Felix and Starbucks

Felix's Starbucks cup from Spoleto

Front of Felix's Starbucks cup

    

In November of 2021, Matt Williams sent me Felix's Starbucks cup that he had left in the Prop Shop for Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston SC. I was deeply appreciative to have something else of Felix's as I've felt since he died that all of his things, as well as his very essence, are floating away as if they had all been dumped out in the ocean and they're drifting farther and farther away from me as I sit in the center of it all futilely trying to hold on to whatever I can. Instantly it made me realize how much Starbucks reminds me of Felix.

Starsucks

Starbucks,

you pretentious crowd...

Starschmucks,

mumbling out loud...

Starsucks,

you killed mom and pop,

Starfucks

Felix loved coffee and coffee shops, but he didn't always love Starbucks. Above is a poem he wrote as a teenager after an awkward experience at a local Starbucks. In the years after he wrote that poem, he came back around to Starbucks but there was always a type of love/hate tension. Felix's feelings for Starbucks always seemed to be equal parts disdain, amusement, and appreciation.

An Instagram post by Felix hints at his feelings on Starbucks

As has been the case for many people, semi-famously, Starbucks employees would often come up with creative spellings for Felix's name. Felix sometimes responded with amusement and sometimes by taking offense to it.

 The last year of Felix's life, from diagnosis to his death, really solidified Starbucks as a Felix association for me. It started in May of 2018 when he started weekly chemotherapy and clinical trial treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC. There was a Starbucks across the street and I would order on my phone app and run across and pick up the order, especially on long chemo treatment days (every 3 weeks). We would spend hours in the chemo suite drinking our Starbucks du jour, sometimes hot and sometimes cold, laughing at whatever cooking show was on the TV (usually Pioneer Women) and the My Pillow commercials.

Holding his Starbucks 2 months into treatment

Starbucks on the counter, almost done with chemo

Can you spot his Starbucks? Last chemo treatment

When Felix was admitted to Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in November 2018, his friend Eli and I would often pick up Starbucks as a way to bring the outside world to Felix; a way to bring some normalcy to him. It all started in early December when Eli brought us Juniper Lattes to try. I don't think any of us were big fans of the Juniper Lattes but we continued to get Starbucks. Felix loved London Fog Lattes and the tea drink called a Medicine Ball or Cold Buster.

When Felix was discharged from Memorial Hospital in early December, we both got Medicine Balls, both of us still believing that he could recover enough for further cancer treatment and willing to try anything and everything to make that happen. The fact that he was completely unable to urinate even after he drank a Venti Medicine Ball was further proof that his body wasn't working properly. That was the last Starbucks he ever had. He was discharged from Memorial, in spite of both of our repeated protests, and taken by ambulance to Mercy Medical Center on Long Island 24 hours later. He died there less than a week later.