Café Dexter

There is a place further up the street, but it is cold and wet, and I am tired. My choice of attire today has been found lacking. Mistakes have been made. My waterproof coat is hanging up by the door at home, having been usurped by the far warmer fleece-lined, cord bomber jacket with the fluffy collar.

It has been snowing since the day before, so logic would dictate that it was the correct choice, but as the day had gone on, the flakes had become considerably wetter.

As a result, my jacket and woolly gloves are soaked through, and even my feet are beginning to hurt.

It’s strange how something can appear in one way, yet be revealed to be another.

I step through the doorway, feeling that first rush of warm air from within the cafe envelope me. I shouldn’t be here, but I need to get out of the billowing flakes that soak like rain.

The cafe is almost entirely full of people huddling to escape the weather. A few heads turn automatically as I enter, scan me swiftly then return to their own conversations, or staring into their hot coffee like a hobo might a barrel of flames.

I shuffle between a pair of parked pushchairs, offering a cursory apology under my breath. There are no tables free, but there are a few stools still vacant at the long counter and I swiftly pick the nearest one.

It’s silly, but I feel more comfortable closer to the door.

Groaning, I release the four shopping bags from my grasp, letting them slide slowly to the tiled floor. Their handles pulled taught with the weight of the cargo beneath have etched deep, painful grooves into my fingers. I extend and ball them into a fist, trying to encourage the circulation to return, having been driven away by cold and pressure.

I must hiss through my teeth louder than I thought because I feel someone looking at me from further down the counter.

Bright, blue eyes, wide and amused. She smiles knowingly at my pain. I can see a pile of shopping bags by her feet too. We share a moment of shared misery at the blight of annual festive consumerism, but she holds my gaze a little longer than simple mutual acknowledgement.

She is pretty. Blonde, seemingly short from the fact that her feet are nowhere near the ground on the stool, and curvy. Her stylish red Parka is unbuttoned at the front in an effort to cool her down, and she is what my mother would have called buxom.

I look away, not wanting to push my luck. I’ll play it cool, order my coffee, then try to catch her eye again a few moments. If I can, I might break the habit of a lifetime and shuffle clumsily down the counter to talk to her.

At twenty-two, I had only ever had two girlfriends, one a summer fling, the other lasting three years. Having been single for nearly eighteen months, I am more than ready to get back on that particular horse.

The person behind the counter is a tall, slim black man with a shaved head and pointed features, serving alongside a tiny woman in her sixties with dark curly hair. She has an archetypal gipsy quality, her fingers are heavy with garish rings. I raise my head and the man notices me.

‘Coffee, please’, I say, then have to repeat it over the noise of the cafe. He juts his chin, grabs a pot and cup, starts to pour it. As he does, I notice a neat sign printed on plastic above the counter.

RIGHTS ONLY.

In the past, such a notice would have bothered me more, but these days I am as comfortable as I can be in places like this. As I said, there was a more welcoming place at the other end of the block, but for the sake of a quick coffee and five minutes to thaw, it’s worth the risk.

Now filled to the brim, I ensure to take the up coffee with my right hand, deftly bringing it to my lips with practised ease.

The man steps away to serve the next person, a refill on their coffee and I glance at the girl again.

This time she is not looking at me. Instead, she is pressing the screen of her phone with cold, clumsy fingers. There are used plates in front of her; a large one containing the remnants of a panini, half a chocolate fudge cake on the smaller. The cutlery is placed casually on the right-hand edge of both.

Suddenly, she finishes thumbing her phone and raises her head to catch the attention of the servers. It is the woman who attends to her. I can’t hear their voices, but the girl clearly wants to pay, and as she speaks, her gaze drifts across to me.

It lingers on me, even as she speaks to the woman.

I smile to myself.

Game on.

She clearly on the verge of leaving, so I’ll have to move fast. Either that or I finish my coffee quickly to coincide with her departure, catch her as she steps out onto the street.

I frown into my cup. It’s risky; could come off as stalker-like, and it is damned cold out there. I was hoping to push my luck in here for at least ten minutes before venturing back out into the elements.

I glance over. She is wrapping her scarf around her neck, shaking her hair out.

Our gazes meet again, for a moment.

Damn, she is cute. If I don’t give it a go, I’ll be kicking myself all weekend.

Screw it. Go for it. The worst outcome is she gives me a disgusted look and walks away. The best-case scenario is that I might have a buddy to keep me warm over New Years.

