About the book:
One lowly barista. One coffee-drinking dictator. John Hunt’s playful and damning satire on political power
Meet our young hero Cappuccino – barista to the President – who’s never lived anywhere other than in the big man’s compound. Left in the care of Maria-I’m-not-your-mother when his real mom died, Cappuccino spent his boyhood in the laundry room before receiving his true calling.
From behind his impressive chrome coffee machine, Cappuccino is a fly on a very important wall. And, more importantly, he is in love with the captivating Naomi, an assistant to the President.
But life is about to serve Cappuccino a bitter cup when he finds the Minister without Portfolio – and moral compass to The Boss – dead in the presidential home.
Filled with warm humour, John Hunt’s novel serves up a double shot of pathos as it moves from playful satire to true tragedy whilst examining the inner workings of power.
EXTRACT:
Chapter 1
No one can remember who first called me Cappuccino, or why. Was it just my muted brown pigmentation? Asani says I’m a little too pale, ‘more steamed milk than espresso’. To prove his point he once dusted the back of my hand with cinnamon. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s the same colour. You’re really just a topping.’
Cappuccino is not the sort of word that would naturally be used by those gathered at my birth. It feels as if some outside influence had to be involved, but who or what that was, no one can tell me. And, with four syllables, I could be endlessly trimmed and played with.
What’s more interesting is that I, Cappuccino, ended up being a barista. I didn’t even know what that meant until I became one. It’s an Italian word. If you are a woman you are a bariste. Three years ago a man from ‘Uplift!’ won the contract to up-skill us all. I still have his card. It has a drawing of a young boy standing on his toes reaching for the stars. Underneath is written ‘Be all you can be!’
Everyone gathered on the big patio next to the pool. The man said the future was waiting. He asked if we were ready. I don’t think any of us knew for sure. We didn’t want to be impolite so everyone just shrugged. ‘Opportunity is knocking!’ he shouted at us. Then he pointed to me and asked my name. That made him pause for a moment before he smiled and said, ‘It’s time you espresso-ed yourself!’ At that stage, I didn’t know they were redoing the kitchen area and putting in a world-class coffee station.
So that’s how I became a barista. Now I wear a uniform that’s all white and an apron with thin grey stripes. The apron strings are a little high. They tie halfway up my back. At first it felt uncomfortable. Although I don’t have a bulging stomach, it looks as if I’m trying to hide one. I have to wear a chef’s hat too. It’s difficult to always keep it straight; it tilts like the Leaning Tower of Pisa (first constructed in the twelfth century and perpetually at an angle due to inadequate foundation work).
More information about me according to Uplift!: I am an introvert while showing no signs of antisocial behaviour. My shyness is compounded by my closed environmental conditions. The opening up of same could help establish a more confident state of mind. The subject tends to the submissive. The blurred work/home domain offers an extended family connective tissue, however, the subject has not clearly defined his role within this structure. Under ‘Personality’, my highest score was ‘Likeability’ (7 out of 10). There was a whole page you could fill in for ‘Characteristics’. I took up only one line. ‘Would tend to procrastinate and observe rather than initiate.’
After the Chief Inspiration Officer finished speaking he pulled at his yellow braces and let them snap back into his chest. His ‘Paramedics of Ambition’ were then asked to step forward and go through the questionnaire with each of us. Every page had ‘Confidential’ written at the top in red. In the bottom right-hand corner that boy was still reaching for the stars. Two weeks later I found all the assessment forms in the pantry, wedged like a book between the paper towels and the green dishwashing liquid.
Although they’d left most of the paperwork behind, a month later Uplift! came back. We all received new titles. I was the only one to get a new job. The two gardeners, who were now Horticulture Executives, asked if they’d be paid more. The Chief Inspiration Officer said money wasn’t and shouldn’t be the only motivator. He then told this story: Many years ago, a team of journalists was touring NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – established in 1958), where they saw a man sweeping the floor. ‘What are you doing?’ one of the journalists asked. ‘I’m helping to put a man on the moon,’ was his reply.
The Chief Inspiration Officer then let his braces go at slightly different times, like a double punch. ‘I hope you get my point,’ he said.
Discussing it afterwards, no one got the point. Still, once all the big alterations on the house were finished, Dino came to teach me everything about coffee. (Did you know Yemen was the first great coffee exporter and, to protect its trade, decreed that no living plant could leave the country?) First he built the counter so that all the machinery would be high up. ‘Great coffee makers don’t work below the waist.’ Then he installed a beautiful silver block of equipment call a La Marzocco. It looked like the control panel for a spaceship.
‘She’s like a woman,’ he said, ‘Treat her with respect. Be gentle unless she demands otherwise, and she will give you much pleasure.’
Dino’s business card also had a drawing of a boy on it, although he wasn’t reaching for the stars. His eyes were made up of two coffee beans above a big smile. A steaming coffee cup balanced on his head. Dino said coffee wasn’t a beverage and its sacred magic disappeared if you served it in polystyrene or sucked it through a plastic nipple. Coffee was God’s liquid gift to help you endure the day. If the Virgin Mary was not always available, you could call on cappuccino, café latte or latte macchiato to get you through the morning and espresso from lunchtime. He crossed himself then stroked the steam wand.
He spent one week teaching me about different beans and how to grind them and then the next week on how to work the machine and serve. ‘Monsooned Malabar!’ he’d shout and I’d have to find the slow-roasted beans from India. ‘Yirgacheffe!’ The beans from Ethiopia that smelt like they were still in the earth. ‘Mandheling!’ The dark Sumatra from Indonesia. By the end of the last week he was playing games with me. ‘Aloha’ meant brew the Kona beans from Hawaii. ‘No woman, no cry! No woman, no cry!’ – Dino trying to sing like Bob Marley – meant make some Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica. With his brown eyes sometimes going black and his huge beard suffocating his face, it didn’t look as if he had a sense of humour.
Who would’ve guessed I’d go from laundryman to barista? From washing and ironing to a uniformed soldier of cuppa jolt?
Full disclosure. This is my first book.
I’ve not written anything before. Still, if you can go from a laundryman to a barista, why not continue the journey to an author? I have, however, completed a free online writing course. The Stanfreed Global Writing Academy was very helpful. They are still trying to sell me their embossed mug, sweatshirt and premium course. The ‘Platinum Advanced’ gives you personal one-on-one tutorials with authors who have been on the New York bestsellers’ list. They want American dollars, so that’s not going to happen.
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by John Hunt
One lowly barista. One coffee-drinking dictator. John Hunt’s playful and damning satire on political power.
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