The Bourgeois Pig

Author's Note: This is a creative non-fiction piece I have been working on for about four years (not all the time, mind you, but whenever the urge to work on it struck). As of today I have submitted it to DePaul's "Threshold" literary and fine arts journal. I'll let you know how that goes!

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"Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion."

- Tool, "Schism"

This story, takes place in a café. Not some Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts mind you; but a proper coffee shop, a coffee person's coffee shop: the ironically (or aptly, depending on your temperament) named Bourgeois Pig of Halsted street. Originally I was to meet a friend whom I haven't seen in quite some time, but unfortunately she hadn't responded to my message to finalize our meeting and I took that to mean she probably wouldn't appear. Undaunted, I went to the café anyway, hoping she would show up to spite her silence and even if she didn't (I rationalized) I could always use some good coffee, and some time to just sit. Just to be.

The place itself is a marvel: chalkboard menu, books scattered around, wooden tables and chairs of no common origin. The upstairs is furnished with old 19th century France style couches and art. In the air the scent of java mingled with the ideas of the patrons. French roast intersecting with literature.

After I had been served my coffee (Mocha with whipped cream) I took my seat in the middle of the downstairs sitting area. It was relatively crowded (as it usually is), but still managed to find a table all for myself. I removed my hat, settled into my chair, and pulled out a crossword and pen from my coat pocket. I marveled at my own air of cosmopolitanism with my coffee, black pea coat and crossword. If only I was allowed to smoke, the aesthetic would be complete.

I entered my own little universe, content. Certainly, this café was built especially for me. As I began my puzzle any hope of meeting my friend had vanished along with my sense of context and it had been replaced with my own sense of warm, cozy solitariness. Suddenly it was as if everyone had dissolved, becoming lines and boxes; creating a matrix of down and across; itself composed of words and letters, all held together by a series of disjointed and enigmatic clues.

After awhile this couple sat down next to me. They were silent and I didn't take much notice of them at first until the man started their conversation by informing the woman that someone had hit is car. I was immediately interested, and I looked up briefly. They were positioned in such a way so that it was as if I were viewing a play. I was in the audience and they were on stage facing each other. Quickly, I looked back down at my puzzle. I couldn't watch them directly (to do so would be socially unacceptable), so I would have to watch with my ears, perhaps only with an occasional glance.

The woman asked him whether or not they had exchanged insurance. He replied that they had exchanged email and phone, but not insurance to which the woman said, in a huff: "they're not going to contact you, you know and even if you contacted them, they’ll just ignore you anyway". In my head I appended "idiot" to the end of the sentence for her.

The man responded with silence

More silence, until it was broken again by the man with a flood of quiet, defeated apologies. What he was apologizing for I do not know, but by the dynamic of the conversation I don't believe it was anything serious. It struck me as one of those silly, mundane "fights" that aren't of any substance; akin to the mindless quarrels of not putting down the toilet seat or something equally as asinine. But there was something different about this one: an intense desperation on the part of the man.

"I can only say 'I'm sorry' so many times" I heard him say. The woman said nothing in response.

I could feel the franticness of his apologies, with his body leaning in towards the woman, arms extended, trying to reach out to her, trying to make her understand. His mouth flapping, hysterical and useless, expressing his impotent wantonness. I feel no shame nor harbor any reservations when I say that never in my life have I seen anything as pathetic as what I bore witness then.

The woman sat unimpressed. Out of my periphery, I could see the coldness in her eyes as she just stared at the man, half reveling in and half disgusted with what she saw.

It was then when I decided that this man was a coward. Despite all his efforts, all his emphatic, desperate insistence of mea culpa, nowhere could I find a dignified, respectable man. All I saw was a sad, terrified mouse being toyed with by some cat. What's more is that I don't believe that he was truly sorry at all. Certainly he was remorseful, he regretted the act, but not for the act itself. In my estimation the only reason he was apologizing at all was because she found out. Again, I'll never know the exact details of the situation, let alone his guilt, but whether or not he was truly at fault is irrelevant, he is a coward because he is not honest.

But that woman! I cannot describe the strange combination of awe, terror, admiration, and disgust I felt in her presence. The cat toying with her mouse. The mastery she had over him! I could not help but take part in feeling some sort of sadistic glee

By this time their food had arrived and the direction of their conversation moved into a more pedestrian mode, the details of which I cannot recall, due to its vile insipidness (I believe it had something to do with the weather of all things), which I actually found rather surprising for it was not the flavor of discourse I have come to expect given my setting. For at the same time there were two blokes two tables over involved in a rather spirited discussion alternating between fuzzy math, probability theory and literature. This is the tenor of conversation I've come to expect from the Pig and one of the reasons why it will always have a special place in my heart.

At this point I sort of tuned out, partly due to their banality, but mostly because I couldn't for the life of me think of a six letter word for "dialect of a particular group" (it was "patois" in case you're wondering). But my ears did perk for a telling moment in their dialogue.

"I don't like thanksgiving." The woman said abruptly. My caffeine and crossword induced trance was instantly broken. "What a remarkable thing to say!" I thought to myself, smiling a little. The boldness! But, it was the way in which she said it that was most interesting to me. It was as if she had wound the words around themselves and had used it as a stick to prod at the man. “What do you think of it?” she asked of the man and instead of answering the question, he deflected, responding with “how’s your sandwich”.

I could almost hear the man’s testicles retracting into his pelvis as I let out a disappointed groan into my coffee. If "I don't like Thanksgiving" was a poking stick then the follow-up "what do you think of it" was a lead pipe. Clearly she was trying to bait him into a confrontation. Clearly, she had something she needed to say and the man knew exactly what it was.

"Are these people blind!" I thought to myself, frustrated. Couldn't they see that this passive-aggressiveness will get them nowhere? Couldn't they see the brick wall between them? I remember how the man stretched his arms, prostrating before her. I remember how he attempted to touch her, but now all I can imagine is him deliriously running his hands over a wall that in his ignorance and stupidity, forgot why it had been erected. Feeling every crack, cutting his palms on every barb. The complete and utter self-imposed isolation between two people, between us all.

I gave up on the couple. They deserved each other.

The woman got up to use the washroom just as I had finished my puzzle and I was preparing to leave whereupon I caught my first glance at the man. He leaned back in his chair, let out a sigh and washed his face in his hands. After my personal catharsis of sadistic pleasure in the couple's situation, pity descended upon me and I felt the need to expiate. I really wanted to say something to him, but I didn’t for fear of being thought of as a creepy eavesdropper.

Even after all that, all that analysis and armchair psychoanalyzing, after all the impotent judgment I had rendered; I didn't engage him at all. I merely let out a groan as I rose from my chair, affixed my hat and walked out of the shop.

If I would have said something to him it would have been this: “I couldn’t help but notice the lack of laughter between you two”. To this day I truly don't know why I thought of that particular phrase. I suppose it just seemed poignant at the time.

Perhaps I should have said something to him, but then again, I am a coward too.