Fly on the Wall

I am sitting in a Starbucks right now near Bob Jones University. If you aren’t familiar with BJU, which is one of the best abbreviations ever, you are really missing out. It’s a religious institution that indoctrinates from preschool all the way to masters degrees. I hesitate to call it an educational institution because it doesn’t really follow the mainstream idea of book learning, like science and history, but they do have an impressive collection of artwork stolen by Nazis and a pretty good music program.

This particular Starbucks is a goldmine for eavesdroppers. Being so close to BJU means a lot of students or professors or religious nuts hang out here or use it as a meeting place. The rest of the patrons at this time of day are hipsters who are too lazy to drive downtown. I am almost out of place as a patron.  I came here this late afternoon to write, and I am, but not what I had intended, because  I am too distracted by a conversation taking place at a table diagonal from me to concentrate on anything else.

Almost every table is occupied with chit chat, and there’s an odd mix of music is blaring overhead. It’s a challenge to hear all of their exchange, but believe me, I am trying. If I could pull up a chair and transcribe the whole thing, I would.

When I first settled at my table, a white man in his mid-fifties sat at that table near mine. He looked like a typical BJU kind of guy with his slightly graying Ken doll haircut and khaki Members Only jacket. He didn’t order a drink; instead, he kept looking around, standing up and peering out the side door, and sitting back down. Finally, he received a phone call from someone who was having trouble locating the Starbucks, so he was trying to give directions. The person was at the strip mall in the same parking lot, but still didn’t know how to locate the Starbucks.

That was odd enough on its own; who doesn’t know a Starbucks when they see one? The answer is someone who isn’t American.

The gentleman who came in to meet the white guy is African. They shook hands and sat across from each other. The white guy tried to explain what Starbucks is, how they make all kinds of coffee, how expensive the drinks are, and how he doesn’t like it here. The African didn’t understand coffee and decided not to try any.

White guy explained his credentials. From what I heard, he has three master’s degrees in religion, one in divinity, one in theology, and one in whatever is left. He is apparently a “professor” at BJU and has worked in the past as a missionary.  The African said that he too has a degree, although he now works at the airport. It became very apparent that they had a bit of a language barrier to work through together. White guy addressed it in the usual American way, by talking louder.

They began a conversation that sounded a bit like an interview, with White guy doing all the asking. White guy asked about his family. He wanted to know if he was married, then if it was an arranged marriage (yes). He asked about his father and how many wives his father had (2). He also wanted to know how many children his father had (16), and which one he was in birth order (4). The African said he had a twin that still lived in Liberia, which White guy called Libya for the rest of the conversation. White guy wanted to know if anyone in the family had AIDS, which I thought was a rather personal question. It didn’t matter to the African, because he didn’t know what White guy was talking about. White guy spelled it out loudly over and over, A-I-D-S, but alas, spelling English acronyms didn’t clarify the question.

The conversation then turned to what kind of work he did in Libya, which was really Liberia.  There was some discussion about harvesting, and White guy couldn’t figure out what was harvested. It was wool. He sheared sheep, but he doesn’t know the English word “shear.” White guy talked louder, trying to explain what the English words are for what the African man was describing. I still couldn’t really tell why they were meeting.

Then White guy got down to business. He wanted to know what religion the African was. When he said he was Muslim, White guy asked all about how he prayed. Did he go to the mosque every day? (Yes) Did he pray five times a day? (Yes)  How long does it take?  (30 minutes)  White guy took a turn describing how he prays. He gets up every morning at 6:30 and reads the bible and prays until 8. At night, before going to sleep, he and his wife read the bible together and pray together. Every Sunday, they go to church and pray and listen to the preacher and sing their praise to God.

The African wanted to know what a bible was. That was one of my favorite parts. White guy explained it was like the Christian Quran. It went like this: he pointed to the African and said “Quran” and then pointed to himself and said “Bible” over and over, at least ten times.  The African asked if it was the same as being a Mormon, because he knows a guy who is a Mormon and it sounds like the same kind of thing. White guy got louder and turned a little red in the face. He stressed that “we think that is a false religion” repeatedly, and then tried to explain the kinds of real religions that exist. It went in this order: Christian, Roman Catholicism, Muslims, Hindus, and then Mormons, which is a false religion. He followed that with another interesting statement, “the largest religion in the world is Christianity.”

I couldn’t see the African’s face, but I wonder if he rolled his eyes. I also noticed White guy never mentioned Judaism as a real religion.

A Starbucks employee called out that they messed up two drinks if anyone wanted them for free. The counter was rushed by cheapskates.

White guy then needed to know what kind of Muslim he was, Shiite or Sunni. The African had never heard of either, which meant White guy had to work hard to explain the difference, which basically was that they had different names, and he spelled them repeatedly for clarification. Through piecing together the types of Muslims in other countries, White guy could discern that the African is Sunni. It was not clear why he needed this information.

Unfortunately, at this point, White guy said his time was up and he had to leave. They shook hands and bid each other safe travels. The meeting abruptly ended.

At no point could I figure out why they met, what the nature of this conversation was, or why they picked Starbucks as a meeting spot if neither drank coffee. As much as I wanted to understand, I’ll never know. I didn’t hear them make arrangements to meet again, so I couldn’t exactly put it in my calendar and plan to coincidentally seat myself at a table right before they arrived. So many unanswered questions.

I’m not passing judgment on White guy or the African or even the Starbucks employee who messed up someone’s order. I merely observed and recorded to the best of my ability. Did I mention I heard two Earth, Wind, and Fire songs playing in the hour they talked with each other? Or that I ordered a chai latte when I meant to get an Oprah cinnamon chai latte because it has less calories but I hate to order it because I refuse to say Oprah’s name every time I want a goddamn cinnamon chai latte? Or that it is very clear that the line between beard and clean shaven in this Starbucks corresponds with the association to BJU?

There are worse ways to kill a couple of hours.