The Mallard God Complex (4)

4. Just a Cup of Tea

            The café was crowded, surprisingly crowded for late at night, but people were crammed into the booths all the same. I have never been one for crowded spaces; they make me a tad panicky or just uncomfortable. The mysterious stranger didn’t have a care about what I thought as we strolled down the road. He had picked the first café he came upon, and hadn’t asked for an opinion on the subject. Rather, he had walked in, demanded a table for two, and then sat down at one he was not directed to.  He was a very forceful individual.

            A very peeved waitress comes over to our table. “What can I get you gentlemen?” She puts emphasis on the word ‘gentlemen’ as if some part of it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. The situation makes me uncomfortable. I generally feel bad for wait-staff at restaurants. They get the crap kicked out of them daily by customers, and it is a constant challenge for me not to be one of the annoying ones.

            The mysterious man was doing just that by picking his own table and tapping impatiently on the ground with his foot. “Yes, I’ll have Twig Kukicha, lots of cream, plenty of sugar. And Michael will have…”

            “We don’t have Kukicha.” Says the waitress flatly.

            Of course they don’t have Kukicha. This is a café not a teahouse. He’ll be lucky if they’ve got anything even close to the sad selection at my house. I wait, nervously, in fear of what the man might say next. The waitress looks like if she has to endure one more stupid comment that she will explode outward, rendering the diner nothing but a smoking pile of tinder and ruin.

            “Ah! Splendid! What do you have then?” Perfectly cheerful, as if the balking of his request had not offended him in the slightest. Nothing about him made sense. One minute he was direct and forceful, the next he was downright genial. It was the mix of being ready to break down someone’s door, as well as wanting to have a cup of tea with them. I’m sure I could spend many a night trying to figure him out.

            “We have black and green.” She says, growing once again impatient.

            “How wonderfully dichotomous of you!” He seems genuinely pleased at the lack of options. “I suppose I’ll have the black, once again with lots of cream, and enough sugar to drown a wombat.” The waitress looks about as confused as I am by his metaphor, but chose to ignore it and turned to me.

            “And for you?”

            “Just a plain green thanks.”

            She quickly walks away, no doubt trying to avoid more exotic requests from the man in the leather jacket. “You’re so boring Michael. You weren’t always this way.   I remember the last time I saw you, you were still mixing popsicles and spaghetti, just to see what happened.” I don’t ever recall doing such a thing. The certainty with which he said it made me feel as though it had to be true and I let him continue.

            “Somewhere along the line you got a chip on your shoulder about this fine world of ours. I can’t possibly imagine where it came from, but let me tell you, this is truly a strange and interesting place. I won’t say it’s wonderful, for sometimes it’s downright awful, but at the very least I think we can agree it’s interesting no?”

            Some days I can’t even bring myself to settle upon what shade of grey the world is.  Black and white is far more appealing to me.  For the most part I am content to let the infinitely complex greyness of life pass me by.  I like to live within my own  microcosm where nothing matters but the irrational falsehoods of my own creation. They are both (black and white) easy to understand, and they are complete and simple and unquestioning in every way possible. It’s a dull existence, but one full of (albeit frivolous) substance and sometimes cake. I like cake.  Where was I?

            “I suppose so.” I respond distractedly trying my best to mimic his conversation style. Long ago in a musty lecture hall I had learned that this was the fastest way to a successful interaction.  In social psychology I had found out that mirroring the pose of one’s conversation partner made the interaction more pleasant, and facilitated ease of communication. The whole principle comes naturally to most but seemed utterly mad to me.  As it turns out, there is something about humans seeing similar things in one another over and over again that comforts us.  I stand by this as the reason for all of the remakes, sequels, and reboots which now dominate the cinematic landscape.

            “Yes, you suppose so. I suppose that would be about accurate for you.” He stops and stares across the table at me, taking in every feature. Behind his eyes there is deep processing, something like a machine would do. For a moment he sits there in silence and scans my face, and then immediately snaps out of it. “Oh look! Tea’s here!” He says jovially, acting as though the pregnant pause had never happened.

