I have a coffee machine. Industrial. It's not old, but it's been around. As with many things in my life, it runs a little too hot sometimes. It has too much steam to let off. It doesn't play well with froth.
The brand is Rancillio. Italian. I like the way the name rolls off the tongue: the breathy soft C; the lingering concentration of vowels and double L's. And the R. I love R's. In another time and hemisphere, I taught people that making R's is like the beginning of a kiss - a soft, puckering oh.
Actually, I said it was like being forced as a young child to give an old relative a kiss - fast, tight and no tongue in sight.
But that was when I was being paid. This is for love.
When I bought the machine, a lovely old man who runs a tiny coffee turret on Pako Street told me I had to name it after the most handsome man I had ever seen. He said it was the only way to ensure the coffee would be perfect - and his Sofia Loren always gave good coffee.
I wanted Gregory Peck, but I was a little concerned about the Feng Shui implications of naming it after a dead guy.
I still can't drink Lapsang-Souchong because it smells like my dead grandfather - that Salvol soap scent which came from a life of using one's hands and a lifetime of washing away the evidence: fisholine for rust, turps for brushes and viscous black oil for everything else. Rosemary for remembrance would have been better against the Altzheimer's. Fuck it - it's just tea, right?
My coffee machine is called George Clooney.
I was trying to decide, there were people around, he ended up as the popular vote. Probably not a bad move, really. My first love was Grizzly Adams, my second was Andy Gibb and there was that little incident with Patrick Duffy as a merman...
So, despite my hesitation, George it was. And over time he charmed me. His coffee kept everybody happy and he knew his way around an African bean. Steamy but very practical. And then it happened.
It was a Saturday, early in the morning, before anyone else had arrived. Just me and my machine.
I put some music on, lit a little Champa.
George was flushed, primed.
Buttons were pushed.
And he gave me the most luscious crema I had ever seen - thick, unyielding and just begging for sugar.
I reached out, ran my hand along the warm, smooth metal. Good boy, George.
A large Oh, preceded by an N.
Good boy, George.
Good, Boy George.
It kinda stopped being sexy after that.
