Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Dessa Bayrock : Ben Robinson and a coffee shop crowded with soldiers


The Cruelty-Free Ivory Tower: a recovering grad student presents tongue-in-cheek semi-academic poetry reviews




Like so many other writers and academics, I used to be a barista. Aside from the fact that I needed the money to live, there was something calming about it, something meditative: steps repeated as faithfully as yoga poses. Cup. Steamed milk. Espresso, tamped, cranked into the machine. You can lose yourself in those small moments. You can turn your brain off; you can feel invisible. It’s a strange feeling, almost like dissociation, made even odder by the hustle and bustle of the coffee shop around you; strangers ordering coffee, yes, but also having spirited discussions, bombing first dates, organizing into study groups, yelling about yoghurt, vomiting, apologizing, and moving around one another in indecipherable, zoo-like patterns. 

In “Democracy Is Just the Name of Another Café,” Ben Robinson somehow manages to capture both parts of this experience: a list of odd observations and uncanny interactions conveyed with absolute calm. A meditation on chaos. We, too, are in this crowded coffee shop, overflowing with strangers and strange occurrences. 

But is it really only a coffee shop? The title of the poem is flippant, maybe: democracy is just the name of another café. Democracy would be a great name for a coffee shop, after all. Extremely hip; a logo something like a simplified coat of arms, two crossed arrows dividing a book, a gavel, a mug, a coffee bean. But what happens when we think of this metaphor as a metaphor? What would democracy — cast-your-ballot, everyone-has-a-voice, try-to-build-a-better-world-together democracy — look like as a coffee shop?

In this poem, Robinson writes it “full of cops / and soldiers in uniform”. He writes it with a parade outside. Democracy, he seems to say, has become a militarized space, and while cops and soldiers celebrate in the streets and coffee shop alike, an unnamed and un-uniformed stranger “vomits at the bus stop”.  

I want to tell this stranger that, more and more, this is how democracy makes me feel, too. Months deep in both a pandemic and the largest civil rights movement of our time, the actions and inactions of our government feel nauseating to the touch. How else to rebel, to refuse, to exorcise? 

And meanwhile this café — this hip, hipster Democracy — continues serving cappuccinos. I imagine the clientele would be much the same as my old coffee shop: businessmen with starched cuffs rolled companionably to the elbows, hot young moms with yoga mats strapped to their backs, students with laptops and headphones that cost more than a full month’s rent. Sure, Democracy has a ramp fitted over the front step for accessibility; it has washrooms large enough to fit a wheelchair; it has multilingual and patient baristas. But who is Democracy serving? 

Like my old coffee shop, I suspect the patrons are largely white, and comfortably employed, and able-bodied. Like my old coffee shop, I’m sure the baristas are thankful that they work at Democracy in this location, and not the sister café location a mere six blocks further downtown — a store we fondly referred to as “the pointy shoe district,” where the customers are richer, and even more uptight, and tip even worse. Because it can always get worse. 

Meanwhile this coffee shop is crowded with soldiers. The other patrons in the coffee shop diminish, become something less than human. “A raccoon buys me a cappuccino,” Robinson narrates, although of course it’s not a raccoon but a person, a man who regales Robinson with “stories of his life / as a young Sandinista” — which is to say, a man who was a member of a socialist political party which ruled Nicaragua in the 80s and 90s. According to Wikipedia, the Sandinista National Liberation Front “instituted a policy of mass literacy, devoted significant resources to health care, and promoted gender equality, but came under international criticism for human rights abuses, mass execution and oppression of indigenous peoples” (np).* This man is no longer a soldier, we gather. He has given up his uniform and become something else. He buys Ben Robinson a cappuccino. Disguised as — or transformed into — a raccoon, he poses no risk to the soldiers, to us, or to Democracy. But here the lesson feels underscored: to trust in those in power is a mistake. It is tempting to overlook the bad in favour of the good, but this spells danger for those unable to escape into the safety of a coffee shop and a good cappuccino.

I can so perfectly imagine sitting in my old café and watching the parade go by. I can feel Ben Robinson leaning over my shoulder and whispering in my ear as we watch thousands of uniformed men pacing as one, their many legs like an unending centipede. “And remember,” Robinson says under his breath, “if it barks like a dog / and has 40,000 unflappable teeth / tread carefully”. It is a good lesson. We would perhaps be wise to remember the sharp teeth hidden in the soft mouths of the soldiers parading outside, their canines sheathed but hungry nonetheless.

But who am I to say that Democracy is an exclusive space? No one walks around policing the students who spent $3 on a drip coffee five hours ago, or the woman who comes in and pours the whole container of milk into her travel mug, or the man who smells horribly of urine. Belonging can be easy, Robinson seems to say, or else safety can be faked; he walks to the carafe of icy, lemon-scented water put out by the employees every morning and pours some into one of the small plastic tumblers stacked beside it. It is the single free beverage available to all, here in Democracy, and you may help yourself even when every other thing on the menu remains tauntingly out of reach. When the soldiers grow bored with the street and enter the coffee shop, Robinson passes this glass to you swiftly. “Quick, take this cup / of water and pour it inside yourself” Robinson says, “or you shall surely die.” 

The soldiers see your mouth meet the rim of the glass and pass over you harmlessly. You are a customer. You are above reproach. 

Democracy, after all, welcomes everyone. 


*“Sandinista National Liberation Front.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 July 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandinista_National_Liberation_Front.

Please do not cite Wikipedia in actual academic papers. This is a bad practice and probably shouldn’t even be popularized even in this small way. Love, your friendly neighbourhood PhD candidate. 




Dessa Bayrock lives in Ottawa with two cats and a variety of succulents, one of which occasionally blooms. She used to fold and unfold paper for a living at Library and Archives Canada, and is currently a PhD student in English, where she continues to fold and unfold paper. Her work has appeared in Funicular, PRISM, and Poetry Is Dead, among others, and her work was recently shortlisted for the Metatron Prize for Rising Authors. She is the editor of post ghost press. You can find her, or at least more about her, at dessabayrock.com, or on Twitter at @yodessa.