Suspended Coffee
As you might already know, at Host Café we make it our mission to give back to the surrounding community in every way we can. This is why we run a suspended coffee scheme. This system allows us to provide food and drinks to people experiencing homelessness.
The suspended coffee tradition originally started in Naples, Italy. It is in the Neapolitan tradition to show support to people that have less. In Naples, the coffee shop is the centre of social life, each suburb has its own. It is custom to pay a coffee for friends and acquaintances so much so that there would be more coffees paid for than the once consumed. The customers, instead of taking back their money, would leave the coffee for the next person to come.
At Host we are trying to embrace this tradition and make coffee and food available for all. Thanks to the numerous donations that we receive every week, we are able to provide our community not only with food and coffee but with a place where people feel at home.
Below is a story about the people we help through the suspended coffee scheme.
New to the street
by
Francesca Melfi
Gordon was born in Cairo and never met his biological parents. He was adopted at the age of three by an English family, and he doesn’t know the exact day he was born.
“I wasn’t the best-behaved child,” said Gordon, when talking about his upbringing in Manchester. He is now forty years old and has been sleeping rough since he was approximately twenty.
Gordon and I were sitting on the floor, talking. It was January, and the cold of the concrete almost burned my skin. We were in the underground tunnels that led to the tube station at Mansion House. He was lying on his side on layers of blankets and scarfs. A Rastafari hat rested on his head, covering his salt and pepper hair, which is usually left wild and reaching his shoulders. The cigarette was clipped between his fingers, and in the other hand, he was holding a cup of hot coffee. A t-shirt, a hoody and worn-out woollen jacket are the few things that kept him warm during the winter.
His words were confused when he tried to remember his childhood or his first days living on the streets. His icy blue eyes kept moving from left to right, as if he wanted to escape from whatever had hurt him in the past. His mouth was smiling, but the rest of his face was saying the opposite. I could only see the tip of his fingers sticking out of the gloves he was wearing. He gesticulated with his hand as he spoke, creating shapes in the air like the conductor of an imaginary orchestra.
As we were sitting there, people kept passing by. Gordon would raise his hand, wave and say good morning to everyone. The sound of their clicking heels on the pavement echoed through the tunnel, and its intensity faded as they walked away without a word. The man wasn’t asking for money or food or anything at all. He was trying to have human contact.
One year ago, I got called in for an interview for a job as a barista at Host Café. The coffee shop that’s inside St Mary Aldermary church. Even though I found the location bizarre, I was thrilled to go and see the place. Located in the heart of the City of London, is a Gothic church that has been standing for almost 400 years. I walked up to it and pushed the wooden door that opened with a creaking sound. Inside there was a scent of incense mixed with the ground coffee aroma. The place was full of people, some were having coffee while reading the paper, others were having a meeting or sipping on their cappuccino. The ceiling had intricated floral patterns that were hypnotic. The sense of peace took me by surprise, as the chaos of central London was blocked out by the thick stone walls of the church. After the interview, I was called in to do my trial shift, and a week later I was offered the job.
There are many things I have learned to appreciate about this place. At Host Café, there is a strong sense of community. The customers we have are mostly regulars and sometimes they bring cakes for the staff of the café. People here buy an extra cup of coffee so we can give it to whoever can’t afford it. We have people that have been diagnosed with autism, volunteering once a week, they bring a touch of creativity to the space.
There were other things I couldn’t appreciate as much.
A day at work will start with me and my colleague displaying the cakes on the counter and setting up the coffee machine. We usually arrive at the church when the City is sleeping, and the sun is still hiding behind the skyscrapers. The church is eerie at that time in the morning, when everything is hidden in the darkness. After having a quick coffee, we open the doors and start our day.
John is the first to come in. He always wears a flannel shirt and carries a newspaper under his arm. First thing in the morning he gets tea, some toasted bread and carefully spreads two portions of butter on each toast. After his breakfast, he goes to lay down on one of the pews and has a nap. When he wakes up, with his hair all over the place and his eyes still full of sleep, he comes for the second round of toast and tea. I don’t know how long he has been sleeping rough or if he has any family at all. I have known him for the past year, and I have been talking to him every day.
