Sep '03 [Home] Short Prose Totems Ian Christopher Hooper

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I'm a yuppie fiend spending out of control, slipping into the department store, throwing down $150 on a stainless steel coffee maker with space-age rocket ship controls. My work tie:  gold waves printed onto a burgundy weave. My jacket:  a dark green summer-weight wool with three buttons. The women at the check-out stand have been watching me (Who wants to check him out? one says to another, and they all laugh), and when the one with the dyed blond curls rings me up, they all start talking about how good my coffee's going to be.           Only there is no coffee. The landlord's spraying for roaches and the kitchen is all packed up under plastic bags. My one tie and one coat go on a single brass hook, on the back of the bathroom door, and I fall asleep to the aroma of chorizo cooking next door. It's hot and the swamp cooler's broken again. Passing boom cars rattle the floor, and the staccato vowels of Spanish telenovelas seep from one unit to the next, underpinning the night, giving it shape, holding all the fraying bits together.           I leave the coffee maker all boxed up on the window sill, a totem, a good luck charm, te prometo, hoping for how good my coffee's going to be. (Ian Christopher Hooper's story, "Rocket," appears on the Feb '03 issue.)