Part 2: Bridge to Humanity

Today is Monday.
 
I take my coffee with no sugar and a little milk, so that the cup has the dull, rusty brown without being black.  Its dull out.  All grey, little rain, no sun.

There were a lot of things to think about then, but I had to take some time to read.  Especially Foreign Policy magazine.  All those articles about fantastic places with fantastic problems; those fantastic dictators with fantastic speeches and fantastic suits, waving their hands against the establishment.  My favorite was always Gaddafi, if you're even allowed to have a favorite. It was mostly because he always wore crazy stuff.  Imagine, you’re getting bombed by NATO and there's rebellion on your coat tails and all you can think about is fashion statements.

I think that was the first time I saw her.  She was across the room, dressed in a black pencil skirt and white button up shirt talking to the barista and laughing about most everything.  That's the way she is, you know.  Just seems to smile her way through life, no matter the circumstance.  There was this one time I told about how some people in Africa are allowed to marry their cousins and she just smiled at me and said "that's interesting."  I told her I could tell she didn't care, and she just laughed.  She's like that.  Always made me feel like the wittiest person on earth.

That Monday in the cafe was a little slow and there were just a couple people silently puttering about and sulking into their mugs and books, and there she was, laughing and smiling.  As she turned to leave, I remember we had eye contact.  It was like two seconds long, but it seemed like forever and she gave me the smile of recognition.  Its the kind that's lightning quick, almost like a facial spasm, and it just lets you know you're not invisible.  I gave one back and she stepped into the rainy streets of the District and walked away.  She really was beautiful.

Putin tried to sing "Blueberry Hill" once on TV.  Cant even imagine.


Today is Wednesday

Today I'm taking it with no milk, but a little more sugar than normal.  Its kind of sunny out.

I was reading this really arduous book about witchcraft in South Africa when she came in.  I can't even remember what the book was saying about witchcraft in South Africa, but it seemed really insistent on proving some sort of point and changing the way I thought about South Africa or witchcraft.  If only I could find out what it was really saying, or maybe why it insisted on saying it.  I'd always like to be the kind of person that knew a lot about things like witchcraft and South Africa, maybe just so I could spout off a random opinion about it if it ever came up in conversation.  The person may not even care about what I said, but now he sees I have an opinion on something important.  That's how you win.  It's all about the opinions.

"Excuse me, are you done reading that?"

Just like that, there she was, standing right in front of my table.  She was dressed more casual than the first time, wearing jeans and a sort of ratty looking thrift store gray sweater.  Anyone else wearing it would have been a joke, but she was beautiful and beautiful people get away with everything.  All about the confidence, as they say.

"Um, no I still have a couple chapters left, sorry."

Her dark eyes squinted as she laughed.  "I meant the Foreign Policy.  Are you done with it?"

"Oh!  Yeah, I'm done with it, sorry."  I offered some laughter.

"Well, maybe I should just come back in a few days and I can get the book from you too," she said smiling.  "What is it about anyways?"

"This book?"  I looked at the cover and thought for a second before remembering.  "Oh right, its about nothing."

She smiled quizzically at me.  "Its about nothing?"

"Yep."  I held my ground.

Her eyes drifted to the book cover. "It says 'Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy' on the front."

"Yes, it does."

"But it's not about that?"

"No, its about nothing."

She considered my words, her face a little sadder now.  "All that ink and nothing to say?  That's a shame..." she sighed because it really was a shame.  "So why read it then?"
"Well, it seems very insistent."

"On what?"

"On saying what it wants to say."

"Which is nothing?"

"Yes," I said as I sipped my coffee.  "But," I continued, "the fact that he's so insistent might make it something, and no longer nothing.  That is, if he's insistent enough."

She sat down across from me and put her elbows on the table, speaking in grave inquiry.  "So if you push anything hard enough, the nothing becomes a something?"

"Sure, because no idea can be nothing if you've been made to think about it.  The minute you've given it any credence, you have in some fragile way validated its existence, whether it be serious thought or half-ass consideration.  Even if I reject an idea, like, say, South Africa, my necessity to reject its existence means I have already given it the credit of existence.  You cant reject nothing, because there would be nothing to reject.  But once I reject or accept the nothing, its now a something."

