Gerald Gets Coffee

Gerald, the slow-rotting Easter bunny, stumbled elegantly towards the mini-mall. He would be able to see a video store and a pizza place, a nail salon and various other identical looking store fronts if he looked in the right direction, but he had his eyes on the coffee shop. Gerald wanted caffeine, needed caffeine, in the worst way.

Catching his paw on the ledge of the sidewalk, Gerald let out such a foul litany of words and sexual suggestions that it made a passing phone sex worker blush and scarred her four year old son for life. Gerald rubbed his paw and hobbled on towards Hunter’s Grounds.

Throwing open the glass doors and shambling past a young couple sitting at a table, he made his way to the counter. The young woman made a face as though she were trying to pass a particularly large and hard starfruit while the young man grimaced horribly and vomited some of his cappuccino and cinnamon croissant back into his mouth.

At the counter, a middle-aged man named Robert was busy telling the coffee shop employee about how the area had changed in the last twelve years.

“There’s more and more used car lots. You used to be able to get yourself a sandwich for $1.50 and you could drive from here on out to Gravelly Point without seeing so much as a single copy place. Where are the libraries at? Do you know? Nobody knows! And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there sure seem to be quite a few more undesireables around here, if you know what I mean.”

“Undesireable this cracker!” Gerald bellowed as he shoved the man away. Robert fell to the ground with a face full of shock and fear and two fistfuls of matted rabbit hair.

“Check it, I need a quad Americano, and I need it stat! And hey, Bubba, toss a little raspberry syrup in there if you would be so kind.”

The young man looked down at the practically illegible words spray painted onto Gerald’s belly. He managed a trembling smile as he said, “I’m sorry…. sir, but we are out of raspberry syrup today.”

“How the fuck do you expect me to choke down a quad Americano without raspberry syrup? Jesus!” He glared down at Robert, still cowering on the floor. “Okay, make it caramel.”

The young man looked over to the woman making the drinks to make sure she had heard. She nodded her head and surreptitiously rolled her eyes. The young man put on another timid smile.

“Hey man, I don’t mean to insult you or get personal or anything, but did you know that you kind of smell like bad meat?”

“Yeah,” Gerald said with a nod. “Tell me something I don’t fucking know.”

Gerald grabbed his beverage and shambled out of the store.