Logbook 5: Meet the author

Regardless and for better or worse, I, Denis Dedrow, am the compiler of the logbook for Lost Goat Coffee House. That's me, on your right, as depicted by my friend Dani Weiner, the best artist in Eden Hills.

Every reader is entitled to know at least something about his or her author. Readers of this Logbook think so, too, and some have written to ask for more information about “the writer,” as they have put it. To that end, I submit the following piece, begging readers to please forgive my self-indulgence.

I descend from families of distinction, but I have never amounted to much. It is the way of life. Genetics may claim predictive results in horse racing, but in human procreation, it apparently works differently. The blueblood-achievements of my ancestors had run their course when my parents married and produced their three children. My two sisters and I are by no means bad people, or even impaired; comparatively speaking we just didn’t discover our pathways to success. No book will record our contributions to society. We will not have led a great army to victory on the battlefields of Iraq. The TV news will not find our bodies beautiful nor our voices sexy. Our names do not appear in the columns of the daily newspapers of major American cities. We’re normal, maybe even less than normal.

My mother is a direct descendant of John Adams, the under-praised intellect of the American Revolution. My father traces his family to the French Enlightenment and such men of letters as Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. My family represents the elite of American and French intellectualism but for my sisters and me, life has bequeathed no silver spoon.

My father was a writer. Not the admired author of interesting novels or profound short stories, but an everyday journalist who compiled the police logs and covered the county fairs for local, small-town newspapers. Like a Guthrie character, Dad followed his dream. The jejune hope of a better job (doing roughly the same thing in yet another small town) kept my father on the move and my mother on edge. Her longing was for a stable life, anchored in a familiar place and revolving around her beloved garden, romantic novels and the children on which she doted. Ambition, especially that of an aspiring crime reporter, was something she had no ability to understand. They divorced when I was 12 and my sisters were 10 and 9.

The girls remained with my mother, and for family balance and some simulacrum of fair play, I was sent with my father. In 1961, his next job (the best yet, Dennis!) was in Yakima, Washington. I helped Dad load our station wagon with his meager possessions, and by the time we filled the 8-foot U-Haul, we had everything he owned and about twice what we needed to establish ourselves in a new town in search of a new life.

Except for the books. Dad had forgotten his most prized possession – his orange crate of literature. He prized his copy of The Complete Works of Henry Adams and Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He would have claimed to have been all right with leaving Voltaire’s Candide behind, but he would have lied. Although he detested its elitism, Dad considered Voltaire essential reading for a crime reporter for a major metro newspaper (which was just one career step away for him). His collection of Charles Dickens was hardly impressive, but to him it was priceless.

So Dad uncrated the books and told me to get in the car. Then he packed the volumes around my feet and in the recesses of the closed door, across the expansive seat of the Oldsmobile, and onto the raised hump the massive drive train. Although I had little room to move and not much more room to breathe, the mission had been accomplished. The books were with us.

The miles along Old Highway 99 unrolled slowly that summer in 1961. We crossed the Sierra near Mount Shasta, and pressed on past the wheat fields of Tule Lake. We admired the arrow-straight rows of the bean and potato fields around Klamath Falls, and tugged our way over the pass and into the high plateau south of Bend. On and on. I eventually wriggled free and found Dad’s paperback copy of A Tale of Two Cities. I propped my head between the door, John Ernst Steinbeck's East of Eden, and the velvety seat back of the ragged Oldsmobile, and I began to read. For Dad and me, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” too.

We settled into a trailer house near an apple orchard in Yakima, and Dad began his job as police beat reporter for the Daily Record. Six months later, we left for a better job in Chahalis, followed by a better job in Pendleton, followed by a better job in Snohomish, followed by a better job in Lincoln City, followed by a better job in Silverton. At the age of 17, my junior year at Linn-Benton Alternative School, I wrote a note to Dad, thanked him for everything he’d done for me, and filled a knapsack with a couple of books and a jar of peanut butter. I walked to the railroad yard, and when a southbound freight inched through town, I hopped on an open-doored boxcar and didn’t get off until it stopped in Stockton, California.

There’s not much else to report, at least insofar as readers of the Lost Goat Coffee House Logbook would be concerned. I rode freight trains and generally made do for the next forty years, picking fruit, cleaning sidewalks, and helping farm hands. In the year 2002, on the Fifth of November, I jumped off a train from Timberville as it slowed for Eden Hills, Oregon, and found my way to Lost Goat Coffee House, where I’ve been since. They gave me a few odd jobs and eventually asked me to keep this logbook for them. In return, I get enough money for food, free brew coffee, a place to stay in the back by the coffee roaster, and all the love and care a man of the rails could want. I’ve found my home, my place and my time, and it all suits me fine.