I could have sworn she would get up and leave after that existentialist treatise, but she stayed seated and looked like she was actually enjoying talking to me.  Her head turned to one side and rested on her hand.  She looked intently at me, locks of her dark curly hair lightly falling on her face. 

"So what you're saying is that South Africa and witchcraft haven't quite jumped out from the realm of nothing quite yet?"

I laughed at that.  "No, but I guess we'll see.  Do you read FP alot?"

"Yeah, at least when I can.  There are so many fascinating things going on in the world, I cant help but want to know.  Like maybe if Argentina changed their monetary policy, or South Africa has sunken out of existence."

I laughed along with her, wondering if she might remember me the rest of her life as "the guy who didn't believe in South Africa."

"Don't tell anyone, but I actually always underline and circle stuff in the magazines here," she said slyly, her eyes lighting up.  You would have thought she had just admitted to shoplifting.  "I wonder if they ever notice."

"Oh, that's you?  You have good taste in articles.  I like how you always circle the ones about dictators.  I kind of like dictators.  I mean, I'm interested in them, I guess I should say."

"Me too!  Especially the things that Gaddafi wears."  I agreed and we laughed about dictators for a couple of minutes, eventually going on to other things and drinking a couple more cups of coffee. 

"I guess it's nice that someone appreciates my random mark ups.  Hey!  I don't even know your name!"

And that's how it was.  It was nothing, and then it was something.  Maybe from a half-ass consideration on her part, but to be honest I was a little in love.  She really was beautiful.


Today is Saturday

I take my afternoon coffee with a lot of milk and two sugars.  It's really nice out today, a clear blue sky.

"Their cousins?"

"Their cousins," I confirmed.

She gazed into the sunlit street, sipping her coffee.  She then turned back to me, smiling as always.

"But see, they can only marry certain cousins," I pushed on. "They're called 'cross cousins' and you determine them by seeing whether they're related through the mother or father...and if their gender is the opposite...or maybe its the same...I don't know, something like that."

Her hair was tied back and she looked really beautiful nodding at my rantings.  "That's interesting," she said innocently.

I let out a sigh. "Alright, I can tell you're just humoring me and don't care about African cousin marriage.  What do you want to talk about?"

She laughed happily and blushed since I read her disapproval so well.  She always liked to think of herself as someone who could fake interest.

She shifted in her seat and sipped more coffee, looking at me questioningly.

"Tell me why you drink so much coffee."

I was a little startled.  No one had ever asked me.

"It's safer than crack and cheaper than Prozac," I declared, holding my coffee cup as an example.  I put it down, smiling sheepishly.

"I've always had a problem with happiness and such, one that no one else could ever understand."  I paused, looking for better words.  "Coffee is my equalizer, you could say.  The enemy of despair. Makes me a little bit easier to understand, for both parties involved.  It makes me... relateable."

Her face began to drop at my words.  "You don't think you're relateable?" 

"I know I'm not," I insisted.  "Life has done a fine job of draining every drop of optimism from me.  At least for now."

I sipped a bit more and chose my next words carefully.

"This coffee is I feel my bridge to humanity.  For these few little moments in this coffee shop, I get to sit with the rest of human kind and read, drink coffee, feel happy, talk to people, and see what the normal life is like.  Feel the grass on the other side, I guess.  I wouldn't be talking to you if it weren't for this stuff, right?"

As I looked back at her, she was gazing at me, but her eyes looked a little glassy.  As the sun began to peek out from a cloud, she looked at the floor and began rolling up the sleeves of her gray sweater.

"Nothing is normal," she said after a few moments.  She was smiling, but it had a touch of tragedy. 
 
That was the first and last time that I held her hand.  I tried to smile, and her smile became deeper and more authentic as a result; always doing the things I couldn't.

"Coffee next weekend?"
 
There were two deep scars up both her dark forearms.  She really was beautiful.


Today is Sunday

I take my coffee black.  Just like the night sky.

It had been two weeks since I held her hand.  We had other conversations, other cups of coffee, but eventually she told me about the guy she started seeing a week ago.  Like many random loves, it started out as nothing and, through careful insistence, became something.  I think he worked in her office or something, and one day this guy just sort of walks up to her and asks her about such and such memo to such and such boss and then finds a way to slip in that well worn technique of the ambivalent romantic:

"You want to get a cup of coffee or something?"

