BETTER WHEN YOU’RE NAKED | IDA MARIA
Morning light poured through The Coffee Queer Café windows like someone had opened a jar of honey over the room. It brightened the floorboards, skimmed Henry near the pastry case, and settled on the little brass bell Mack kept polished to a soft glow, mostly because he liked things ready before people knew they needed them.
I was in the office with invoices, vendor forms, and the kind of paper stack that makes a woman wonder if financial literacy was a trick invented by accountants. The door sat open by two inches. That was enough to hear the grinders, the milk pitchers, the low theater of customers choosing between croissants and the illusion of self-control.
Then Henry placed a tray of apricot danishes beside the lemon bars and gave the morning its first match.
“Someone left a colonoscopy reminder card in the men’s restroom.”
Tony turned from his stool near the bar with the slow dignity of a man who had just been handed a microphone by the universe. He wore a berry-colored scarf, dark glasses pushed onto his head, and the expression of somebody prepared to save public health through scandal.
“Henry Radcliffe, there are phrases that should not be introduced within six inches of a glaze.”
Jasmine lifted the portafilter from the grinder and tapped it once. The grounds loosened with a dry little thud. “It was probably a customer in a hurry.”
Mack glanced toward the restroom hallway, then back to the milk pitcher. “Or a warning from the building.”
Tony put one hand to his chest. “At last. Architecture with compassion.”
Henry slid the danishes into alignment. “It was on the sink.”
Tony froze.
The espresso machine hissed. A woman at the far table lowered her newspaper by half an inch.
“On the sink?” Tony’s voice climbed with religious alarm minus the religion. “You mean to tell me someone received a sacred summons from the Department of Interior Plumbing and abandoned it beside the soapdish?”
“Looks that way.” Mack kept steaming milk.
“No.” Tony pointed toward the restroom. “Absolutely not. We are not living in a town where grown men can operate riding mowers, fantasy leagues, and outdoor smokers with twelve vents, but suddenly act like washing their ass requires such reckless abandon.”
Jasmine pressed the espresso into a cup with deliberate care. “Tony.”
“What?”
“We are open.”
“That is why I am speaking in civic tones.”
Henry cut a square of butter cake and set it on a plate. “Those were civic?”
“For me, yes. I am sitting in public wearing sunglasses before noon and discussing community crack maintenance. This is restraint.”
A man waiting for a cappuccino coughed into his fist. It had the shape of a laugh trying to behave in public. Jasmine placed the cup on the saucer. “Basic hygiene matters. That is the adult version. Gentle cleaning, dry skin, clean underwear, no harsh scented products.”
Tony turned to her with both palms open. “See? Jasmine has brought science to a conversation that was one hand gesture away from becoming a felony.”
Mack looked down at the drink order tape. “Please don’t make me write that on a chalkboard.”
Tony leaned toward him. “Sweetheart, if this café can host poetry, murder-mystery movie nights, and Greta’s annual milk alternative tribunal, it can survive a tasteful morning conversation about the exit ramp.”
Henry’s knife stopped above the butter cake.
“The exit ramp?” He looked at Tony.
Tony smiled. “Too much?”
Henry returned to the cake. “Surprised you didn’t say the Hershey Highway.”
That nearly ended me. I put one hand over my mouth in the office and pretended I was reading the invoice from the dairy supplier with unusual emotional intensity.
Jasmine wiped the counter around the espresso machine. “Here is the part people get wrong. You don’t scrub like you are refinishing furniture. Gentle. Warm water. Unscented soap if needed. Then dry the area. Moisture causes irritation.”
Tony nodded with grave commitment. “Correct. Your backside is not a cast-iron skillet. Seasoning is not the goal.”
Mack’s shoulders gave one small shake.
Henry placed the butter cake in the display. “That was 100% educational material.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain a P.S.A. on rectal health.”
Tony accepted this as praise and shifted on his stool. “And men, especially men of a certain stubborn vintage, need to hear this. You cannot treat your own colon like an unpaid parking ticket.”
A customer near the window made a sound into her coffee that suggested she had lost that battle with her hubby. Mack handed over a latte and turned to Tony. “Some men hear screening and act like the doctor asked to steal their machissmo.”
Tony snapped his fingers. “Exactly. They hear colonoscopy and suddenly they are frontier settlers defending a mountain pass.”
Jasmine slid a cappuccino across the bar. “Screening saves lives. That part matters.”
“It matters deeply.” Tony lowered his voice, and for one clean second the sparkle softened into something warmer. “People make jokes because they are embarrassed. Fine. Let the joke open the door. Then walk through it and call the damn doctor already.”
Henry reached into the case for tongs. “Prep properly.”
Tony spun toward him. “And there he is. The man who could turn bowel preparation into a commandment carved on sourdough.”