Logbook 4: Ernie and Christopher

Christopher DeFarge is blind and deaf. But the remarkable thing about him isn't that he lacks sight and hearing. It's what he does when he comes around to Lost Goat Coffee House.

He speaks in guttural sounds to order a dry cappuccino, waits patiently by the counter, and counts out exactly 75 cents for the tip jar. When our barista has supplied his drink, he carries it to his place at the table on the corner dais, feeling his way with his white and red cane.

He carefully sets his cup and saucer (his motions are the same, always precise and always deliberate) on the table, removes his canvas backpack, positions his chair so as to be in clear view of the door, and sits. Then he carefully removes his cross-stitch from his backpack, adjusts the circular stretcher, takes one sip of his cappuccino, and with uncommon deliberation wipes the foamy cream from his mustache with the back of his flannel sleeve. He sighs heavily, takes his demitasse spoon in his right hand, and lifts the espresso from the deepest part of the 5.5 ounce cup (the standard size for all of our cappuccinos). As if it were in plain view, he ponders the mix of rich copper and snowy white for a moment and then takes a long and audible deep breath, as if he were participating in a yoga exercise. He exhales slowly while pulling his right index finger slowly across his cross-stitch pattern. He feels for the needles, pulls the threads taut and begins.

We feel no guilt as we study the man. Our moms, like all moms, told us not to stare, but what's the point when the object of our interest is deaf and blind? And Christopher DeFarge is an interesting person to study, if for no other reason than to marvel at how he gets on in a world outfitted for the hearing and sighted. And most men don't cross stitch. Neither do they crochet, knit or tat. Most men come to Lost Goat, remove their laptops from snug black carrying bags and take advantage of our Wi-Fi to finalize amazing business deals or check out their e-mails from secret lovers. Most men aren't deaf and blind, either. So when the opportunity comes along in this life to witness the curious pastime of a deaf and blind man, we -- as would most -- eagerly suspend polite behavior and stare.

It was on a particular Saturday morning that Christopher and Ernie improbably encountered one another. Ernie had come for his macchiato at precisely 6:42 (we know the time for reasons we'll soon explain), and Christopher already had taken his position on the dais. Ernie wore his mechanic's lab coat and his trademark fedora. He offered not a hint of a smile to JR, who can make a toad feel warm and welcome. He fidgeted restlessly, like Oddjob in an old 007 movie, while JR warmed the cup, dosed the portafilter, ran his right index finger (arched ever so slightly) out and then back and brushed the excess espresso away with deft circular motion. But as JR brought the tamper to the 22 grams of barely mounded espresso and prepared to exert exactly 32 psi to the puck, the lights at Lost Goat Coffee House flickered. And then went dark.

The La Marzocco GB/5 is an expensive espresso machine -- among the best in the industry. It can hold water temperatures to one-tenth of a degree and deliver 9 millibars of pressure, shot after shot. But without electrical power, it's a pile of useless stainless steel. Its digital clock had suspended duty at precisely 6:42 a.m. -- the time in our town and elsewhere in America when people need coffee. Unless the power came back on, Ernie would not have his macchiato, JR would not have pleased a customer, and for all we know, the world would quietly have come to an end. Our town was in crisis.

Windows in our shop are not strategically placed. In addition to being small, they're all on the east side, north end. The work area, however, is at the south end. With no lights at 6:42 on a drizzled February morning in Eden Hills, Oregon, it's not easy to get around, because it's pitch black. To those of us with all five senses, the situation was frightening, but to Christopher it was just another moment in just another day. He apparently felt the commotion or somehow sensed the panic. It is said that animals possess some sixth sense that allows them to perceive coming events to which humans are completely unaware. Perhaps it was a similar power that Christopher DeFarge called on; we will not know. But his actions will not be forgotten at Lost Goat Coffee House.

Ernie is an excitable Asian. From the moment his parents set him adrift in the Huangpu River near the industrial slums in Shanghai, his life has been a series of barely escaped peril. He may have behaved more normally if he had benefit of his macchiato, but under the circumstances he was in utter panic. He dove under a table yelling an incomprehensible mixture of Mandarin Chinese and English.

"Senshing pow! Senshing pow! Bahm! Bahm! Bahm!"

