He Who Has Ears to Hear

The coffee shop was always busy on Saturday morning. Although a cloth canopy hung over the area, there were enough people crowded into the tables that the din of their voices made carrying on a conversation a challenge. But if you arrived early enough you could sit at a table on the outside of the area, with the parking lot on one side and another row of tables on the other. If you didn’t arrive early enough you would be forced to sit against the window, or even inside, where the noise was so loud you would have to yell to carry on a conversation. I didn’t care where I sat, but since I didn’t want to be hoarse I made sure to at least sit outside, and I sat at an outer table because my friend couldn’t stand feeling surrounded by a crowd. He had his face buried in a newspaper.

“Theo,” I said. “You’ve already read that thing twice. The words haven’t changed.”

He lowered his paper and glared at me. “You want to read it, I take it?”

I lowered my eyebrows and leaned forward in my seat. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

He sighed, folded the paper, and slid it across the table.

“Thanks,” I said. I removed a cigarette from my pack on the table and lit it. As I unfurled the paper I stopped.

A woman dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans was standing next to a table of twentysomethings. They waved their hands and motioned for her to leave. She sauntered over to the next table. The Middle Eastern-looking men that occupied it took their pipes out of their mouths and rattled off something that sounded like Arabic. The woman excused herself to the aisle and scanned the area.

Theo reached across the table. “If you’re not going to read it, I’d like it back.”

I stared at the woman. What was she saying?

“Demetrio!” Theo waved his hand. I started. “Are you going to read that thing?”

“Some woman’s going around talking to people,” I said.

“That’s nice. Probably something for the coffee shop.”

“She’s not in uniform. Look.” I tilted my head up.

Theo turned around. The woman’s eyes widened as she spotted our table. She started walking. Theo whipped his head around. “Give me back my paper.”

“You’re not going to talk to her?” I handed the paper back to him.

“No. She’s going to give me some feel-good, give-me-money spiel, and I don’t want to hear it.” He unfolded the paper.

I furrowed my eyebrows and sighed. “Same as always.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why should I let someone talk my ear off over something I care nothing about?”

I shrugged and looked up and extinguished my cigarette.

“You weren’t finished.”

“I was close enough.” I leaned back in my chair and smiled. “Besides, we have a guest.”

Theo glanced to his left and threw his paper up in front of his face. The woman smiled and looked at me. “Would you care to change the world, sir?” Theo grunted.

I put my hands together in my lap. “If I ca—”

“The world changes itself well enough already, thank you very much,” said Theo. My smile vanished and I squeezed my hands.

The woman looked over to Theo. “But we can help it, sir. My name is Joy. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She extended her hand to him. He simply stared at his paper.

I stood up. “Hi, Joy, I’m Demetrio. Pleased to meet you.” Joy turned to me and shook my hand.

Theo coughed. “Joy, may I ask you a question?” He put down his paper. Joy nodded. “How old are you? You don’t have to be specific.”

Joy arched an eyebrow. “What does it matter, sir?”

I sat down and shook my head. “Good lord,” I muttered.

“Relax, Demetrio. I’m just going to try to make a point.” Theo looked at Joy. “Again, might I ask your age?”

Joy sighed. “I’m in my mid twenties, sir.”

“And what’s your profession?”

“I’m a secretary at a law firm.”

Theo laughed. “And you expect to change the world!” I separated my hands and grasped the armrests. “Look,” Theo continued, “the only change that comes about in the world is from the top down.” I ground my teeth.

“Unless you’re a national politician or an executive at a global corporation, you can’t change a damn thing. That’s how things are.”

“Theo, shut up,” I said, my teeth clenched.

Joy put a palm toward me. “I might not be able to change anything myself, but I can at least try to do something.” She crossed her arms.

I rested my chin in my hand. What would the all-knowing cynic say now?

“By all means, try! Try, try, and try again—and when that doesn’t work, try some more!”

I shot a look at Theo and flattened my eyebrows. “Theo, she hasn’t even started yet. Let her speak.”

Joy stared at Theo. “Thank you, Demetrio. When I say try, sir, I don’t mean make a half-assed attempt, I mean put in a full effort. I assume you put in a full effort for what’s important to you.”

“What’s important to me is at least realistic, doable. Get your head out of the clouds.”

I put my hands together and rested my head on them. “Joy, ma’am, he’s not going to stop until you leave.” She looked over at me. “Unlike everyone else here, he doesn’t have the courtesy to tell you straight up that he’s not interested.”

Joy looked back at Theo. He smirked and nodded. She looked again at me. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time. Good day, Demetrio.” She glared at Theo, turned around, and made her way back through the tables.

Theo sighed. “Thank God. I thought she’d never leave.”

