A Gentle Hand and the Invisible Woman

It would be so nice to walk to the coffee shop with the blue door this morning. I said to myself as my hands dug deep into the pockets of my jean jacket. I had been en route to the coffee shop with the red door, the coffee shop who’s door had six tiny windows in it and who’s proprietor had suggested that I listen to a podcast which I was now deeply in love with. She was a thin woman with big shining eyes and straight, but frizzy hair. She liked cash. I had cash in my pocket that I had planned to give her. I peered up at the blue sky and tried to gauge if it would rain. My head was uncovered and my hair was done and my ass looked good and my bra was the one that actually fit me and my shoes were the black boots that sounded like a slow, firm clap coming up the street.

I was approaching a church that, like most churches, was deserted on a weekday morning, and it had this window that stretched all along one side—very Frank Lloyd Wright—the perfect place to strut around and look at yourself like a 4 year old. Clap, clap, clap, my boots said. My reflection came into view. I looked good. I pranced a little. I maybe turned around once or twice to look contemplatively at the back of me and to agree with whatever information I found there. Wait let me just check again that I agree. I thought. Yes. I do. I squinted up again, still blue. The decision was made and the black boots clapped their way around the next corner.

I was off course. The first time I walked from my house to the coffee shop with the blue door Google Maps had given me a streamlined, topographical line to follow that took me through an alleyway for two blocks. I loved walking up this alleyway because it made me feel like a local, like a woman who’s sure of herself. Having never lived in any apartment or shared house for more than two years I was giddy with excitement every time my life brought me into contact with local secrets. Every time I noticed the children in one house had left their dolls out under the same tree they had the week before, or during the holidays when the decorations went up I pondered them like a local who could have strong opinions either one way or another.

The door at the coffee shop with the blue door is painted a powder blue and has a large window set inside it. You can see all the way into this coffee shop from the sidewalk outside. You can see the counter and the door to the bathroom and the tops of the heads of the people sitting in the reading nook and all of the many singular people sitting at tables working.

“Americans are always working.” I said to a strange man one afternoon who I agreed to meet because we matched on Tinder. We were talking inexplicably about the coffee shop with the blue door. I hadn’t brought it up, though I think about that coffee shop often and had maybe conjured it through telekinesis from his infinite well of memory.

“That’s what it felt like in this coffee shop!” He had said, “I couldn’t believe it. It was just row after row of people on their computers or with papers all around them, like they were guarding against something. It was quiet, like silent.” I had asked him to meet me at a coffee shop in Fremont called Espresso to Go. I can’t remember what color the door was because it was always open. He had arrived late and was palpably disappointed that I had already bought a coffee. I think it was because there was an inherent vulnerability in him. He walked around like a huge bruise, bumping into things.

“That sounds eerie.” I had said. I had thought for a moment of what might be the perfect word to use in this context. I had decided on eerie.

“The coffee shop is one of the only public spaces Americans have to interact in a real way anymore. I mean, standing there I was like immediately hit with this sadness. All these beings just separated by their own fear. Eerie is right.” He sipped an 8 oz Americano and I felt decidedly less than as I waited for my huge 12 oz Americano to cool down. He was a seer and a doer and I was a pussy. And his tiny coffee told me so.

I was too ashamed to admit that I enjoyed the silence in the coffee shop with the blue door. I went there for the collective silence, the pulsing of the many bodies and the agreement we had all made to concentrate, or distract ourselves together. No one was asking for attention. The baristas were on call if needed and when you did need them they were so gentle. Each of the paper cups they used had a little cloud on it with a hand coming down from the little cloud. I really liked that coffee shop.

“Bummer.” I said to the strange man. I tried to sip my coffee. It was too hot. I returned it to my lap.

It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that I frequented a coffee shop that was a 22 minute walk from my house only because I enjoyed the silence I found there. There was also a thing that had happened to me recently while I was there one weekend morning. A Saturday. I had been wearing a crop top and had my hair neatly braided in a crown braid. A gentle barista had spoken to me while brewing my Americano in a cup adorned by a cloud.

