Besides the beans: Hard Times, Caffetto, and the late-night undercurrent of ...
On a Monday in May everything is blooming. It’s finally flip-flop season and another semester is thrown to the wind, already forgotten in the sweet summer air. Girls in floral dresses float across the sidewalks of Dinkytown, their hair bright and bouncing. Cars roll by languidly, windows down, the boys wearing aviators and smiling. The young and old alike plop down on strips of summer grass, talking or not talking, careless and close.
But the thick, tainted glass of the coffee shop is a heavy buffer. Inside the happy voices become suddenly dull like a festival somewhere far away, intensifying and dying out with each swing of the door. A display case divides the “in” and “out” lines with steel-sleek, insulated mugs and instant coffee pouches. I peek around a cardboard cutout advertising some blown-up coffee beans tumbling from a brand-name bag and find what looks like an upscale family room, the tables and armchairs of which are bathed in sleepy blue light from scattered, miniature lamps. Light, jazzy songs fumble through the air. The few who are sitting are texting or slapping emails out at warp-speed in a very bored or frenzied way, respectively, but nobody is looking at each other.