            Any normal person would see his tea as an abomination. When the waitress sets the cream and sugar down he looks hungry, like an animal long past feeding time. The entire cream container is poured into the cup, followed closely by four cubes of sugar. I swear that I can smell the sticky sweetness from across the table and I nearly gag. It should be a cardinal sin to destroy tea in such a way. That being said I’m not much a fan of chai either. I feel that massive amounts of cream serve no purpose other than to dilute the flavor and general essence of tea itself. He would have been better served by a hot chocolate.

            After taking a big sip of his awful concoction he looks at me again. “So…” he says.

            “So?” I ask.

            “Hmm, so indeed.”  He takes another sip of his tea and proceeds to stare blindly out the window.

            “See something out there?”

            “I see a great many things, but none of them are of consequence to us at the moment. I was mostly checking for grumpkins and snarks. You never know where they might turn up you know?”   He states it like it’s an ordinary fact of life, that knowledge of these creatures or beasts is as common as our nation’s history.

            “Oh will they?” I ask, dryly. I take a sip of my tea and turn around to look out the window. Suddenly there is a slap on the back of my neck.

            “Don’t draw attention you imbecile! One person looks one way, the other looks the other! This is basic stuff kid.” He says angrily, taking another sip from his tea. “Now are you going to ask about why I’m here, or are we going to continue to beat around the bush all night?  Not that small talk with you isn’t pleasant, it’s just I’d rather not waste my time with it.”

Finally.  And frankly, until this moment I was terrified to ask.    “Ok, why are you here?”

            “So glad you asked! I can’t really tell you as you won’t believe me if I do, but I can tell you that I’ve been watching you for some time. I’ve been to your earliest birthdays.   Hell, I even came to your college graduation. Not that you’d remember any of that. I’ve been in the shadows your entire life. One day a far removed uncle, the next a rather shanky looking bum on the subway, but I’ve always been there.”

            “Uh huh.” I have seen way too many action movies to believe what this guy is saying to me. This is the classic hero set-up. A distant past that the protagonist doesn’t seem to have any overt knowledge of, a mysterious stranger that seems to know all about it, and with  all the finesse of a raging bull. “Let me stop you right there. If you’re going to try and murder me in an alley, don’t you think there’s a multitude of better stories you could spin me?”

            The man looks upset at my lack of faith in him. I can’t blame him; I’d be upset if my victim figured out my plan. Frankly, getting found out right before you’re going to murder someone is one of the most awkward situations I can think of. Where does the conversation go from there? Obviously neither of the people can leave the table and just walk away. The precedent has been set that some dark shit is going to go down, which isn’t easily avoided once the cat is out of the bag.

            “If I was going to murder you, what would have stopped me from doing it right in your apartment when you let me in?”

            Damn, he has a point. OK, he’s not trying to murder me, but that doesn’t make his story any more real. This kind of shit just doesn’t happen in the real world. “So what shadow organization are you from then?”

            “Well it wouldn’t be much of a shadow organization if I told you would it? Now finish your tea, we haven’t got much time.” He begins to quickly gulp down the rest of his tea and slaps ten dollars on the table by the empty cup. I follow suit and burn my throat on the still scalding tea. I’m sputtering when he’s up and out of his chair, putting his coat on again. “We really must be going!” He says impatiently.

            I grab my coat and stand up. “Where exactly are we going then? Didn’t you bring me here to tell me something?”

            “Not in particular, I just didn’t want you to be there for the explosion.”

            “Explosion?” My words are cut off suddenly as a deep rumbling fills the streets, followed by car alarms and screams. I rush out into the street, ignoring the man’s warnings behind me. Outside rain is falling. I look down the street and once again see all of my (this time less tawdry and newer) belongings fall to the pavement. A gaping hole lies in the side of the building where my apartment used to be. Now there is only flame and smoke.

            A crowd has gathered around me, and a strong arm is pulling me backward. Everything goes black as a bag is pulled over my head.