The woman approaches the girl and passes the bill over, and the girl takes it.

My heart leaps a little. My stomach sinks.

She had taken it in her right hand, the same as every other person in here but me, but in a moment of pure instinct, her left hand had twitched first.

I look around quickly. No one else had noticed it, and she has recovered expertly. Still, it was almost a mistake that she should not have made.

She pays with cash, this time making the exchange using her right hand where appropriate and stands, gathering her shopping bags. As she stands, she looks at me again.

It’s so on, I think.

I’ll wait until she almost at the door, then down my coffee and set off in pursuit. With any luck, my bravery will hold out until I can catch up with her on the street; there I’ll see if she wants to grab another coffee in the other place.

A cafe that we’ll both be more comfortable in. A place that we can be ourselves.

I sip my coffee. It’s not cooling down very fast. I’ll have to leave most of it.

Getting ready, I wrap my fingers around the handles of the bag and watch her stand. She starts easing her way through the crowded floor, between the tables, strays legs and bags.

At the far side, there is another pushchair and a baby on a woman’s knee. As the girl passes, the baby throws its dummy on the floor by her feet. My heart leaps into my throat as she stops, allows the bags to rest on the door. The straps go limp as she reaches down to pick the dummy up.

I watch, numb, as she hands it back to the mother whose eyes are suddenly aflame with disgust and indignity. The mother's mouth drops open and she leans away, pulling her baby away from the dummy proffered in the girl left hand.

‘Dirty fucking leftie!’

The girl looks at her own hand, and almost in shock at the sight of it, realises her mistake. She shakes her head, swaps it to her right, but it is too late.

On the table behind the mother, two men with white beards and deeply wrinkled brows snap their heads at the words, their eyes cutting into the girl.

She shakes her head, then smiles and frowns all at once, saying, ‘No, I’m not. It’s just my other hand is full of bags.’

Then three pairs of eyes are looking at her hands, to where her cargo is split equally between her limbs.

The lie is laid bare, and the girl knows it. My heart is pounding and I feel suddenly hot in the stuffy space.

Run, I scream at her with my mind, go now!

It’s like she hears me. She steps past the mother, hurrying towards the door but the second of the older men steps across her path.

She smiles nervously, ‘I’m not leftie… I’m just in a hurry.’

Then a voice is bellowing over my shoulder, the man from the counter, ‘What the hell’s going on?’

The second older man replies, self-righteous anger burnt into his tone, ‘You’ve got a leftie in here, pal!’

‘What? Who?’ The server is craning his thin neck, trying to see through the heads. All the heads in the cafe are now turned towards the girl. All conversation has now stopped. The stifling air is now thick with silence.

I watch the girl swallows, her voice trembling, ‘I’m not leftie… please, I’m not.’

It’s an Asian woman who speaks next, almost spitting, ‘Write your name then! Prove it.’

As if in answer, a pen in thrust forward, held aloft amidst the rumble of talk about the girl.

I am frozen. My finger wrapped around the bags, almost too afraid to move unless I too am uncovered.

The girl looks at the pen, blinking sweat from her eyes, then carefully takes it.

Another person slides a scrap of paper, perhaps a bill or receipt, over to her. Her hand shaking, the girl leaves the shopping bags on the floor and moves to the table with the paper.

The pen, quivering in her grip, lowers to the paper. The nib presses against the rough surface but doesn’t move.

‘Go on then. Nothing to worry about unless you’re lying to us.’

I watch her close her eyes, tears form in the corners and she mutters, ‘I just wanted coffee… it’s cold outside.’

A raucous, emphatic cheer rises from the room; the joy of discovering the liar, their own worth now elevated by it.

‘Can’t you read?’, the serving man says, ‘Rights Only. There’s a place for your kind further down the street.’

The girl looks down, ‘I’m sorry, I’m leaving.’ She looks for her bags, realises that she still has the dummy in her left hand and turns to the mother.

Cautiously, she holds it out to her, and the mother looks like she might actually vomit. She spits acidly, ‘I don’t want that thing now you’ve had your filthy leftie hands on it! How dare you even think of giving it to my child! You’re disgusting!’

The strike is sudden and startling. Open palm across the girls face. The dummy drops to the floor. There are groans from those appalled at the violence, muted cheers from those pleased by justice being done.

‘Got to learn their lesson.’