When we talk, his sentences are confusing, as if he is hurrying the thoughts out of his mouth now that he can, now that he has an audience. Although he speaks like he has been brought up by Her Majesty the Queen herself, most of the times it’s hard to make any sense out of what he is trying to tell me. One day, just before Christmas, I was opening the coffee shop on my own. I was standing outside, trying to open the ancient gate, and the morning breeze was penetrating all the way through my bones. I opened the church and switched all the lights on. As I was trying to warm up by placing my frozen hands on the coffee machine, John came through the door. He was sad that morning. He asked me for his usual and sat down on the stool near the counter. He was stirring his tea with a wooden stick, and I asked him how he was. With a dry voice, he told me he had been trying not to fall asleep all night. I wondered why.
“If you fall asleep you don’t wake up the next morning,” said John. He looked straight into my eyes and passed his thumb across his neck. I didn't know what to say, so I kept moving things around and cleaning what was already clean. I kept doing things to avoid eye contact. It was as if someone was forcing me to pet a spider. I would never do it. I would run away. But I was stuck in the corner, with no escaping route. I was never equipped to respond to something like this.
“What are you doing for Christmas?” I asked after a while.
He was going to take a train, go to the countryside and drink through the Christmas holidays. In this way, he would try to numb the pain and hopefully stop himself from cutting his wrists. He said this, in the same dry voice. I wasn’t equipped with an answer, again. I was still staring at his wrinkly face, when in the silence of the empty church, the click of the toaster echoed, and the smell of bread invaded the space, bringing comfort between us.
Later in the morning, Peter would come in. Everyone calls him Pete and the smell that he emanates is so strong that you can tell when he’s around before you can see him. His scrawny figure bounces from one foot to the other. He is not able to stand still, as if there are scorching charcoals under his feet. He keeps moving, and never stops. As he does so, the smell of faeces and urine fills the room. When this happens, my body is reacting, my brain doesn’t function, and I want to run away. I never look at him in the face because he always has something gooey in his beard. I still don’t know the colour of his eyes. His trousers are ripped, and I can see his skin through it. There is blood and faeces. We have tried, many times, to give him a new pair, but he says that if he gets changed, he will make the new clothes dirty and that wouldn’t make sense. When Pete comes in for his portion of soup, every single customer turns around to figure out where this odour comes from. If they can, they run. Pete is banned from entering the church at lunchtime. I never talk to him, I physically can’t. I am the one that opens all doors and follows him with the air freshener, but it doesn’t make any difference. I was told to breathe through my mouth, which unfortunately, doesn’t work either.
My boss is the only person that can talk to him without retching. Pete asks her for a piece of paper and a pen. He then goes to sit on the first row of pews to write. When he’s done, he brings the paper back to my manager so she can read it. Then he leaves, but his smell stays with us for another twenty minutes or so.
Lunchtime is the busiest time of the day. Men in suits and women in elegant dresses come through the doors in waves, with their packed lunch or take away boxes and they take a seat in the pews. The whole church is full of people and yet, it is the most peaceful place in the City. This is the time of the day when Jimmy comes in. His ginger beard is the first thing I notice usually, but now he started wearing a bright red bowler hat, like a true City gentleman. I never talked to him, his eyes are always wide open, his smile is toothless, and he tends to raise his voice.
One day he came in, same hat, same beard, his bag was hanging on his shoulder, and his breath was smelling of alcohol. After a few minutes, he went towards my boss, when she was standing next to the door. Jimmy started shouting at her, he was aggressive, and no one had any idea what the argument was about. There again, came my instinct of running away from that huge spider. I didn’t know what to do, and I was afraid he would hit my manager.
He didn’t.
When lunchtime is over, and people start to go back to their offices, Gordon comes in. He holds his blanket, always the same one and he gives us the best smile he has. He is a big guy. His face is round and his belly too. The first time I met him, I was surprised by how polite he was. Gordon was smiling and saying thank you as I passed him a bowl of soup. He must have said thank you a million times, during the ten minutes he would spend in the church.
