wallop, a regular, came in and pulled his usual stunt— ordering a medium coffee in a large cup, with two pumps of chocolate. Then he used the extra room to add his own milk and create a poor man’s mocha. And he never tipped. Serena was the first one to call him out on it: “Hey, Daddy Warbucks, you just saved a dollar seventy five! Don’t spend it all in one place…” I was smitten.

10. Put simply, she checked off all of my boxes: smart, beautiful, mean, talented, good-looking, funny, shorter than me. Did I mention how attractive she was? Best of all, she and Ronin appeared to develop an immediate distaste for each other. “Your grind’s too fine,” Ronin told Serena, her first day operating the coffee grinder. “Yeah, I get that a lot,” Serena replied sarcastically, wiggling her hips. Ronin seemed irritated, but in retrospect I may have misread the situation. At the time, it seemed to me that dating Serena would have the added advantage of being a middle finger in the face of my assistant manager.

11. Also, she seemed to really like me. Serena used to carry a little black notebook with her, wherever she went, I wasn’t sure what for. But one day she left it out near the registers and, before I returned it to her, I couldn’t resist peeking inside. It turned out she was an artist, and a good one— she’d drawn decent sketches of everyone who worked at Longboy’s, along with a number of customers. And amongst those drawings was a picture of her and me. Together. On the same page. She hadn’t actually ringed our portraits with a heart-shaped frame and flowers, but the sentiment was clear nonetheless.

RESPONSE TO ALLEGATION OF THEFT

12. This brings me to the matter of the twenty thousand dollars. This was the amount of money Longboy had pledged to the “Roast of the Town Sweepstake,” a promotional drawing in which any purchase of five dollars or more, over the course of a month, earned a customer a ticket. (I subsequently learned that the money had initially been earmarked for Tommy Longboy’s college fund.) Since it is literally impossible to spend less than five dollars in a Longboy’s, this meant there would be a great number of entries. And, as store manager, it fell upon me to draw the winning ticket.

13. Obviously, Longboy’s employees, their family and friends were ineligible. But that didn’t prevent Serena from coming to me with a proposal— she had an aunt, who was very ill. Oral meningitis or branchial tinnitus, something like that. The money would be a lifesaver. Or maybe that wasn’t the story she finally landed on. It might’ve been a brother in jail, needing bail money with enough left over for a fresh start. I let her try out a few, ‘cause I’d already made it clear that I’d do what she asked, as long as I had some sort of cover to assuage any potential guilt. I’d rig the drawing, using some elementary sleight-of-hand, and identify the winner she wanted me to. Serena promised me there was no way they could trace “Maggie Star,” whoever she was, back to her.

14. And yes, Serena and I went back to her place, a surprisingly dismal motel apartment, to “seal the deal” as it were. Shots of Jagermeister were consumed. But at some point I must’ve overindulged, because I have very little memory of the evening, apart from noticing what looked very much like one of Ronin’s distinctive hot pink hair clips on the coffee table. That struck me as curious. At any rate, whatever else might have occurred, I assure you it wasn’t fraternization. I think I just passed out watching an old “Breaking Bad” episode. Still, our deal wasn’t transactional in that way. I was good to my word.

15. What happened next is outlined explicitly enough in Longboy’s testimony. Maggie Star collected her winnings, and cashed her check at once. But she failed to show up for the subsequent publicity photos. Almost immediately thereafter, both Serena and Ronin quit their jobs at Longboy’s. A subsequent investigation revealed that Maggie Star was, in fact, Ronin’s mother. She must have been a teen mom, from the look of her— she seemed barely older than Ronin, though she’d clearly had some work done. The three women haven’t been heard from since, and clearly went on the lam together. I must reluctantly acknowledge that Serena and Ronin are probably lovers. How far do they think they’re going to get on twenty grand, anyway?

16. Your Honor, I confess to this: I am a chameleon. When I worked at Burnout, I could pontificate endlessly on the distinctions between Steve Ditko’s and Stan Lee’s conception of “Spider-Man,” even though I have never read a comic book from beginning to end. At Longboy’s, I could easily adjust the drip for anything from a doppio conpanna to a double ristretto, though I honestly prefer Diet Coke to coffee. But if there is one area in which I could never counterfeit, it would be matters of the heart. These women played me for a fool, there’s no doubt of that, and though I’ll never forgive that loathsome harpy Ronin, my feelings for Serena remain amorous still. Perhaps the court has, in some distant time or place, also experienced the vicissitudes of a foolish and unrequited love. I can only hope so, since I am herewith throwing myself upon its tender mercy. Would it interest the court to know that I still gaze nightly upon that duel portrait of Serena and myself, removed surreptitiously from her Moleskine notebook, as I curse myself to sleep? And as I do so, the words of the immortal bard ring in my ear: “Come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy that one short minute gives me in her sight.” (Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6)

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of Washington that the foregoing is true and correct.