Had Christopher been able to hear him, he might have thought, as we did, that Ernie feared renewed attack by the Japanese. Instead, Christopher gently placed his cross-stitch on the table, felt for his white and red cane, and re-traced the steps he had just moments before taken from the counter to his table on the dais. He used his right hand to feel the air and touch the tables, while his left handled the cane. What sense directed him to Ernie we cannot explain, but a hero's mission was under way. He followed the ricocheting airwaves, for all we know, in the direction of Ernie's outburst and as he approached, bent his legs and felt Ernie's contorted mouth, now agape in Mandarin expletive. As Christopher reached for Ernie's shoulders, his hands slipped and tightened around Ernie's neck instead. Ernie fell backward, dragging Christopher with him, and the two rolled on the floor like Sumo wrestlers. Christopher might have let go had he actually known what was going on, but lacking sight and sound, he merely held on for dear life while Ernie screamed in what he surely perceived to be imminent death at the hands of a cold-blooded Japanese soldier.

It was then that the lights flickered and came back on. Other customers, JR and Russell (our roast master) circled Ernie and Christopher with mouths wide open. Ernie shook himself free of his imagined attacker, searched for his brown fedora, and brushed off his greasy lab coat. Christopher felt the air, found his cane and returned to his table. He sat, took a sip of his cappuccino, wiped the foam from his mustache, took a deep yoga breath, and resumed his cross stitch.

Ernie paced wildly but for once was speechless. He hopped and ran to the dais, while the rest of us trailed in curiosity. We gathered around Christopher's table as Ernie began to shout in Mandar-English again. Christopher cast his face up to the expectant room and held up his cross-stitch for all of us to see. We beheld his pattern. It was a hot sun about to be eclipsed by a foreboding blue moon. Above the celestial event he had somehow stitched the word of the Buddha: NIBBANA.


At 6:42 that chilly February morning in Eden Hills, we did not know what the image or the strange word meant. We saw Ernie suddenly frozen as if he were Lot's wife when she looked back on Sodom and Gomorrah. We had no explanation for that unforgettable moment, nor did we know there was more to the story than we could possibly imagine.

Logbook 3: A baby from Africa

The Misty Valley Yirgacheffe arrived in a burlap bundle with all the excitement and expectation of a newborn. Russell knelt by the 150-pound bag and traced the lettering delicately with his index finger, like an anthropologist at an Egyptian tomb.

ORGANIC COFFEE

ETHIOPIA

FAIR TRADE

ORIGIN MISTY VALLEY

IDIDO BERGESH 2007

He pushed the wheeled prep cart to the bag and lifted a few beans with a scoop and dropped them delicately into the hopper. When it was loaded he leaned gently over the beans and sifted them with his interlaced fingers. He cupped his left hand and held a small mound of the jade-colored beans to his nose and breathed in deeply. Then he used the index finger of his other hand to gently push the beans left and right in close examination.

"Small and dense. We're going to pull them a bit for the fruit, pause them for the earthy, then we're going just north of first crack. These are precious little babies, man." Russell was talking to no one.

JR was on duty in the coffee shop that morning and, as usual, had the music blaring. He'd picked an old CD from the basket -- Paul Simon's Graceland. The South African beat underscored an upbeat tune about oppressed diamond mine workers. It's as close to Africa as any of us would ever get.

Russell pushed the cart to the Smart Roaster and attached the loader hose. He flipped the switch, and the monster machine whirred to life, its vacuum sucking 75 pounds of green into the hopper above the gleaming stainless steel roasting chamber. Russell moved to the computer screen and made his adjustments to the roasting profile, then punched the keyboard to bring the roast chamber to temp. Like a jet inching forward on the tarmac, the machine whirred in rising pitch and decibels. Conversation was lost in the din; we stood in respectful silence as Russell began his roast. We were as a group of devotees bowing to a mighty and unpredictable god.

Logbook 2: Meet Ernie from next-door

Atop Ernie's round head rides a brown fedora like an Austin dude on a mechanical bronc. He bounces around his shop, neither walks nor runs. Wears a white labcoat stained with grease and looks like a doctor fresh out of O.R. Clients bring their aging Mercedes and rattling Jaguars to Ernie with hopes of regeneration, like some desperate cancer patient. They seek the laying on of Ernie's blackened hands.

To Ernie's Asian eyes, each car is a treasure. The engine of a '62 Cadillac sits naked in the morning rain, its gluttonous combustion chambers exposed and rusting. A twisted bumper from a '71 Audi leans casually against the chain-link fence like a corner mark ogling the hookers. The massive military-grade chassis of a 1966 Mercedes Benz 404 Funkwagen lies in a sea of oily soil like a moth-balled frigate in San Francisco Bay. Ernie's shop is the last hope for mechanical has-beens.

