| Eli | |||
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Tonight's lesson was $1.55 and the coffee was free. I don't imagine it possible to fully articulate the images which are freshly etched and the anger that is still thawing the frost out of my beard. I took my seat at the Second Cup with a regular cup of Irish Cream Coffee. Ten feet away from me was a middle-aged man (I found out later his name was Eli) sitting with a cup, and also on the table was another cup but I never saw to whom it belonged. He was dressed well, seemingly mild-mannered, pleasant smile, and he was native.. |
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| Right beside him were two women pleasantly carrying on. I watched Eli, I watched him watch nothing in particular. I saw him speak words that evaporated before they reached anyone's ear. Without much notice he turned to the women and asked if he could speak to them. They remained speechless for some time. Eli could not formulate much of a query, he was erratic and distant. I imagined him to be still high from something, his actions fit the type. Eventually the elder woman continued just where the women had left off. With a pattern as irregular as lit windows in an office building after hours Eli would either repeat something the women had said or laugh at something they laughed at. But at this point he was all but invisible, or perhaps he was the image you caught blurred behind the exhaust of transit bus in December. The image you caught that was actually your reflection. You didn't care, so the image you caught you threw away. This the ladies did as they got up and left, never responding to Eli since their first confrontation. | |||
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Eli sat alone for about five minutes until two college kids approached the table that the ladies left vacant. About to sit down they were confronted with Eli. Some comment or question, intelligible or otherwise was constructed by Eli. Spoken with a tone and pitch soft enough that I never could make it out. The boys saw these words as the man standing in the middle of a narrow hallway, acknowledged only as an impediment to their destination, but direct enough that you need to alter your original course. So Eli sat alone. That is until he went to the bathroom. I never saw where the college kids sat, but in that time they came and took Eli's spot. Maybe they thought he left, I can't really say. It was perhaps another five minutes before Eli returned. |
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I waited for his response in the same manner that I used to wait for Jack to spring from his box. But Jack never startled me this time. It was only Eli who remained, asking if he could sit with them. He asked if he could sit with them, gently and with poise. Again there was silence. It was a silence and an atmosphere that cannot be properly described, but is the feeling that every person who ever feared losing something smells in a instant. I have smelled it often. But this scent permeates our world and there are few who can distinguish it anymore. It is awkwardness laced with fear. It is the combined realization of your illegitimacy and of your "rank" at the same moment. Eli persisted. Until the boys were forced into some type of response. It was clear. It was, in a word, "no." In a thought it was "we have more right than you, you do not actually belong here, we're doing everyone else a favor by forcing you to leave, extinguishing the possibility of your intrusion upon anyone else." I know these thoughts, it was one of my first. |
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Eli made one or perhaps a few more attempts to win that seat that was his only five minutes ago. The boys were clear and they did not change. Eli made another form of confrontation. He picked up one of the boys' hot chocolates. I still remember that the hot chocolate was topped with soft smooth white whipped cream. Eli began walking towards the door which was directly in front of me. The boy could not allow this invasion to be payment for a seat that only a stupid college kid would try to take. So he got up and grabbed Eli's arm shaking the cup loose and sending it to the floor. The pace quickened and it is likely at that moment many eyes were picked up and focused on Eli for the first time. I know I would cringe at our collected thoughts.
"I'm glad someone stood up for himself. It's no use trying to make ourselves into victims." "Drunk" "Drunk Indian."
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| One courageous young lad who had probably taken some martial arts lessons at
the university got up and tried to force Eli out. Eli's hands latched onto the
doorframe like the vice in my father's work shed. An employee seeing all this
for the first time came and threatened to call the police. I sat. I sat and
watched. Two feet in front of me was the history of humanity. Taught in one
lesson, no textbooks. I finally got up. I put my hand on his shoulder. I
convinced him to walk outside. And we did.
After I walked out, I found out his name was Eli. But what everyone else saw as we walked out was just a lie. |
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