The Night Shift

Picture Credit

Rode past Second Cup one night at around 2 am on my way home. Looked in the window to see who was working and I had a vision of myself in there working away, completely unaware of what was going on outside the store. As temporary a workplace as I keep telling myself that this is, the minute details of this corner of Guy and Ste Catherine have become part of my life. Milk temperature, rags, 7 scoops sugar shake for a minute, asbc, for here, to go, skinny, pesto, $3.21, grab'n'go, portion sirop, single double short long, copie de votre facture. I'm really good at measuring 6, 8 or 10 ounces of liquid, pouring a full carton of milk into a canister quickly and moving full cups of coffee from one counter to another. I'm amazing at opening packets of tea, putting sleeves on cups and directing people towards the washroom and the key it requires. Also decent at sweeping and mopping and being patient. The sum of it all is worth absolutely nothing in any other circumstance and even in this specific circumstance still no more than a slice of strawberry cheesecake and a medium chai latte per hour of grovel. Our stuff is overpriced.

I'm here now, lap top next to the blenders. Baritones and esses over the steady hum of whirling electronics. Ten minutes ago, cop cars swarmed the corner in a burst of red a blue flashing lights, guns pulled out at arms length aimed at a car of teenagers driving the wrong way down St Cat's. It looked like a sting operation. Their guns look bigger and thicker than I thought they would, kind of fake and plastic. But now it's completely quiet as snow falls silently onto the sidewalk, undisturbed but for a few tracks of meandering footprints highlighted by yellow streetlights. The night shift is a different world and though everyone normal might be asleep, the hours still need to pass until morning.

I humour one old guy for a half hour as he tells me grand stories of how he has a penthouse at the Fairmont and how his sons both just died, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq and how he is going to the south side tomorrow to finish up a quarter million dollar deal and how his great grandfather owned the first construction company in Montreal. And can he get a free coffee.

A hurried man rushes in to buy 200 grams of coffee ground at number 3 and I wonder what his rush is. It occurs to me later that since I'm the only one working, maybe he wanted to get me away from the cookie or tip jar so that while I was grinding the coffee he could steal something.

The big fat late night security guard glides into the store like a hovercraft, slow steady and disdainfully. He's never happy about being awake at night. In the heaviest joual accent he exhales while mumbling "gran noir siltplai." I try conversing with him every night and catch no more than 4 to 5 words.

Two students refill their coffees.


The store is dead quiet for an hour and the curly haired homeless guy sleeps undisturbed in his usual chair with his usual little spiderman bag. One time he took it personally when I told him he couldn't sleep in the store because the boss said so and he asked me who my boss is and told me he knows my boss and that I should go back to my own country and that tomorrow he's going to talk to my boss and I'll never work in this store again.

A well dressed and good-looking young man keeps on coming in and out, ordering a small coffee, sitting around and waiting and checking his phone then popping out for 20-30 minutes and coming back and ordering another small coffee. This is between 1am and 5am in downtown Montreal. He avoids my attempts to engage him in conversation. I imagine what shady things he is up to.

A patchily balding man orders a large dark coffee at around 4 am and sits with an Alcoholics Anonymous book for over an hour, orders a second large dark coffee and is still reading when I finish my shift. He brings me a copy of the book a week later because I asked to see what he was reading.

The same loud cab driver repeats his nightly routine, asks for a coffee and a glass of water for his alka seltzer, promises to me like I'm his doctor that he'll soon switch to tea cause he knows the coffee rots his stomache, offers to trade jobs for a night while adding honey and milk to his coffee then shouts bye across the store as he rushes out the door. The two students refill their coffees again.

A drunk teenager probably pockets some change from the tip jar.

People finishing work late at bars come in for a muffin and a glass of milk or a hot tea to go while they wait for the bus.

People starting work really early start to come in, hot coffee and a croissant for here and the newspaper, yesterday's if today's hasn't arrived yet. La Presse or The Gazette.

People waiting for the metro to open just sit and wait.

And so eventually the sky begins to glow hints of pink and light blue. The morning paper and fresh bagels arrive. Traffic picks up. The digital clock digitally creeps to 07:00 and the next shift comes in and I'm relieved of my duties, extricating the last of the overnight vagabonds on my way out. I walk home downhill as the morning rush starts; cars and buses swim by and the commuter train pulls carriages full of people into the station. The city stirs, wipes her bleary eyes, oblivious to the fact that though nothing really happened last night, it still happened.