Coffee and Chocolate Milk

It was Sunday morning and the sun was just coming up. The sky had a variety of beautiful pink and purple hues to it that are only available to those that are up early enough to catch them. Jim Brass' problem was that he had not even been to bed yet.

Brass was tired. Dead tired. He had just finished an 18-hour shift that had taken him from a drunken brawl outside of the Palms on the Strip to an overdose in the Freemont Street Experience to a carjacking turned worse in Boulder City and he was ready to fall over. He was done. All he wanted to do was go home and collapse on his bed. Maybe even the couch.

On the drive back from Boulder City, Brass was on autopilot. He had the air conditioning cranked, hoping that his chattering teeth would keep him awake. He tried every trick that he knew so stay awake. As a last ditch effort, he even started singing along to the radio as loud as he possibly could to not fall asleep and crash his city issued Dodge Charger into a telephone pole. It wasn't until he blinked his eyes at an intersection and had no idea where he was or how he got there that he decided to stop.

Brass started to look around for somewhere to stop. All he wanted was some black coffee. And maybe a doughnut. Most definitely a doughnut.

Starbucks or some other coffee chain wasn't an option. He didn't want a latte or anything with soy. He didn't want anything that screamed organic or tasted fruity or had the word "subtle" in the description. In fact he didn't want to see a description. Just a coffee. Plain old black coffee. And maybe a cinnamon roll or maybe a bear claw. They are different after all. Cinnamon rolls were much better. You could peel it apart, dunking the outer layer in your coffee until you got to the soft and if you are very lucky, warm middle. Bear claws were, well, claws. Not at all the same.

A few minutes and a near miss through an intersection later, Brass found what he was looking for. It was a little place called Doughnut Land. It looked like a real mom and pop type of place. When Brass walked up to the door, he stopped at the newspaper box next to it, dumped some coins into it and got today's paper. He couldn't help but smile for a moment.

When he walked in, it felt like place he used to take Ellie to when she was a little girl. That was when things were…

His thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the teenage girl behind the counter.

"Sir, what can I get you?"

"I'll take a large coffee, black and," he searched the racks of doughnuts. This was not like Krispy Crème or Dunkin' Doughnuts. There was no bright or flashy title card announcing each type of doughnut. No, here, the names of each doughnut were written on a place card with a sharpie marker, in neat printed writing, glazed, sprinkles, apple filled…that was Ellie's favorite, and then he saw them. Cinnamon rolls. With a smile, Brass pointed over to the cinnamon rolls. The girl nodded and with a piece of wax paper grabbed up one of the massive doughnuts and handed it to Brass.

"That will be a dollar fifty-eight.'

Brass chuckled to himself as he gave her two dollars, waving for her to keep the change. Try getting that on the Strip he thought as he walked over to a table with his coffee and cinnamon roll. And then he heard it.

Whocka whocka whocka brump brump brump beewoop

I think that one of the ghosts just bought it he thought, remembering Ellie's teachings well.

Every Sunday back in Jersey, he and Ellie would go to a doughnut shop like this one and they would spend the entire morning together. Each would have their drinks, Brass with a large black coffee, Ellie with a large chocolate milk. Each would have their doughnuts, Brass with a cinnamon roll and Ellie with her apple filled with cinnamon sugar coating the outside. Sometimes she would get sprinkles, but that was rare. They would then sit and divide up the paper. Brass would start with the sports page while Ellie went straight to the funnies. She would read them with such concentration on her little face; you would have thought she was a bookie checking out last night's box scores.

If Brass were still reading the sports and Ellie was done with her funnies and her doughnut, she might try to strike a conversation, pointing out the newest exploit of Calvin and Hobbes, but he knew what she was up to.

Quarters.

When he was done, they would play Ms. Pac-Man until he was out of quarters, which was usually the remainder of the morning. Yes, big tough Captain Jim Brass of the Las Vegas Police Department, a US Marine that served 2 tours of duty in Vietnam, loves Ms. Pac-Man. More exactly, he loves what the game represented - time together with his daughter.

"Dad, you have to pay attention. See…that one. The red one?" Brass nodded, loving seeing his daughter so excited about something.

"The red one is Blinky. He is going to come after you fast. Pinky, the pink one, duh, is smart and hides and waits for you. You gotta watch out for those two they may try to gang up on ya. Inky is the turquoise one and he isn't very smart and you can kinda scare him. Now Sue, the yellow one, is dumb. Why did they make the girl the dumb one?"

Brass shook his head while dunking a piece of his cinnamon roll into his coffee, not realizing that he had those tidbits of video knowledge trapped in his brain anymore.

That was the one thing that he always had with his daughter. Every Sunday was their time. He remembered the time that he brought home a strategy guide for them to read together. As much as he loved seeing his daughter excited, he dreaded the outcome if he did not follow the book when they played.

"No Dad! You need to go down, and left, down, right, back up, left and around to eat the Power Pellet. No Dad! You have to wait until they bunch up so you can eat them all at once!"

He remembered some of the conversations that they would have.

Talking about everything and nothing.

Brass started thinking about the little interludes that the game had between screens. What was the first one? The Chase? No, They Meet. That's it. They knock heads with a klunk and then The Chase. What was the third one? With a large smile, Brass remembered. Junior.

While taking a sip of coffee, Brass flipped open his cell phone. Searching through the index, he finds the number he was looking for and hits send.

"Hello?" the groggy voice on the other end answered.

Maybe Brass should have waited, but sometimes you just need to hear someone's voice. "Hey Sara…I uhh…I'm sorry for waking you…"

"You didn't wake me…" she slowly protested, in a not very convincing voice. "Hey, is everything ok?" she asked, a little more awake now. "Is Griss…"

"No, no, no. Don't worry." Brass inwardly kicked himself. The last thing he wanted to add on to her is to worry her. "Everyone is fine. I'm fine, Grissom is fine. Hank is fine. Sanders is, well, Sanders.' He said with a chuckle. He could feel her start to relax a bit on the line. "I didn't mean to worry you, I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you and…and, I have someplace that I want to take you when you get back" Brass said as he was playing with the remaining bits of glaze on the wax paper, his cinnamon roll long gone.

"Brass... " she started, " I'll call you soon. I promise. I just need to…"

"I know…I know you need to…But, I just was thinking about you and I wanted to let you know. Go back to bed and get some sleep. I'll see you soon.'

"Ok…" she started, not completely sure what happened to make Jim call her at this ungodly early hour, but she understood what it was like. "Hey Jim…thanks."

"No problem. Take care of yourself kiddo."

Brass kept his phone open, long after Sara had already hung up, maybe trying to keep the connection open. He already lost one daughter. He wasn't ready to lose another.

Thanks for reading!