Now pay attention, because each part of this question is very, very important and integral to the whole. 

"You want" seems innocent enough, but its very strategic, you see.  The word "want" immediately brings forth the concept of desire and urge.  Yes, what do I want in life?  Do I want a cup of coffee?  Do I want true love?  Do I want to buy a toy poodle to fulfill my need for children?  What does my heart truly desire?  If even a twinge of romantic desire exists in the person, the "you want" is sure to unearth it.

Now the "cup of coffee" is a very important medium of romantic expression, precisely because of its innocence.  Most people would quake at the idea of a whole meal or movie with someone, but you wouldn’t refuse to drink a beverage with someone, would you?  I could just as easily ask if you want go drink a glass of water with me, but at the same time the coffee is immensely important.  Why?  Because two people at a coffee shop can elicit a myriad of interpretations.  Are they business partners discussing important contracts?  Are they co-writing a screenplay?  Are they cousins?  No one will ever know.  And if worst comes to worse, the casual air of a coffee shop can allow for a quick and subtle retreat if your ambivalent romance goes sour.

Lastly, we arrive at the seemingly unimportant suffix "or something."  The importance of "or something" lies in its ability to say nothing and everything at the same time.  If I tack on a "something," I am handing you endless possibilities to be shaped by your love, indifference, or disgust for my proposition.  "Something" stretches itself to mean from "you can walk me out of the building" to "let's go to my house and make passionate love" and everything between, so there is no way that you can be threatened by my offer.  In the context of this question, it's the ultimate safety and the ultimate innuendo all at the same time.

They got coffee that afternoon with all sorts of innocent pleasantries.  She kept telling me he was the love of her life, but I get the idea he was so sure.  Through it all, I smiled.  I nodded.

That night, I sat and sulked into a mug and read a book of Emily Dickinson poems.  Did you know she got dumped about three times?  Then she locked herself in a cabin, away from all of humanity, and wrote some of the best poetry known to mankind.  It makes me reconsider my own view of life, that I should be joining human civilization.  Was the real key to burn the bridge?

"Would you watch my stuff?"

Some gangly looking hipster in a v-neck was going to the toilet.  Yeah, sure, I said.  I wondered, how many people in the history of "watch my stuff" have ever just plain taken off with it?

After he got back, I told him my thought about watching stuff.  He was actually a pretty cool guy, and we had a decent conversation.  Although it got a bit weird near the end.  I had never even heard of "dubstep." 

In these moments, I had finally learned the wisdom that she had tried to teach me all those times: just smile and nod.


Today is Friday

I take my coffee with milk, but just a little sugar.  I've learned to appreciate it this way.

It was a very beautiful afternoon.  After getting my coffee, I sat down next to a stack of magazines and began looking for a Foreign Policy.  I wanted to read about some fantastic problems, or maybe some fantastic solutions.  I'm not quite as cynical as I used to be, if you can believe it.  Life hasn't quite drained my optimism yet; nothing that a cup of liquid optimism can’t solve.

It was kind of crowded that day I think, or maybe it wasn't.  All I remember is that there were tons of fascinating looking people there.  Two middle aged men with baseball caps were playing the loudest game of chess I had ever seen in the corner, and one old lady sat behind one of the men and poked his ribs every time he said a curse word.  On the other side of the place, three nannies were loudly chatting with each other, somehow simultaneously shoving food into the mouths of three wailing blue-eyed babies.  Near the door, a man in a cardigan sat typing on his apple laptop and insisting to every passerby that he was working on something very important, and yes it’s a secret.  And finally, in the corner, I saw a couple, casually drinking coffee and pretending they didn't enjoy each other’s company.  I don’t remember much else, but I remember that it was glorious.  

After about five minutes, I found a copy of Foreign Policy.  Just as I was about to open it, I saw her passing by out the window.  She looked a lot happier.  As she saw me, she suddenly started pointing at the magazine, telling me to open it.

Every single article about dictators was circled and underlined.  Putin's picture had a mustache.

I gave her a thumbs up, and she just smiled back at me.  She really was beautiful.

~Jared