Logbook 4: Ernie and Christopher
Christopher DeFarge is blind and deaf. But the remarkable thing about him isn't that he lacks sight and hearing. It's what he does when he comes around to Lost Goat Coffee House.
He speaks in guttural sounds to order a dry cappuccino, waits patiently by the counter, and counts out exactly 75 cents for the tip jar. When our barista has supplied his drink, he carries it to his place at the table on the corner dais, feeling his way with his white and red cane.
He carefully sets his cup and saucer (his motions are the same, always precise and always deliberate) on the table, removes his canvas backpack, positions his chair so as to be in clear view of the door, and sits. Then he carefully removes his cross-stitch from his backpack, adjusts the circular stretcher, takes one sip of his cappuccino, and with uncommon deliberation wipes the foamy cream from his mustache with the back of his flannel sleeve. He sighs heavily, takes his demitasse spoon in his right hand, and lifts the espresso from the deepest part of the 5.5 ounce cup (the standard size for all of our cappuccinos). As if it were in plain view, he ponders the mix of rich copper and snowy white for a moment and then takes a long and audible deep breath, as if he were participating in a yoga exercise. He exhales slowly while pulling his right index finger slowly across his cross-stitch pattern. He feels for the needles, pulls the threads taut and begins.
We feel no guilt as we study the man. Our moms, like all moms, told us not to stare, but what's the point when the object of our interest is deaf and blind? And Christopher DeFarge is an interesting person to study, if for no other reason than to marvel at how he gets on in a world outfitted for the hearing and sighted. And most men don't cross stitch. Neither do they crochet, knit or tat. Most men come to Lost Goat, remove their laptops from snug black carrying bags and take advantage of our Wi-Fi to finalize amazing business deals or check out their e-mails from secret lovers. Most men aren't deaf and blind, either. So when the opportunity comes along in this life to witness the curious pastime of a deaf and blind man, we -- as would most -- eagerly suspend polite behavior and stare.
It was on a particular Saturday morning that Christopher and Ernie improbably encountered one another. Ernie had come for his macchiato at precisely 6:42 (we know the time for reasons we'll soon explain), and Christopher already had taken his position on the dais. Ernie wore his mechanic's lab coat and his trademark fedora. He offered not a hint of a smile to JR, who can make a toad feel warm and welcome. He fidgeted restlessly, like Oddjob in an old 007 movie, while JR warmed the cup, dosed the portafilter, ran his right index finger (arched ever so slightly) out and then back and brushed the excess espresso away with deft circular motion. But as JR brought the tamper to the 22 grams of barely mounded espresso and prepared to exert exactly 32 psi to the puck, the lights at Lost Goat Coffee House flickered. And then went dark.
The La Marzocco GB/5 is an expensive espresso machine -- among the best in the industry. It can hold water temperatures to one-tenth of a degree and deliver 9 millibars of pressure, shot after shot. But without electrical power, it's a pile of useless stainless steel. Its digital clock had suspended duty at precisely 6:42 a.m. -- the time in our town and elsewhere in America when people need coffee. Unless the power came back on, Ernie would not have his macchiato, JR would not have pleased a customer, and for all we know, the world would quietly have come to an end. Our town was in crisis.
Windows in our shop are not strategically placed. In addition to being small, they're all on the east side, north end. The work area, however, is at the south end. With no lights at 6:42 on a drizzled February morning in Eden Hills, Oregon, it's not easy to get around, because it's pitch black. To those of us with all five senses, the situation was frightening, but to Christopher it was just another moment in just another day. He apparently felt the commotion or somehow sensed the panic. It is said that animals possess some sixth sense that allows them to perceive coming events to which humans are completely unaware. Perhaps it was a similar power that Christopher DeFarge called on; we will not know. But his actions will not be forgotten at Lost Goat Coffee House.
Ernie is an excitable Asian. From the moment his parents set him adrift in the Huangpu River near the industrial slums in Shanghai, his life has been a series of barely escaped peril. He may have behaved more normally if he had benefit of his macchiato, but under the circumstances he was in utter panic. He dove under a table yelling an incomprehensible mixture of Mandarin Chinese and English.
"Senshing pow! Senshing pow! Bahm! Bahm! Bahm!"
Had Christopher been able to hear him, he might have thought, as we did, that Ernie feared renewed attack by the Japanese. Instead, Christopher gently placed his cross-stitch on the table, felt for his white and red cane, and re-traced the steps he had just moments before taken from the counter to his table on the dais. He used his right hand to feel the air and touch the tables, while his left handled the cane. What sense directed him to Ernie we cannot explain, but a hero's mission was under way. He followed the ricocheting airwaves, for all we know, in the direction of Ernie's outburst and as he approached, bent his legs and felt Ernie's contorted mouth, now agape in Mandarin expletive. As Christopher reached for Ernie's shoulders, his hands slipped and tightened around Ernie's neck instead. Ernie fell backward, dragging Christopher with him, and the two rolled on the floor like Sumo wrestlers. Christopher might have let go had he actually known what was going on, but lacking sight and sound, he merely held on for dear life while Ernie screamed in what he surely perceived to be imminent death at the hands of a cold-blooded Japanese soldier.
It was then that the lights flickered and came back on. Other customers, JR and Russell (our roast master) circled Ernie and Christopher with mouths wide open. Ernie shook himself free of his imagined attacker, searched for his brown fedora, and brushed off his greasy lab coat. Christopher felt the air, found his cane and returned to his table. He sat, took a sip of his cappuccino, wiped the foam from his mustache, took a deep yoga breath, and resumed his cross stitch.
Ernie paced wildly but for once was speechless. He hopped and ran to the dais, while the rest of us trailed in curiosity. We gathered around Christopher's table as Ernie began to shout in Mandar-English again. Christopher cast his face up to the expectant room and held up his cross-stitch for all of us to see. We beheld his pattern. It was a hot sun about to be eclipsed by a foreboding blue moon. Above the celestial event he had somehow stitched the word of the Buddha: NIBBANA.
At 6:42 that chilly February morning in Eden Hills, we did not know what the image or the strange word meant. We saw Ernie suddenly frozen as if he were Lot's wife when she looked back on Sodom and Gomorrah. We had no explanation for that unforgettable moment, nor did we know there was more to the story than we could possibly imagine.
