There are places on this Earth that defy science and explanation. These places are full of mystical energy, creating environments of strangeness and oddity. Some of these places are much discussed and well known. The Bermuda Triangle is one. Maccu Piccu is another.

But there exists in suburban Atlanta a small well of eccentricity known as Starbucks. It's hardly as famous as The Burmuda Triangle... Very little has been written or discussed about this place. In fact, I think I'm the only one to actually document and record some of the more interesting events that have taken place there.

For instance, I once met a man there who was writing a book -- which in and of itself, isn't so strange, until you consider that his medium for the manuscript was napkins. Lots and lots of napkins, covered in blue ink scrawl and strange footnotes, like "look up in national archives to verify" and "reference the bible here". I also met a woman who proclaimed to have written the original stories Harry Potter was based on. And there was a guy there who would play Dylan tunes on his Casio keyboard for tips. You've never really heard Dylan until you hear his songs transformed and brought to life by a 1980's model synthesized piano.

Once, I was forced to leave and find another place to write because a SWAT raid shut down the entire pavilion where the Starbucks is located. Apparently, a man decided he didn't really want to go to jail, so he skipped bail. When they found him at the local movie theater, he held the entire place hostage with a homemade bomb and a sawed-off shotgun. Another time, a young girl who'd just received her learner's permit mistook the "R" on the gear dial for a "D" and slammed her mother's SUV into the front window of the chain coffee shop.

This was doubly tragic, because the window had just been replaced a few months earlier. And the reason it had to be replaced is my favorite of the Starbucks tales... And I'd like to share it with you.

So, one day I arrived at this particular Starbucks, much like I had many other times. Only this time, there's a young African American kid with a half bored, half annoyed look on his face standing right outside the door to the establishment. He’s rocking back and forth on his feet and tapping out a beat of some sort on the front of his thighs, rapping a little tune which might very well have been his own creation. I walked up to enter the store. I nod hello, and in response, he begins… Well, mumbling.

“Hmm?” I say, stepping toward him a little.

He reaches down and picks up two boxes of brittle – one cashew, one peanut. Again, he mumbles, but this time I can make out a few words. "You *mumblemumblemumble* Buy *mumblemumblemumble* Brittle *mumblemumblemumble* School?”

“Nah, no thanks dude," I reply with a smile.

He shrugs his shoulders, drops the brittle into the cardboard box at his feet and goes back to a-tappin’ and a-rappin. I nod politely and reach for the door. Just as I make contact with the handle, it slams forward and whacks my knuckles pretty hard. Immediately, the brunette head of the Starbucks’ manager, Kaitlin, pops out.

“Oh, GOD! Sorry, Joe!” She said, her face turning from angry to concerned and immediately back to angry as she turns to the youth selling his wares. “HEY!” she announces to him as he picks up his box hurriedly. “I’ve told you I don’t know HOW many times today, go sell your brittle somewhere else! You can’t do it here!”

“Fuck you, BEIOTCH!” he replies, flipping her off and marching away, brittle tucked under his arm.

“YEAH, fuck you, too!” She said, drawing the attention of a few customers inside. She immediately turned to me and said “Sorry, sorry… God, I’m SO sorry. Come in, come in…”

“Hmm… Seems like you have a bit of a solicitation problem, Kaitlin,” I said with a smile, trying to alleviate her embarrassment.

“WOW!” shouted Mike, one of the workers behind the counter. “That was impressive!”

“Shut up, Mike,” Kaitlin said as she returned to the counter. “That guy’s been here like six times today. He just WON’T go away!” She reached out and took my travel mug and immediately began filling it with the darkest roast they have, then plunked it on the counter in front of me as I reached for my wallet. “No, no charge,” She said, holding the open face of her palm toward me. “Not after that little display.”

“Hmm… Well, you didn’t do anything wrong,” I replied, “But thanks!” And I took my piping hot cup of coffee to my usual table, pulled out my laptop, and got to work.

A few minutes goes by, and I’m happily tip-tap-typing away on the Dell from Hell, lost in the transcription of the next part of Romance.net. I took a quick break as I read over what I’d just written, reaching out for my coffee cup and placing it to my lips. Just then, I saw a bit of movement just above and beyond the screen of my machine. I looked up and watch as the most intense scene I'd witnessed in, like, weeks begins to unfold.

I focused in on the blur of movement, which then became a form, which then became the youth from earlier who was running full-speed toward the bank of windows at the front of the shop. In his right hand is swinging back and forth half of a cinder block. The look on his face is not unlike that of an Olympic javelin thrower as they sprint toward the mark where they release the implement and fling it as far as they can.

Which is kinda what he did with this cinder block, only it was a half-underhand, half-sidearm type of affair. I just sat there with my coffee cup to my lips as I watched this lump of concrete arc through the air toward the window. It seemed to hang for just a moment at the peak of it’s climb before it began descending. Then, my field of view glowed white as the brick smashed into the safety glass of the Starbucks window, dividing it into tens of thousands of pieces clinging together with protective film.

But that’s not the most intense part.

In the time it took me to place my cup back on the table and look over at the counter to see the reactions of the employees present, Kaitlin had leaped the counter and bolted out the door. I twisted my head back to the bank of windows, leaning to the left to look through one of the more pristine sheets of glass and watched as this five foot eight inch woman in khakis, a black oxford and a green apron sprinted across the parking lot and landed the most beautiful open-field tackle I have ever seen. She slammed headlong into the kid and bringing them both crashing down to the asphalt. She straddled him and began beating the ever-loving shit out of him as one of the employees called 9-1-1.

The kid was held at bay by 3 of us who went out at first to help Kaitlin, but soon switched over to saving this poor guy from having his ass handed to him by a girl. He didn’t resist or anything, he just sat there and cried as the cops arrived. The blue brigade took the kid away in cuffs and had Kaitlin come to the station voluntarily. I shook my head, went back inside, and attempted to finish Romance.net.

They built a Starbucks near my house shortly after this event, so it'd been nearly three years since I last wrote at the mystic Starbucks location. Nothing odd has happened at my new Starbucks. Like, nothing at ALL. Not even the strange random occurrences that happen to me outside of visiting that one Starbucks. It's almost as if a shell of normalcy pervades the place. It's safe. It's quiet. It's... It's like living a normal life when I go there.

Today, however, I had reason to drive through the old area, and I really needed to hop on the internet and book a doctor's appointment. So I pulled into the Starbucks I used to write at so often.

I got as far as the entrance, when I saw a huge tree which had recently fallen across the parking lot. It took out a car, the patio fencing, and two tables, with some ancillary damage to the awning and one of the windows (remarkably, not one on the bank of windows previously devistated by other occurrences).

It's been THREE. YEARS. And the one day I decide to show up, a tree attacks an innocent car and associated objects. Of course, that reminded me of all the other insane events that'd occurred at that place and convinced me that I needed to write all of this out... If for no other reason than to document the phenomena of this area for future generations who find the skeletal remains of the poor people who end up buried under the rubble of a former coffee house which was hit by the dislodged wing of a passing 747.