Wittgenstein’s Illusion

“Why’d you do that, jackass?” I snarled at Sabrina, who was the barista this morning. I make better coffee, if I do say so myself. Well, really, everyone says so, but I was on the schedule for the register this morning, and that was that. “You embarrassed a customer!”

“It was a JOKE,” she snapped back. Just ‘cuz YOU don’t have a sense of humor . . . .”

“It wasn’t funny,” I returned, with considerable heat.

“No,” she said, “It was HILARIOUS.”

I was tempted to respond, but that wouldn’t do anything for our customer, who was already making his way quickly down the street. Besides, Jen, who was relieving me, was just about to come out from the back. “Hey, Jen,” I called. “Can you come on a couple minutes early?”

She popped her head out. “Sure Jack, what’s up?”

“I’ll fill you in later, okay?” I said.

“Sure thing,” she said. “Go!” Wholly disregarding the scornful look Sabrina was directing my way, I tossed my brown apron in the hamper behind the door, ducked under the counter and took off after Terry.

I don’t know Terry’s last name, but I know his first name because I’ve written it on scores – possibly hundreds – of his coffee cups over the past two years I’ve worked at Lord Kitchener’s Kafe. It’s not hard to write; unlike most guys his age – well, our age – he has a conventional name that he spells in a conventional way. But Sabrina, bitch troll that she is, decided it would be “hilarious” to write “Teri” on his venti latte, and even dotted the eye with a cutesy heart. Terry, at least, hadn’t seen the humor. He had flushed bright red, spun around and hustled off, leaving his coffee behind him.

Why would she do that? Well, Terry wasn’t a particularly imposing figure. Short, slight, with deep brown eyes. He had feathery black hair that seemed to stick out in odd directions. He was quiet, polite. Diffident, even. On nice days, he sometimes had his coffee on the outside patio; I had seen him doing charcoal sketches of customers on a pad he always had with him. There wasn’t anything particularly feminine about Terry. But there wasn’t anything especially masculine either. He was just a decent, quiet guy. Just the sort someone like Sabrina would target for her “fun.”

But I expected that Simon Kitchener, like Terry, would not share Sabrina’s sense of humor. Terry was a good regular customer – just the sort that Simon cultivated as the foundation for the cafe’s success. I’m a good employee and I’m sure Simon would approve of what I was doing, but truth is – much as I respect my boss – I wasn’t doing it for him.

I couldn’t call Terry a friend, really. We’d just exchanged pleasantries more often than not. We’d had slightly longer conversations from time to time. But he was a nice guy. A sensitive guy. I liked him. He didn’t deserve Sabrina’s “jokes.” And I didn’t want to be the kind of guy who just sat back and did nothing in the face of cruelty, just because it wasn’t directed at me.

I caught up with him about four blocks from work. “Hey, Terry, wait up,” I said when I was about ten steps back. He slowed, almost reluctantly, then turned his head.

Seeing me, his shoulders slumped. “It’s okay, Jack,” he said. “Just . . . wasn’t in the mood for jokes today.”

“It’s NOT alright, and it’s NEVER alright,” I said forcefully, as I caught up with him. “I want you to know that Mr. Kitchener is going to be ripshit when he hears about it, and he will. From me!”

He looked at me quizzically, then continued to walk, turning his eyes forward. “Maybe you should let it go,” he said, as I kept pace with him. “Not that I don’t appreciate the thought. I do. But I can fight my own battles when I need to.”

He kept walking, and for some reason I kept walking too. He didn’t tell me not to. I said, “I’m not suggesting you can’t. But I KNOW Mr. Kitchener. That’s not something he’d want happening at his place. And he’d want to know if it did. So . . . it’s your battle, I suppose, but it’s not JUST your battle.”

He digested that as he continued walking. When we hit Durling Creek he turned down the dirt path that left the main road. He didn’t ask me to join him, but again, he didn’t ask me to leave him alone, either. He said, “Is it your battle?” Nothing challenging in his voice that I could sense. Just . . . curiosity? So I thought about it rather than answering right away.

After a few yards I said, “Yes, I think it’s my battle too. I may just be a barista, but I want to work in a place I’m proud to work. That has values I share. That didn’t happen today. I’m as responsible for our work culture as everyone else. Making sure it’s a good environment, a positive experience for our community – yeah, that’s my battle.”