‘Disgusting attitude, they have.’

‘Can’t just come in here like that, it’s not right.’

Those who were quieter before are becoming more vocal. Some cannot look away. Others want to see how it will turn out. A few are leaving, and it is these who concern me. They are going before it escalates; perhaps they don’t fully agree with the status quo, but they are too afraid to stand against it.

I much as I hate to admit it, I understand that.

I sit, rooted to the spot, a fraud amongst the Rights, saying nothing through fear that I might be next.

I am as ashamed as I am terrified.

Then it gets worse.

The girl responds to the mother in kind. Her own slap is equal in both force and surprise, yet whereas the mother took pride in hers, the girl immediately understands what she has done.

It was instinct. It was a burst of anger and frustration, born out of years of persecution and oppression the like of which the mother had never, and would never, know or understand.

Human, no, animal nature; to push back, when pushed too far.

Rationality, however, and realisation of consequence, is a bucket of cold water to the girl.

It is the older men who grab her, pulling her across the table, and the Asian woman is grabbing her too. People are moving, standing up to see or to get involved.

I lose sight of her.

My heart is hammering outside of my chest. I want to run. I don’t want to see it. I want to help. I know I can’t

It shouldn’t be like this. She should be outside, getting wet in the sleet, listening to me clumsily chat her up. She should be politely rejecting me right now, or we should we walking to the Left-Friendly cafe exchanging shy conversation.

Instead, I am smothered by the shame of my fear, watching her being pulled apart by a mob driven by hate.

There is a scream and I sense the crowd parting a little. Through the heads, I can discern the girl standing up, stumbling backwards. Her hair is in disarray and there is a sizeable fresh bruise on her cheek, a cut on her lip and eyebrow.

They are shouting at her, calling her a thug. Someone else if saying that she had stabbed them, and I can glimpse the pen in her hand. The blue plastic is now red with blood.

‘Call the police!’ Another shouts, making my blood run cold.

When the police become involved in these situations, I have come to learn in my life, things tend to escalate out of all proportion. There is an institutional fear, seemingly trained into them by their forebears. Where it stems from, I have never been able to fully understand, but it prompts swift and inexplicably violent action. I have seen on the news, and I have witnessed it first hand on two occasions. Both times, I have been left with an inescapable sense that, being simply who I was born to be, I was living on borrowed time.

The girl is backed into the corner, wide-eyed and terrified. This was the person I simply wanted to talk to, to have a drink with, perhaps date.

Now, this is all impossible. It might as well have never happened at all.

I should have continued on to the cafe at the end of the block. This incident, with the girl, would still have occurred, but at least I would not have had to have seen it. I could have lived in blissful ignorance, at least until it was me who made the mistake; until it was, finally and inevitably, me in that corner, holding a blood-drenched biro.

I have to go. I’ve stayed too long.

Leaving the bags on the floor, I stand and push my way to the door, trying to ignore the venomous shouting and taunting directed at the girl, and her racking sobs of despair and self-pity.

As I reach the door, there are people running towards it, and at the last moment, I realise that they are the police; told that there is a ‘violent leftie’ inside.

I grab the door and yank it open, allowing them to charge past before I dart out into the snow. As I pass them, one catches my eye. His gaze is filled with predetermined judgement, and although I try to not to meet it, I feel it burning into me.

I let go of the handle and realise, that in my primal haste to leave, I have made my own mistake.

The door handle falls away from the release of my left hand, and I pray that no one saw.

The snow is still wet and the air is cold and damp, the pavement sodden with clumps of melting ice. Above, the sky is a dismal grey, pressing down on me.

I walk quickly, trying to forget what is happening behind me in the cafe.

‘Hey! Hey, you! Stop there!’

I pretend not to hear the voice over the thundering of the pulse in my head. I do not know who it is and do not want to know. It might be one of the Rights from inside, it might be a fellow Leftie, or it might be the cop.

‘I said stop! Now!’

I do not here them. I repeat it to myself as I wade through the grey snow, head down, hands in my pockets.

I am not here, I tell myself. I am at home. I am in the other cafe with the girl. I am home watching television. I am with my parents. I am anywhere but here.

That is not the sound of metal sliding out from leather.

That is not a click of greased mechanisms grinding across each other. A chamber being loaded.

That is not the strained, angry voice of an armed man who has already made his decision about me.

This not happening.

This is not the way things are.

It can’t be.