He protects them like gold in Fort Knox. He's installed a 10-foot chain link fence all around his lot and edged it with coiled razor wire so sharp you could slice bread with it. Check the eaves and you'll see the tiny video cams trained strategically on the gate and on the clandestine places where parts are stashed. A hand-lettered sign on the fence warns would-be trespassers: "PROPERTY UNDER 24-HR SURVELLENCE. STAY OUT!"

Ernie speaks a little English and a lot of Mandarin Chinese. Sometimes, when he's estimating the work and cost involved with resurrecting a client's car, he'll mix the two, but the clients don't mind. They take it as some mystical language unique to Ernie, like an intercessor who alone speaks in tongues with Car Gods.

Ernie was born on the Huangpu River where it languishes and finally dies in the East China Sea. He never knew his parents, because they set him adrift in a boat of reeds with a bamboo lantern at its prow. Unable to afford their offspring, they erected a small altar by the river, lit the candles and incense and recited the teachings of the Buddha.

These are the words Ernie's parents said:

• • Poverty gives rise to sorrow.
  • But removal of poverty does not necessarily give rise to
    happiness.
  • Not [a] high standard of living, but a high standard of culture, is what
    gives happiness.
  • This is the Buddhist Way of Life.
  • Hunger is the worst of diseases.
  • Health is the greatest of gifts, contentedness the best riches; trust is
    the best of relationships, Nibbana the highest happiness.
  • This is the Buddhist Way of Life.

  Then they pushed the small boat into the rancid waters of the Huangpu and walked silently to their shack in the industrial slums of Shanghai.
  
  It's incredible that anyone would know this story, because death for the Chinese infant was far more likely than life. As we know, truth often is stranger than fiction. We'd like to know Ernie better, but our acquaintance happens incrementally over the coffee (with room at the top for cream) that Ernie orders each morning. We have the pieces of conversation and the benefit of observation. We piece together the story, and embellish when necessary.

Logbook 1: 'The sunna bitches'

Crazy Mike's a regular at Lost Goat Coffee House. Against the crisp rain on most mornings he goads his shopping cart past the granary and across the railroad tracks, his long white beard dripping with mist and drizzle. His cart is brimming with his treasures and necessities, all he has, packed into a cart that most people use to load up on a week of groceries. He carefully parks the cart by the door, the black plastic bags and burlap bulging from the wire mesh as if planning an escape. Mike invariably straightens his clothes, pushes his shoulders back and stands confidently erect before clearing his throat and entering Lost Goat. We're always glad to see him.

Don't know where Crazy Mike is from or where he's going. He's comfortable with his name, pejorative as it is. He chats amiably as he sips his cup of coffee, drawn from the airpot of rarest and finest single origins we have on hand. Makes no sense at all; we want Mike to have the best. Occasionally someone drops a buck in the tip jar on Mike's behalf. The House never charges. It's his only luxury.

Mike has steel blue eyes that crinkle at the center of the etched laugh lines around his eyes. He wears a street-dirty baseball cap with an IBM logo on it, an odd juxtaposition of high technology and low life. The whiskers around his mouth and under his nose are yellowed and tired, like the paint on the '59 Cadillac that Ernie, the Shanghai auto mechanic next door, has been restoring for the past several years. No one knows Mike's age and no one asks. The bushy white hairs that grow from his ears and the ones that curl on the prow of his nose suggest at least 50 years. The street has added perhaps 20 more.

"They're after me again," Mike says to no one. "The sunna bitches."

"Comin' atcha again, Mike?" says JR, our morning barista. Like a seasoned barkeep, JR tracks probably a hundred conversations with his many customers. The dialogues unfold over days and weeks and months and years, lives insidiously unfolding tidbit by tidbit. "Don't worry, bud. We gotcha covered. Have some coffee friend."

It's 7 a.m., and the spoon on the counter begins to rattle even before we hear the whistle. The freight from Timberville, laden with another horizontal forest of Douglas fir, is bearing down on Lost Goat. It feels like the weight of the world shot from a mighty cannon, and its arrival is an inevitable and irresistable part of the day. We wait in half meditation for it to pass. Then we pick up where we left off, deferential to forces much bigger than us.

"The sunna bitches," Mike says.

Dream

At 3 a. m. in a box of black
I take counsel with demons
who dandle me on laps soiled
with artist oils, coffee,
filmy mud of sewer trenches
the soot of fiery skies.

Some muse, I say, incurring
here as sleeps upon shards of glass.
Come come speak while visit yet
Vague horrors and gargled screams
This song. Out out out
the prose of tangled lives.