Decaffeinated Corpse - By Cleo Coyle Page 0,1

Women sharing the same block as a body piercing and tattoo parlor?

Like the White Horse Tavern (founded 1880), Cherry Lane Theater (1924), Marshall Chess Club (1915), and Chumley’s pub and restaurant (1927), the Village Blend stands as part of this neighborhood’s dwindling continuity. For over one hundred years, the coffeehouse I manage has served the highest rated cup of java in the city. And when customers walk through our beveled glass door today—be they NYU college students, S&S advertising execs, Chase bank tellers, St. Vincent’s paramedics, or Seventh Avenue street performers—they expect a warm, fresh, satisfying experience in a cup.

Most are also expecting stimulation, i.e. caffeine.

This, too, is a marked change from bygone days. When struggling painters and writers stumbled through the Blend’s doors in the ’50s and ’60s, many were looking to pass out on the second floor couches. According to Madame, who’d been managing the place back then, she never minded.

The French-born, silver-haired Madame Dreyfus Allegro Dubois, herself a Village landmark, is now the Blend’s owner. Her own acquaintance with despair (having lost mother, sister, and family fortune during her flight from Nazi-occupied Paris) is almost certainly what prompted her to enable alcohol-soaked playwrights and painters to treat the Blend as a second home. Back then, even after the aroma of her bold dark roasts would sober them up in the mornings, they’d go right back to the bottle the next night. So perhaps you can understand why, when I found the body slumped in our alleyway one night, I’d thought for a moment I’d gone back in time.

The man was too well dressed to be homeless, and I flashed on those stories Madame used to tell of so many artists and writers falling victim to the bottle or the needle. But this was no longer the Village of the ’50s and ’60s. A well-dressed gentleman passed out in an alley was practically unheard of. Residents in this area might still favor wardrobes the color of outer space, but few wanted to “drop out” anymore. They didn’t want to get stoned, either.

What they primarily wanted to get was “wired,” which, in my circle of the universe, had as much to do with 24/7 connectivity as the act of sucking down premium priced Italian coffee drinks from dawn till midnight.

Like me, my customers universally loved the bean buzz, which is why, on the same night I’d found that slumped-over man in our alley, three of my best baristas were horrified when I called them together—not to observe the body, because I hadn’t found it yet, but to taste a new kind of decaffeinated coffee.

Yes, I’d said it . . . the “D” word.

I, Clare Cosi, consecrator of caffeine, scorner of the neutered brew, had seen the decaffeinated light. Unfortunately, my baristas hadn’t. Upon hearing the dreaded adjective, Esther, Tucker, and Gardner glared at me as if I’d just uttered an offensive political opinion . . .

“Decaffeinated coffee?”

“Say what?”

“Omigawd, sweetie, you’ve got to be kidding!”

We were all gathered behind the coffee bar’s blueberry marble counter. Hands on hips, I stood firm, determined to reverse the barista revolt. “I know we’ve had trouble with quality in the past, but this is something new.”

“Something new?” Esther echoed. “So it’s not Swiss Watered-down?”

An NYU student, Esther Best (shortened from Bestovasky by her grandfather) hailed from the suburbs of Long Island. A zaftig girl with wild dark hair, she favored black rectangular glasses, performed slam poetry in the East Village, and maintained a Web profile under the upbeat pen name Morbid Dreams.

“No,” I assured her. “These beans were not decaffeinated by the Swiss Water Process.”

“Then it’s the Royal Select method,” Tucker presumed.

Tucker Burton was my best barista and a trusted assistant manager. For a few months earlier this year, however, the lanky Louisiana-born actor/playwright had landed a recurring role in a daytime drama, and I feared we’d lose him. Then the television writers had Tucker’s character shoot his boyfriend and himself in a jealous rage—and I was back to enjoying the pleasure of his company.

“Isn’t the Royal Select method the best way to decaffeinate beans these days?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. “I mean, yes, that’s probably the best method for the money—even though it’s really just the Swiss Water Process moved down to Mexico—but no, these beans weren’t processed that way, either.”

Esther sighed. “Meet the new decaf, same as the old decaf.”

“C’mon, guys,” I cajoled. “Keep your minds open.”

“Boss, you know the quality of un-coffee just sucks compared to unadulterated beans, no matter what