Oliver Benjamin
CHAPTER 6
How can you own water really? It’s always flowing in a stream,
never the same, which in the stream of life we trace. Because
life is a stream. All kinds of places are good for ads.
JAMES JOYCE,Ulysses
1. Water Wings
Like a sudden blitzkrieg or tsunami, a massive surge of human
attention crashed down upon Underground’s shore, stirring and
tossing everything in sight. Leona and Sprout shuttled cup after cup
of java to the self-satisfied patrons, all secure in the knowledge that
they were at the frontier of the novel. The birdsong of ringing cellular
phones transformed the lushly decorated room into an electronic
aviary while Hollywood types pestered Sprout with movie career
offers and entreaties for dates.
Colin found himself so overwhelmed by the sudden decrease in
attention that he began to drink even more heavily. Repeatedly Roy
dragged him into the garden to demand he stop pestering the
customers with unsettling questions like “What’s your favorite bodily
fluid?” and “Who would win in a fight—me or you?”
The additional workload was growing too much for Bennie and
so instead of washing each cup by hand just hosed them off out in the
garden. One day he was forced to turn the hose on Roy and Colin, as
they looked about to come to fisticuffs over Colin’s behavior.
Roy had been giving an interview to a local magazine reporter
who inquired what “Blue Mountain Rat-Cut” actually meant. He
explained that “Rat-Cut” meant that the coffee beans were separated
from the berries by rats, who ate the fruit and shit out the coffee
beans. There was a conviction in the Blue Mountains that this
resulted in a finer product.
The journalist, visibly disgusted, wondered if this might render
the beans unsafe for human consumption. Colin, overhearing this,
put his arm around him and startled him by shouting in his face,
“Where do you think all food comes from? The soil. And what is soil?
Shit, mostly.” He held up his glass of gin. “What do you think alcohol
is? Yeast crap!”
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