kept & cupped

Written by Cathoel Jorss, published 2 weeks ago

Sometimes we get each other and sometimes, we don’t get. I know this because my favourite cafe today ran out of cups. The man standing behind me in the queue said to his girlfriend, “Dishwasher’s on the blink again,” and she told their little caramel dog, “Awww, dah dishhwashhah!” while the dog looked up adoringly.

I was queuing behind a man in board shorts whom I had greeted, “Are you the close of the queue?” He looked a little startled, then he smiled. “Reckon I am,” he said, and I said, “I’ll take over those duties if you like.” We were laughing now, just a little. “You can put in a shift,” he agreed, and I said, “I mean, I’ll take it on. Someone else is gunna arrive and ask, this the end of the queue, and I’ll tell them, yes it is! It’s only the one time, but it’s arduous.”

We had run out of things to say but now there was a rapport between us so we couldn’t switch straight back to automatons. And because my friendliness is partly anxiety, I noticed he was having to twitch himself out of the reach of the dried curls of jasmine wreathing the verandah post beside him, which kept reaching for him and snatching at his hair. I pulled out of them free and tucked it into the basket of dried branches it had sprung from, saying cheerfully, “That thing just really wants to get to know you!” and he turned as he finally noticed this source of annoyance saying, “Ohh! You’re right, it really really does.” There were still four people between us and the till were we would place orders and we would have had to resort to gazing studiously away from each other, maybe even whistling or humming a little, all that fakery; but he said, in a kind of gasp of social endeavour, “Reckon they could afford to give these plants of bit of water!” I glanced up. The verandah roof is high and four former or alleged potplants dangle, quietly weeping dead brown tendrils into the air. When he reached the till I fell away, and we both turned back between his order and mine to say, “Have a good one,” and now we were done.

I took an Uber home because I have an injury just now from an idiotic but cataclysmic pushbike accident. I had to go through the kind of surgery a surgeon calls, rather comfortably, “minor.” The Uber driver had a grey and black striped handkerchief tucked in at the top of his driver-side window for keeping off the sun. I said, “Is that the flag of your own individual people: the Nation of You.” And he said, “No, no, it’s a handkerchief,” so I said, “Yes, I know, I was just playing.” A silence. We were not of the nation of each other. And I said, “Just I think it would be so awesome if everybody had their own individual flag and maybe a coat of arms! to wave out the window in traffic. Once in a while you’d spot someone with a similar flag to your own and then the two of you would become best friends.”

Did I mention this everyday friendliness which seems to come so naturally is also in part anxiety, in part yearning?

“Oh,” he said. “That’s funny.” And we talked about the big trees along the road, which are highways for Brisbane’s possums. At my gate he pulled over very gently and I stepped very gingerly down and said, thrusting my fist in the air and indicating the flag, “Viva la Revolution!”

My driver said, apologetically, “It’s actually a handkerchief,” and I tried to let him off the hook on which I had not intended to hoist him: “Yes. I was just joking with you. Thank you for this peaceful ride, have a great day!” And as I pushed back the gate which like so much of this city if overhung by trees I was thinking how even the kin-man and I, the one the jasmine at the cafe was fingering, could have estranged ourselves and caused a brief sore rupture if either one of us had only hung round three or four seconds too long once we’d reached the register. We both understood the same rules: the rules of playfulness, only some of which are THERE ARE NO RULES. The coffee was really good. I gave the thirsty peace lily in the bathroom some water.