You can’t sit with us…
Watching other humans forget to be human is like watching a movie end terribly. It feels like the ending of Titanic, we all know Rose could have made more of an effort to save Jack from freezing to death. It is raining today and I am sitting inside of my favorite coffee shop and on this gloomy Monday, a man walks in and simply sits near a window. Almost immediately the person at the cash register jumps to remove him. To justify his act of unkindness, he used what I hope to be an actual store policy: If you are not buying a $4-8 cup of coffee, you can’t sit with us. Who doesn’t love capitalism in the beginning of the day? The man simply got up and walked out. He did not say anything and he did not attempt to argue with this man who is doing what he feels to be within his job description.
The coffee shop is empty, aside from me and another person who could not be more unbothered than they appear. There is a janitor and the man at the cash register (the remover). There have to be at least 25 to 30 open seats here. Did I mention it was raining and cold outside? Does it matter that the man appeared to be homeless? What does that even look like? It also shouldn’t matter that after he was removed for not purchasing an expensive cup of coffee he just walked from corner to corner on 47th street for the next 15 minutes. It’s cold and it is raining.
The men in the coffee shop saw how displeased I was. I said out loud, what was the point of that? And the janitor of the store responded, ‘Well you didn’t see the man trying to get high in front of the door.’ To which I asked, ‘Was it that guy that walked in?’. The janitor responded, ‘No.’ I then made sure the silence I gave him was uncomfortable and long. He made it a point to respond to himself once he was close to me again and said, ‘Well I am from the area and I have an understanding of what’s going on.’ It felt as though he was trying to convince me he knew more, and he knew better so the need to put this quiet human back out into the rain is completely justified. I remained silent. The janitor then made it a point to respond to himself again and as his last attempt to convince me he knew more and he knew better, he said, ‘I am also from the streets’. I finally responded to give him closure that I am no where near convinced that he knew more and knew better. Dryly, without eye contact or even breaking my focus on what I was doing, I responded, ‘Sure.’
The janitor picked up the signals and read the room. I will not reassure him that in his old age of living he knew more and knew better because he arrived at maybe the age of 55 to 60. I am not moved by the fact that he may have seen some darker side of Chicago and this would make him more qualified to know right from wrong. Old age also doesn’t make you more qualified to be the gate keeper to warmth and dryness. The only thing I am more convinced of is that there are people in this world who lack empathy and their ability to be human has been lost in the duty of whatever job they are choosing to occupy for this moment in time.
To hold myself accountable, I wish I was quick enough to simply buy him a cup of coffee. It is unfortunate that a $4-8 cup of coffee would have been enough to validate this man’s existence in the world enough to provide him with warmth and dryness to a janitor who felt he knew more and he knew better.
