Trying to Get Over

It was too early.  Or late.  It didn't matter.  things had gone wrong in transit and I had slept--barely-- sitting up in the same clothes for the past two nights over from Sydney--exit row, economy, transit lounge benches--sleeping either too close to a jet engine or with the beep-beeping of industrial floor cleaners scuffing past.

I got up before six when I was no longer alone in the airport, brushed my teeth, washed my face and shuffled off to find a coffee.  It was then in the waking moments of Dulles Terminal A, while the workers still outnumbered the travelers and all the shop gates were still shut, from down the hall I heard my bleary-headed siren song:  Curtis Mayfield accompanied by the undeniable shush of espresso steam.  The gates were still shut.  There I was, waiting.  Waiting...

Then.  Halleluja!  As the best bass line ever written played introductions to the toughest falsetto--Superfly--the gates opened and I was shoulder and shoulder with the morning ramp shift, being served a two-shot Cubano that was all of a sweet crack of dynamite.  The day brightened and I was on my way.

Mayorga Café in Dulles.  These men make a mean spro.  They're gonna make their fortune by and by.