Henry did not blink. “If the instructions say clear liquids, drink clear liquids. If they say avoid red drinks, avoid red drinks. If they give you the prep, finish the prep.”
“Listen to him,” Tony announced to the room. “This man once rejected a tart crust for lacking emotional discipline.”
“It was underbaked.”
“You called it existentially unfinished.”
“It was.”
Jasmine leaned one hip against the counter, fighting a smile and losing with dignity. “The doctor needs a clear view. That is the point. If the prep is bad, they may have to repeat the procedure.”
Tony clutched the edge of the bar. “Repeat? As in encore? No-o-o, ma’am. Nobody wants Colonoscopy Two, Electric Fluids Boogaloo.”
Mack turned away from the pitcher and looked at him.
Tony lifted one finger. “I stand by the title.”
Henry moved a tray of rugelach. The café had now abandoned the illusion that this was not happening. People were listening with the intense casualness of adults pretending to check email. A woman by the ficus had her spoon frozen above a bowl of oatmeal. Two tourists near the door were smiling like they had accidentally boarded the crazy train.
Jasmine, bless her heart, tried to restore order through usefulness. “And if there is bleeding, pain, persistent itching, changes in bowel habits, or anything that feels wrong, talk to a medical professional. Do not diagnose yourself from panic or from a comment thread or WebMD.”
Tony’s eyes widened. “For the love of all that is hole-y, plah-lease don’t crowdsource your undercarriage on the internet.”
Mack placed a lid on an iced coffee. “That sentence should be printed on money.”
Henry lifted a brow. “Small bills.”
I had to stand and walk to the filing cabinet because if I stayed seated I was going to make a noise nobody needed to hear from management.
Tony shifted into full sermon posture. Nothing preachy, more like a Broadway lobby sermon. The kind that wears a tailored coat, carries breath mints, and knows where the exits are.
“Let us be grown,” he began, one hand resting on the bar, the other floating in the air like he was conducting a very strange orchestra. “Your body is not shameful. Your anus is not a disgraced relative we keep in the attic. It is part of the household. It deserves soap, water, drying, fresh underwear, and the occasional respectful medical appointment.”
Jasmine pressed her lips together. Mack looked at the ceiling. Henry kept arranging pastries as if Tony had not just emancipated the derrière in front of lemon bars.
Tony planted one hand on the counter. “Men, I say this with affection. The prep instructions aren’t trying to steal your truck balls, your dignity, or your emotional support cargo shorts. They’re trying to keep you alive and make sure the doctor doesn’t need a fog machine and a search warrant to get in.”
A silver-haired man near the sugar station lifted his hand halfway. “Wish I’d heard that sooner.”
That did it. The woman with the oatmeal bent over her bowl. Mack turned toward the shelves and gave his face a private second. Jasmine put both hands flat on the counter, shoulders moving once.
From my office, I stared at a bill for espresso cups and thought about how many civilizations must have collapsed because nobody wanted to discuss the obvious thing until it became an emergency with forms.
Tony was still going.
“And do not come at me with scented “flushable” wipes, gardenia foam, alpine blast nonsense, or anything that promises freshness with a mountain on the label. Your backside did not ask to smell like a ski lodge. Gentle. Clean. Dry. That is the trinity of the southern hemisphere.”
“Ahhh, the Religion of The Gluteus Maximus.” Jasmine pointed the spoon at him.
Tony lifted both hands. “Fine. Soap, water, towel. Call it the original power trio.”
Mack crossed to the syrup bottles. “First tour should be the men’s room.”
Henry set down the tongs. “I would listen to them.”
Tony pressed his fingertips together under his chin. “Their first album is called No Residue.”
The silver-haired man’s wife slapped the table hard enough to make the sugar packets jump. Jasmine bent over the espresso machine, laughing into her wrist. “I hate that I can see the cover. Three men in black turtlenecks standing beside a sink, looking brave for no reason. One of them barefoot.”
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The bar carried on. That was the beautiful absurdity of it. Drinks kept moving. Pastries kept disappearing. Customers stepped forward, paid, tipped, collected napkins, and entered a world where a man in a berry scarf had somehow made preventive medicine sound like cabaret. Nobody looked shamed. Nobody looked preached at. They looked included in the oldest bargain a café can offer. We laugh because bodies are ridiculous. We learn because bodies are mortal. We stay because somebody has to make the next pot.
Tony lifted his coffee cup.
“To cleanliness, screening, and the courage to read the entire instruction sheet.”
I never left the office. I didn’t need to. I sat behind my little mountain of forms while the morning outside spread across the floorboards, while the espresso machine threw steam against the light, while Tony Camp turned butt health into public service with jazz hands, and while Henry’s apricot danishes sat in the case looking innocent.
They were not innocent.