The Russian Lesson

My coffee shop on Fordham Road is a small metal trailer with a sliding Plexiglas window through which patrons ask for and receive their coffee, muffins, bagels, and eggs. There is a thin metal door on the rear side by which the owner can enter and delicately squeeze himself into the confined interior space.

Atop this rectangular box on wheels there is a small twirling metal chimney, the kind that looks like a twisted up version of the Kremlin or some other Soviet edifice. Steam and smoke escape into the cold morning air, swirling out through between the revolving grates.


Every morning is the same. I leave the 4 Train at Fordham Road, still waking up, walking down the stairs out of the station. I ignore the man offering my a free Spanish language newspaper--I've got enough to handle with my own NY Times subscription.

I walk past the line of people waiting for the bus, preferring to walk the 10 minutes to the University. I ignore hunger pangs and my body's cries for coffee.

Every morning is the same. It is early, it is cold, I am tired and unprepared for the day. The air is polluted and people look glum. I walk out of the metro and down Fordham Road until I reach the small coffee shop trailer at about the halfway point.

We exchange hearty greetings. He asks me how I am in Russian. I respond in Russian that I am good, and wish him good day in Russian. He makes some joke that I don't understand. I've run out of Russian things to say.

Sometimes I throw out one of the other two or three random phrases that I know in Russian, like "I like Captain's Macaroni!" Usually though, I say nothing else, preferring to wait until he asks me, "Seven sugars?"

I smile and he proceeds to make my coffee the way that I always get it--a bit of milk and no sugar. I praise his memory and laugh at his joke and wish him a good day. He says something in Russian, we laugh, and I slam my dollar down on the counter, tapping the metal as I do as a way of saying goodbye.

Every morning is the same. I sip my coffee and light a cigarette and think about how much I like my morning Russian lesson. I wait for the light at the corner of the big intersection and pass the familiar carts selling nuts and coconuts and fruit. I pass the local highschool students, jostling eachother and flirting with eachother. I pass the long line of suckers waiting for coffee at the trailer just outside the University. I wish the security guard at the gate a good morning and walk off the Bronx Streets and into this strange bastion of privilege that is Fordham University.

I sip my coffee and walk, waking up now, and I head towards class. The air slowly warms and the sun blinds me. I pass the gothic campus buildings and the carefully manicured lawns and the ubiquitous landscapers collecting debris and mowing the grass. I stop off at a bench near the building where I teach and sip my coffee, quickly preparing the day's lesson, watching the students hurry by. I am ready now, and somehow content that little, since yesterday, has changed.