Cafe Hemlock

After watching countless reruns of Hudson Hawk on Satellite Showtime, Patrick got the idea for opening the café Hemlock, across the hall from Mrs. Looney’s room in a pushcart, stitching what looked like an open breast emerald Siren flashing her nipples at Mardi Gras as his logo. Under the romantic influence of his newly acquired love of his life Judith Goldstein, Patrick decided to offer a vast array of bagels, muffins and Biscotti. Meredith-Elise told Patrick that, no, he was doing it all wrong and that he needed something her grandmother had called an espresso machine. Patrick, telling Warren all about his inclinations one night during MASH, informed his son that some Grandmother of an espresso machine ain’t going to be worth two shit cents these days, pulling his son aside into the voice activated trompe l'oeil  garage Warren opens by making a Pee-Wee Herman laugh and then pummeling it with his fist as hard as he possibly can. Warren shovels out something which he tells Pete he purportedly purloined from those wealthy fucks up at Boeing, he he he. And that, by hooking this state of the art engine into the back of that there espresso machine, his son could in fact be able to revolutionize the world in terms of coffee and marketability and overall global panache.

 

            Meredith-Elise was executive manager and the pushcart café Hemlock was a hit for the first week of tournaments. VonBehren pulled Patrick aside and showed him some sort of crystallized powder Coach M. left scattered over a heap of forgotten research projects he half-graded. It was VonBehren’s experimental idea to inculcate this foreign powder in with the coffee beans just to see what sort of a monumental rush the stimulant could produce. The result far exceeded any of the boys expectations, and, for that week, all of Peoria was driving their cars, pulling into the CLS parking lot before work, arriving periodically during the day for refills. Patrick even concocted a specialty drink involving the robust beans mixed with coach M.’s powder and dappled with a caramel evolution of his own Super Solvent Solution.

 

            “It’s called a Fuck-o-chino,” Patrick says, to a bonneted Meredith-Elise who puts her splayed hand over her entire face and then shakes her head left and right in disgrace in tittering chagrin.

 

            “Guaranteed to sprout Hair on your nads or your money back,” Patrick says with dollar bill sign glinting his left eye.

 

            The Fuckochino apparently worked wonders, and, looking back on the entire situation as a whole, Patrick can swear he remembers Dr Kennedy Marshal gruff sandpaper monotone descending several octaves, growing a feint ashy moustache and even (he can almost swear) found her once standing splayed legs above the Urinal in the Mens, a pick in one hand, admonishing Patrick, informing him that if she had any more of a Bush she’s be eligible to nab the republican ticket down there in Texas, if you know what I mean.