The bodega coffee cost seventy-five cents and tasted like the building it was brewed in. The coffee was brewed in a machine that had not been cleaned since the last time the health inspector came and the health inspector came once a year and the coffee machine was cleaned once a year and the year was long and the coffee tasted like the year.

The coffee came in a blue and white paper cup with a Greek design on it. The design said WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU and the we was a mystery because the man behind the counter was not happy. The man behind the counter had been behind the counter since five in the morning and it was now seven in the morning and the man had two more hours before his brother came to relieve him and his brother was always late and the man's happiness was not the subject of the cup.

The coffee was hot. The coffee was always hot. The temperature of bodega coffee was the one constant on the Lower East Side. The rent changed. The faces changed. The language on the signs changed. The coffee was hot. The coffee was hot in 1975 and it was hot in 1995 and it was hot in 2015 and the heat was the thing you could count on when everything else on the block was being replaced by something more expensive.

You drank the coffee on the sidewalk because the bodega did not have chairs. The bodega did not have chairs because the bodega was not a cafe. The bodega was a store that happened to sell coffee and the coffee was not the point. The coffee was what you bought while you were buying cigarettes and a lottery ticket and a roll of toilet paper. The coffee was an afterthought that became a ritual and the ritual lasted fifty years and the afterthought outlasted everything else in the store.

I bought bodega coffee every morning for thirty years and the coffee never improved. The coffee was not trying to improve. The coffee was trying to be hot and brown and seventy-five cents and the coffee succeeded at all three objectives every single day. The coffee was the most consistent performer on the Lower East Side. I played guitar on the corner and some days I was good and some days I was bad. The coffee was never good and never bad. The coffee was coffee. The coffee was the note that never changed in a melody that changed every day.