I sat up and leaned back in my chair, shaking my head. “Did you have to be so harsh? A simple, ‘No thanks, I’m not interested’ would’ve been fine.” I stared at the rotting wooden surface of the table. A few holes had appeared throughout the wood, and a cigarette butt rolled and fell through one of them.

Theo folded up his paper and threw it down on the table. “Don’t tell me how to talk to people, Demetrio. I know damn well how to handle them.”

“You ‘handle them’ by shutting them out. I swear, every time anyone ever tries to say anything to you, you insult them until they give up.”

“I already know what they’re going to say.” Theo stared at the table. “It’s the same meaningless thing over and over again, about problems that I don’t have.” He reached over and grabbed my pack of cigarettes and dragged it across the table. He removed a cigarette from the pack and stuck it in his mouth. “I hate when people feel that whatever they’re saying is important enough to harass someone they don’t know, you know?”

“She wasn’t harassing us, Theo.”

“I wasn’t talking only about her.”

I stopped. Where was he going with this? Who else could he be talking about? The countless other strangers he’d never talked to? And when did Theo start smoking?

Theo bobbed the cigarette up and down in his mouth and pulled the cigarette from his lips. He threw the cigarette down on the ground and crushed it. My eyes widened and I took a loud deep breath. I snatched the pack of cigarettes from Theo.

“What the hell, man?”

Theo shrugged. “I have my vices, and you have yours.”

I lowered my eyelids and removed a cigarette from the pack and lit it. “My vice is smoking. You berate strangers and friends.”

Theo tapped a finger on the table. His head was pointed at the table but his eyes were focused on me. “You do the same.”

“So it’s down to me now.”

Theo smirked. “Mmhmm. You sit there in your fancy suit, looking down on me as I ‘wallow in my mistakes,’ as you once put it.”

“When did I say that?”

“You sit there telling me each thing I do wrong as you smoke your cancer sticks and laugh to yourself as you think how much better you are than me.”

My blood rushed through my veins. Every pulse in my veins felt bigger than the last and my veins felt as if they would burst. My arms felt hollow. My skin felt thin as paper. My head became heavy. How could Theo say that I thought I was better than he? How self-important was he that any little criticism would instantly be met in such a confrontational manner? I rested a fist on the edge of the table. “I’ve never said I’m better than you, I’ve never said you’re wallowing in your own mistakes, and I’ve certainly never thought either.”

“Your smug demeanor betrays you, Demetrio.”

“I’ve never been smug with you.”

Theo scoffed.

“What, I’m smug because I’ve tried to help you? Because I’ve said, ‘Gee, Theo, downing five shots of whiskey each night might not be such a good idea’? Because I said, ‘You know, maybe you shouldn’t throw your money away gambling’? Because I dared to help you find a job when you got fired? Because I dared to say that you’d screwed up?”

Theo shook his head and laughed. “And the point eludes you yet again.” He opened the paper again and threw it up in front of his face.

I tore away the paper and crumpled it and threw it in the trashcan behind him. “Now who’s the one talking down?”

Theo stared at the trashcan. “Oh, look, you just did the same thing I did.”

“You bury your face behind your paper and—”

“So you’re upset that I don’t spill my guts to you?”

“You seal yourself off to everyone. Every time I’ve seen you talk to a stranger you’ve found some way to tell him off—”

“Then you’re upset that I don’t like talking to strangers who harass me?”

I threw my hands up. The cigarette fell to the ground. “Again ‘the point eludes you.’ You shut out your sister, you shut out your mother, you shut out your pastor—you shut out anyone who says something uncomfortable to you!” I stomped the fallen cigarette and lit another one. “That seems to be everyone you know.”

Theo shook his head. “From your high perch everything is so small, so simple, so obvious. Tell me, John Madden, do you know what it feels like for everything you do and say to be criticized by everyone around you?”

I took a draught of my cigarette. The nine or ten other tables in the area were filled to their capacity. There were some twentysomethings sitting at their table at the opposite end; Middle Eastern-looking men rambling on in a mixture of Arabic and English; soccer moms enjoying their scant free time; older women with their little dogs in their hands. I wanted to talk to each one of them, to find out their stories, their lives. But as long as I stayed with Theo I would never get the chance. He would wonder why anyone would bother with strangers. There probably was no point to it in his opinion, so whatever they had to say wouldn’t likely matter to him.

“Do you?” Theo repeated.

I shifted my gaze back to Theo. Beautiful people, all of them, and he probably wouldn’t even give them the time of day. “Why, yes.” I stood up and slid my chair away from the table. “Every time I talk to you.” I made my way through the tables and continued around the corner of the coffee shop.