AZOTUSLAND chapter two

Chapter 2
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Jim quickly took over the counter after watching Manfred give a customer an extra two dollars change. Renata was a Barista goddess, She could handled ten drink orders at once and never confuse them, while still having the presence of mind to banter with customers in line. Jim enjoyed working with her. Manfred was the gopher until things slowed then he would disappear until the evening shift where he would help out for about 20 minutes, then disappear once again.

“Manfred!” Jim yelled, “check the condiment stations!”

“Yes, Sahib! And many good thank yous to you” he would say and a customer or two would eyeball Jim suspiciously.

“He calls me that to annoy me,” Jim would say often. Usually a regular, also in line, would confirm.

“Uh Hon?” came a familiar voice. “Oh hi Alice, how are you?” asked Jim.

“Sweetie? You got some schmutz right there” she said as she reached across the counter and wiped off his chin.

“Yer a doll Alice.”

“Yes, I know, now darling, get me some of that pumpkin bread okay? And the usual.”

There was a line of about 13 people so they worked very fast. The upper café would fill up like this in the morning. When it got too bad, regulars would simply turn at the door and go down a level to the Big Room. It lacked the ambiance and view, but you could get your drinks and a table quicker.

“That was a great movie night the other time” came a voice from down the line. It was Jacob, a muscular native who had long flowing dark hair and bright eyes and smile. “Jacob-ee!” yelled Jim. “You wanna run the next one?”

“What is it “Jacoby yelled out.

“GO check the board” Jim said. “They’ll hold your place in line. Wontcha folks”

“Yes Jim” most of them droned.

Jacob went over to the Azotuscafe.com monitor and clicked on events. The next Azotus Movie Night was March 8^th. The film was “Wings of Desire”. The following week it was “Shawshank Redemption”.

Jacob got back in line. When he got to the counter he said “Ha! I’ll take Shawshank, sure. But you get the subtitled films Jim. Yer a dark soul you know that?”

“So I’m told,” he said ringing up another customer and wiping down the back of the glass case. “But I’m a big Bruno Ganz fan, plus I like the long coats and ponytails.”

“Is that about the angels” a stout woman asked.

“Yes, it’s very good and worth seeing.” He said. Then to another “That’s 4.42”. Then back to her, “Come join us next Thursday night. You can signup online, or have someone do it for you downstairs in the Internet Café. Seating is limited to 24.

“Does it cost anything?”

Jim yelled out “Manfred! C’mere!” he saw Manfred on the floortalking away with Rev. Tanka and his radio show producer Maurice. Once he had Manfred’s attention he point to the m\woman and yelled “Help this weet woman with info about the theater, okay?”

“Yes Sahib!” he exclaimed and Jim’s head slumoped down and he shook it.

“He’ll tell you all about it. Please come.”

Manfred walked over and once the woman had gotten her scone and double latte she walked with him to a table and droped them off.

“Well?” she asked.

“Oh indeed there is a wonderfulness here every Thursday nights in the dark hole in the side of the hill.”

“I thought it was a movie, I’m confused” blustered the woman.

Jim caught some of the ensuing action and pointed to the monitor.

Manfred shrugged and took the woman to the screen and she started to relax and nod.

Renata looked up at Jim and said “So, will you throttle him today?”

“Bad karma,” Jim said and took payment for the next order.

Roo was running things smoothly downstairs. Jim had nicknamed her “Namaste-Roo” and claimed that she had magical powers over all who came into her domain. She flirted with the men, and the women, and her earthy charm and easy smile never fooled anyone that she was not the boss of everyone. If a customer was belligerent it was always Roo who would quickly eviscerate them verbally with an innocent little girl laugh and her beautific smile making it impossible to retort. It was simply game over when Roo said it was. No child ever came into the Big Room but Roo did not crouch down and greet them and make them giggle. She was pure magic and that is why Jim had her as his “counselierie” . If he was 15 years younger he would have done all he could to woo Roo, but he had put that out of his mind two years earlier. She was now like a special sister and he loved her as such.

She and Martine were opposites in many ways but got along. They respected each other. As for Hans, well no one really understood his deal with Jim. He was anti-social, snobbish, spoke with a thick German accent and was obviously sexually conflicted. He also ran the Art Gallery and Studio and drove the local artists nuts with his perfectionism and dogged devotion to Cubism.

Hans was the “gopher” in the Big Room, although it took him extra long to make the condiment stations “perfuct”. Then he would scowl as a businessman spilled his coffee on the station and left packet droppings and the stir stick on the counter next to the trash.

Down in the IC the Andy was updating the websites for upcoming events, checking blogs for both “Foulage and Spammage”. The Troll was pretty good at keeping the content s clear stream.

At 11:11 that morning I got a curious email from a poster named Rnonymous@msn.com. It wasn’t until later when I conferred with Jim that I started to piece things together.

Malraux,

Security alert. I am watching him.

Toodles,

R

I did the usual IP checks and traces…nothing. I had a friend who use to run a whole division at Microsoft. I figured if things got weirder he could help. And we get weird replies all the time because of the eclectic and diverse nature of what Azotus is all about. Most people love it and flock to it. But there are some whackos that hate Azotus and all it tries to do.

Just then Jonathan peeked in, grabbed the trash from behind the small barista bar and started to leave. Then he stopped.

“Here it comes” I thought.

“Whatcha working on Maug?” he asked enthusiastically.

“Well I just got a security alert Jonathan. Thanks for asking”

He dropped the garbage, reached behind the bar and grabbed two big oven mitts. Andy started to object but Jonathan put them on and started waving his arms wildly around loudly saying “Danger Danger Will Robinson…Danger Danger!” in a pretty good robotic voice. I grabbed at the imaginary clip on his side and he slumped over silent, the mitts falling to the floor.

Then he looked up and laughed and threw the mitts behind the bar and left with the bag.

“Fucking nuthouse” I said under my breath.

“He shouldn’t do that” Andy said in a trollish way.

**********

Around 10:30 each day Roo, Martine and Hans did the hard work of shutting down the Big Room at 11. All business was now happening above. Jim would leave when Martine came up. This was his time off and he usually went back to the Bunkhouse for a quick nap.

Hans would be opening up the gallery and Studio and Jonathan would sweep the grounds and take care of the hard job of loading up the elevator with seven loads of bagged trash from the days first big hit. Each day, after he finished the trash, Jonathan would make a sandwich in the kitchen just off the Big Room and slump into a sweaty lump. It was hard work and he needed to recharge.

He would think about his children and how much he missed them. He didn’t like where he had landed, but tried to use humor as a way of staying sane.

So each day, he would get up on the small stage and would do a new monologue to the empty space. At least that is how it started. One day Martine caught this act when in the kitchen she just heard it. And it made her laugh. She asked if it was okay if she sometimes sat in for it. Then word leaked out and others started dropping in at 10:50 for the ten minute show. The usual group became Roo, Martine (but not Hans) , Jeremy, often myself, occasionally Jim and Renata, and occasionally some of the locals like Sex, Cara and Jacob. Andy got wind of it and had me rig up a video camera to stream into the IC. In some ways it was what connected most of us on a daily basis.

What would he do?

Well it was always different. That was the amazing part. And some days we would shout out a topic and watch his brain whir and tumble and he would always look down sadly and say in a hick voice “Sorry folks barns empty! Boo-weevils and Republicans got here first!” Then he would launch out for eight minutes.

No one was safe, not even customers.