The path went back over Durling Creek by a footbridge. Terry stopped in the middle of the bridge, leaned forward and rested his forearms on the railing. He looked down at the water, gurgling through a tangle of weeds and rocks. Even though the band of trees we were in was narrow, it blocked a lot of the normal noise of the busy suburb that surrounded us. The early afternoon sunlight filtered through the oak leaves above us, dappling the ground with pockets of light and patterns of darkness.

Without taking his eyes off the flowing creek, he said, “Well, I guess you need to go fight your battle, and maybe Lord Kitchener needs to fight his battle too. Do what you need to do, and God bless you for it. The world could certainly use more people who think like you do. But it’s got nothing to do with me. For my part . . . I’d let it go.”

I was confused, and said so. “Terry . . . I don’t understand. Why doesn’t it have anything to do with you?”

He continued to look at the water, carefully weighing his response. Finally he said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, Jack. I DO appreciate what you’re doing. You want to be a good guy and work at a good place. Those are good things. That has to do with YOU. Mr. Kitchener wants to run a good place. That has to do with HIM. Sabrina . . . she’s a nasty piece of work. But she was going to be nasty to somebody. It happened to be me, this morning, but it could have been anyone. I’m not important to the equation. To what you need to do. And that’s fine.”

I tried to process what he was saying. I mean, what he was REALLY saying. And then I had to think a bit harder about why I had charged after Terry. All the while, he just stared out at the creek, apparently oblivious to my presence or the passage of time.

“Terry,” I said softly. “Would you look at me, please?” He straightened up slowly, turned around and leaned on the railing, facing me where I leaned on the railing opposite. He looked wary, cautious. Vulnerable.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Not just for what Sabrina did, though it’s that too. But for how I managed to make it all about me. It IS about you, Terry. I wouldn’t have come after ‘just anyone.’ I came out because I care about YOU. Because you’ve always been a nice, decent guy that I wanted to get to know better, and I hated to see you treated that way. Because you deserve better.”

The wary expression did not leave his face, but he said, “Thanks for that, Jack. I appreciate it. But . . . I’m not really a nice, decent guy. And you probably DON’T want to get to know me better.”

“Why would you say that?,” I asked. This conversation was just baffling to me.

He gave me a long, long look before saying, “Sabrina was nasty, Jack. But she wasn’t wrong. She saw in a week what you missed for two years. I’m not a guy at all. Not really. Even though I’ve nominally got the equipment. I’m a woman.”

I gaped at him for a moment, but then I shut my open jaw and thought back over all our interactions over the past two years. It was like the drawing that looks like a rabbit from one direction and a duck from another. Or like one of those pieces of three-dimensional art that look random, until you see them from just the right angle and the pattern and design become clear as day. What had been lines and squiggles becomes a bird, or a famous building.

Or a beautiful woman.

Terry was still looking at me warily. Like he was waiting for judgment day. I don’t know what was on my face. But I suddenly knew – blowing past all my self-deceptions – why I had come after him today. After her.

“Teri,” I said. “I don’t know why I didn’t see you properly. But I think my heart knew what my mind refused to process. I said that I care about you, and that’s true. I’d tell you that your gender doesn’t matter, and in a way it doesn’t. I care, regardless. But . . . .” I struggled to articulate what I was thinking. What I was feeling. Teri just looked at me, almost expressionless.

“But in another way, your gender matters a lot,” I finally was able to say. “Because I’ve been attracted to you for a long time, and I’ve been lying to myself about that. Lying, because I’m not gay, and I thought you were a guy.”

Her eyes got wider at that – much wider. Then she visibly schooled her features and said, cautiously, “I’m a woman inside, but like I said, I don’t have a woman’s physical equipment. You need to know that.”

I nodded. “I understand. And I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter. I don’t know if it will or won’t. But . . . can we . . . can we maybe find out?”

Her sensitive face was showing fear, indecision, hope . . . . She leaned against the rail, unmoving. Too scared to move toward me, too hopeful to run away. Very slowly, very carefully, I raised my right hand, palm facing up.

She looked at me – a look I would remember if I lived to be a hundred – a look that pierced my heart. With equal care, she took my outstretched hand in her own and we came together. My left hand cradled her cheek, and I bent down and kissed her. A light kiss, so soft . . . I was so afraid, in that moment, that she would run.

Maybe she would, one day. Maybe I would. But in that beautiful morning on the footbridge over Durling Creek, my heart sang with the joy of love finally seen, finally recognized, and I saw that love reflected in her matchless eyes. And the world, in that moment, was a magical place.

The End

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