Loveless Cafe

The visiting Buddhist monk from Britain says he’s not permitted to harm any living thing. He can’t even tear a leaf off a tree. "So you can’t cut the grass?" We get a good laugh. He’s walking across our state. A fellow he met on the road is treating him to lunch. I take their order, navy bean soup.

I could fall in love with this thin man in a brown robe. His buddy tells me, "A monk can’t take anything directly from a woman. If she wants to give him something, she has to put it on a piece of cloth which the monk is also touching." Just for fun, I’d like to give him Meet the Beatles, "Remember riding ferris wheels and singing please please me?" This man has given up worldly things, but from the looks of his heavenly smile he also gave up suffering.

The pale twenty-year-old at another table I’m waiting on isn’t any too happy. "You actually have to say it," she frowns at the big guy twice her age with iron gray hair sitting across from her. His hand reaches under her ponytail, circles her thin neck. She repeats, "You actually have to say it." Does she want to hear I love you? Does she want a promise of safety, I’ll never hurt you? Finally he speaks, "If you don’t like your life, change it."

When I hear this phrase I go cold. My friend, the grass-is-always-greener type, used to say this. I thought she’d get another job or maybe just up and move to Texas, but last month she shot herself in the head. The cop said most women aim for their hearts.

Deborah Bayer