There I was at the café, an aptly adequate coffee shop. Definitely not the best bean juice, but the mediocrity of the coffee meant that it was normally quiet enough for it to become a semi-regular solo loitering location for myself. I was reading a silly little short story, my cup draught without a single drop of liquid inside it for at least twenty minutes. A then recent fire over the local ceramics factory had prospered the growth of a cup shortage resulting in all the coffee shops being very protective of their ceramics, protective to the point of a mother that makes her pubescent son hold her hand whenever crossing the suburban roads that have harboured his existence should a stray breeze completely mutilate his body. Many places actually poured the piping hot coffee straight down your oesophagus directly for fear of losing any precious coffee cups. So how bizarre that the staff would allow me the luxury of a coffee cup all to myself, never mind an empty coffee cup, for such an extended period of time.
My silly little short story completed, I looked around to see what inexperienced staffer had naively trusted me with the sacred cup. That’s when I saw him. Many physical features made this man notable: his deep cavernous wrinkles showed an age much greater than the usual youth working the shop for minimum wage; his hands were cracked as if each crack was a word and his hands contained the stories of half a lifetime; but most attention grabbing no doubt were his big fucking donkey ears,
Forgive me if that came across judgmental, truly I am an accepting character, but I kid you not this man had the ears of a fully matured donkey. Not just in their length, but in their gradient of blacky grey hair that darkened at the very tip of each ear. The man hadn’t noticed my cup because he was too busy spinning yarn with some university students who were more than happy for a distraction from the work that gave purpose to their entire venture to the shop in the first place. I was analysing the man. I think specifically I was wonder-ing what kind of barber has the specialised tools required to trim around those hefty ears when he caught me. A slow look over, then a gentle smile and he was onto me…
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said to myself, “you’ve gone and upset the donkey man by silently blabbering with your eyes.”
There was nothing I could do as he strolled up to me, turned the chair opposite me one-hundred-and-eighty degrees and then straddled the chair – as if sitting on the chair normally would cramp a possible tail.
“You know what I’ve… heard?” said the donkey man, emphasising his final verb in a knowing way.
Of course, he knows, he has massive fucking donkey ears, you can’t go your whole life without noticing.
“I bet you’ve heard a lot of things with massive fucking donkey ears like that,” I wished to retort. Instead, I just shrugged and let him entertain himself.
“I… heard… that Bush did it.”
He said this as if it should’ve been immediately obvious what he was talking about. I scrunched my forehead in confusion – big mistake – he now knew he had my interest. He may as well have put a saddle on me.
“Come on. You must have… heard… it too. Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams you know?”
There was no way. The donkey man was trying to convey to me conspiracy theories of a terrorist attack that happened decades before the very shop we sat in was even open and in an entirely different continent to said coffee shop.
“I’m sorry?” I sort of choked out.
“The pentagon ‘misplaces’ millions of dollars and the next day the biggest terrorist attack on Western soil occurs. That sound right to you?”
I searched his accent for any American origin, trying to understand the man’s motive. Did he think he was some Messiah coming from the States to tell the poor little Australian’s how we have all been misled and bamboozled by the government? But no, his accent was as typical as anyone’s in the vicinity – all be it perhaps a little more braying. He refused to elaborate further, clearly it was my turn in the social chess game that was taking place.
“I guess that is a little strange,” I eventually got out. It was a zugzwang; he had already won and there was nothing I could say that could give me any equality, never mind power, in this interaction. Was he punishing me for my cruel internal interpretation of his appearance? Did he somehow read my mind? Could he hear my thoughts? It didn’t really matter now; he had proven himself the superi-or and I was ready to resign.
“and pretty big coincidence too that it allowed the US to justify an invasion on the oil rich nation it had been teeming to invade for years,” I conceded.
“I hadn’t even thought about that,” pondered the donkey man out loud as he grabbed my empty cup and pretended to take a sip.
He had shown mercy. In the brief silence I averted my gaze down his veiny neck to his T-shirt. It was slightly too small for him so that the outline of his chest hairs could be seen through the fabric – intricate vines of sweaty foliage dampening the immediate fabric. The shirt itself had a simple design, a solid white with a picture of a penguin in the centre.
“Did you make this?” he asked, returning my already empty cup to its original position and orientation. “It’s good.”
“No,” I said, wondering if penguins had ears and eventually deciding that they probably have the ears that most birds have that are really just hole in the side of the head. Cruel that, how birds have the most beautiful calls but the smallest ears to hear them with, whilst donkeys have terribly ugly shrieks and massive ears.
“It’s on the house,” said the donkey man, “and you’re free to go.”
He didn’t make a move but implied that I should. Not willing to look him in the mouth for fear of hidden verbal soldiers, I obliged.
I was half way out the door when I looked back around at the donkey man. He still hadn’t moved. He was waiting for me. I walked back to him and gave his left ear a firm but not violent tug. An inhuman sound escaped him – somewhere between discomfort and arousal - fol-lowed by a gentle nod.