“I like your earrings.” He had said. Like there was nothing sexual about it. Or no. He had said it like there was nothing wrong with there being something sexual about it. You’re a woman. I’m a gentle, cloudy man. Let’s get together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“Thank you.” I had said, instantly ashamed and possibly showing the bud of a red flower growing in my cheeks. I had looked at him but had hidden much. I think I was flirting but it’s hard to pin that kind of thing down. Sometimes when I find myself in the problematically enviable position of having at least a modicum of a man’s sexual attention, it feels quite surprising. Like I’m a mermaid minding my own business swimming with the fishes and then suddenly I see one of the fishes has a knife. Or it’s as if I’m a prisoner attempting escape in the middle of the night. It’s 2am and all is going according to plan. I’m sneaking across the yard to the next fence when the spotlight shines blindingly on me. The guards hand me a microphone and ask me if I know any Neil Diamond songs. I don’t. That day at the coffee shop with the blue door I had the feeling that you get when you stare at a dish on the wall for a long time, admiring the intricate patterns painted there when out of the patterns emerges the image of a face with closed eyes and a closed mouth. I had the feeling you get when you stare at a face on a dish for a long time and then suddenly the eyes open and they look right at you.

“Did you make them?” The dish asked, gently smiling. “I’ve been seeing people wearing those kind of face earrings around lately. They’re really cool.”

“They are super cheap on Amazon right now.” I said to the gentle barista in a way that made me think of him as a bad little boy. Hidden in my words had been these other words: I don’t play your little games…

“Oh that makes me really mad actually.” He said. I said nothing in return. I felt small and bad in my own way now. I’m a bad little girl who shops on Amazon aren’t I? My eyes said as I picked up my cup and walked back to the reading nook. He watched me. I think he watched me.

“That’s where our sense of rage comes from.” The strange man said as we sat outside at Espresso to Go, a hint of that rage present in his voice. “I’d just like to know how long it will go on like this. There’s a veritable end point that I don’t like to think of. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Like to think of the end point of humanity?” He was looking deeply into my eyes at this point. At Espresso to Go you sit outside in two wooden cinema chairs side by side. You can also sit inside if the one table inside is free, or you can just take that shit to go. We were sitting outside side by side and he was looking deeply into my eyes. It seemed to me somewhat of a waste of energy to be turning so severely just to look into my eyes. But to each their own. “Some people do you know.”

“I guess I do think about it. I don’t think I like it, but I kind of can’t help it. Stories are meant to run their course. It feels like they will accomplish this by any means necessary.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, as soon as you think of the beginning of a story its like you’re at the end already. That’s the way with the history of humanity. It’s only a matter of time.”

“But you’re inventing the way to get there.”

“Sort of. Have you ever just like, found a story inside you?” I said, “A story that’s been there like, the whole time? It almost feels like you didn’t even write it?”

“I’ve always found when I strip it all away I’m a blank slate.” He continued to look deeply into my eyes.

“I think I’ve always felt like a crumpled up piece of paper. But it’s like a blank piece of paper.” I said. This whole time he’d been staring into my eyes in a way that made me feel nervous. I had the feeling that if I were more comfortable—if I could just will myself to be—I might have found it sexy. If I could have just willed the comfort into being, but the only thing that came into my mind when I thought of willing the comfort into being was creating a kind of mind-powered exoskeleton that leaked out of my brain and covered me, protecting me from everything, and I would just sit there as the whole world faded away, every sound, every beat of a butterfly’s wings…

“I find my microdosing has really helped me with my anger.” He said. “And my runaway lusting after women I can’t have.”

“Oh yeah?” I said.

“Yeah. Like right now. I’m just here. With you.”

“Cool. That sounds relaxing.” I said. I checked my coffee. I found it cool enough to drink. So I drank some.

My black boots clapped up the sidewalk. And my face came into contact with the air flowing down the local alleyway. I was halfway to the coffee shop with the blue door. I turned and stood in the air current taking in the natural and fabricated beauty surrounding the opening, the little pebbles in the pavement, the wooden fences, the well-maintained, craggy exteriors of the expensive houses lining the alleyway, every crag hiding another adorable door. I clapped up the alleyway feeling separate but also close to the inhabitants of these houses. I was in their space but they couldn’t see me, just the way I like it, the invisible woman.