“Thank you for the coffee, thank you for the soup, thank you for letting me use the toilet, thank you for helping me.” He usually lays down on the pavement just outside the church, on his side. When he is in that position, he makes me think about The Little Mermaid, carelessly sunbathing on a rock.
He used to be a sex worker. He told me this story without shame, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Gordon has countless stories to tell, and each one of them is full of different kinds of sadness. Once I asked him if he was happy. He said:
“Yes, as long as I have a cigarette and a beer, I’m good.”
I don’t know if I can believe him.
He used to thank me for spending time with him, or for stopping by and having a conversation with him. Once, Gordon told me he had – and still has – severe dyslexia. He had been diagnosed in primary school. He talks a lot about the way he failed at everything. His mother kicked him out of the house at the age of 20 because “he was good at nothing.” He has been living on the streets ever since and still thinks he is good at nothing. He doesn’t stay in the church because people wouldn’t feel comfortable in his presence. Gordon says that the City people look at him in a weird way. According to him young women like me shouldn’t talk to him or spend time with him. He’s homeless, and he is the wrong kind of person to hang out with.
Gordon is my teacher. Instead of presenting me with the massive spider, he took it away and without it, I could finally see through. With his smiles and polite manners, he gave me valuable lessons.
John not only sleeps rough and has several addictions, he also suffers from schizophrenia. He can hear voices and most of the time, they might talk him down. He also has a great sense of humour and a burst of contagious laughter. He remembers every little detail of the conversations we have. Even though he struggles to communicate, he is always up-to-date with current affairs and will tell you off if you’re not.
Pete has the eyes of a little child that has been caught stealing candies. He likes to show off on the days he has had a shower. When he asks for pen and paper, he likes to write down stories about wars, superheroes, and superpowers. He is very knowledgeable about anything regarding the Second World War, this is one of the reasons we think he might be a veteran. He enjoys speaking to my Swiss colleague in German, so that he can practice the language.
Someone told me he was bullied and severely beaten when he was a child. The smell is his armour now.
If no one can get close to him, no one can hurt him.
Jimmy always smiles, and likes to call everyone a princess, no matter if you are a man or a woman. He is also a very good friend of Pete. He likes to play the piano that is placed at the very front of the church, near the altar. He plays during lunchtime or in the afternoon. He never uses music sheets and yet, fills the room with an intricate rethemes. He can go on for hours. Sometimes when Jimmy plays, I go to sit next to him, so he can show me how to place my hands on the keys.
“You just need to close your eyes and let the music do the rest,” he says. At times, he starts to sing sweet songs and the whole church shakes to the sound of his deep voice.
I could finally see. I had taken their condition out of my vision and finally saw who they really were. People experiencing homelessness, not homeless people. It’s easy to feel good when you offer soup to someone that can’t afford it. But it’s too superficial.
I remember feeling deeply frustrated when I asked Gordon If I could do anything to make his situation better. Because, all he wanted me to do, was to go to the local store, buy him a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of beer. I wanted to do more than that. The intention was good, the reason why I wanted to do it, not so noble. Unconsciously, I knew that buying things for Gordon would make me feel better.
That morning in January, when we were sitting on the cold pavement, I started to unveil what was hiding underneath Gordon’s apparent state of comfort.
“I don’t want to work,” he said, and his lips were curved downwards. “I don’t want a house,” he said, with the same expression. Then he told me how he had been fired from his first job. It was a restaurant, in Manchester. He was working there as a kitchen porter.
“They told me I wasn’t good enough.”
After a few minutes, he told me he doesn’t like to spend time inside the church. Everyone looks at him and judges him for being dirty or for smelling bad. He then adjusted his hat and looked downward.
“The office people don’t want to see me around.” As he said this, he looked like a forty-year-old child. His vulnerability made me smile.
In that moment I started putting the pieces together. Being adopted, having a hard time at school, being kicked out of the house, getting fired from the first job, they were all clear signs. He was not happy. He had just accepted that he wasn’t enough and sleeping rough was the best thing he could hope to get out of life.