Slowly, Tom walked toward Shorty’s Cafe. It was around dusk, and
cold. Muffled thunder rumbled in the distance and Tom was
enveloped by a strange feeling of melancholic discombobulation.
He wandered into the dingy diner and decided not to sit at a booth.
He only wanted coffee. He sat on the backless, round counter seat,
two stools over from an old man, who was nodding in starts and fits.
Tom caught a whiff of urinal cake ammonia. A fly wobbling with a
sputtering buzz, circled around a doughnut case. Behind him, in a
booth, a loud teenage girl in a faded maroon blouse was ribaldly
entertaining a couple of old hobos.
Tom felt at home here. He took out a small notebook he always kept
in his back pocket and wrote, “The bizarre nature of this dive
seduces my imagination to induce cerebral semen into the fertile
and virgin regions of my intellect.” He clicked his pen and put it back
in his front short pocket and sipped his coffee with some self-
satisfaction.
A raven-haired woman entered Shorty’s, dragging a beat up suitcase.
She was wearing a flowery, silken red dress, the hem of which drug
across the dirty linoleum cafe floor. She was looking around as if
distracted by something. Tom couldn’t guess her age - she looked
18, maybe 20, but something about her face, or the haunted look in
her eyes told him she was older. She sat down next to him. He
looked at her, smiled and lifted his coffee to her.
“Is the coffee any good?”
Tom shrugged noncommittally.
She scowled, looked away and shook her head.
Tom stared at her until she turned back toward him.
“You can’t even commit to how you feel about a cup of coffee, can
you?”
Tom’s puzzled look turned to a chuckle. “It’s - I don’t know.” He took
a sip and made a face. “It’s coffee.” He kept an anodyne face, but
inside began to feel both dread and excitement.
She looked directly at him. They held each other’s gaze for an
eternity.
“The coffee sucks,” he said. “But that is an opinion. Not a
commitment.” From behind the counter Shorty looked at Tom, then
at the woman, blinked slowly and held up the pot.
The raven haired woman smiled sadly. “Sure.” She pointed at her cup.
“I have to stay awake so I don’t miss the next bus out of here.”
“Where you heading?”
“Wherever.”
Tom looked at her and again she looked back. They sat in silence
listening to the teenage girl’s laughter change to sobbing. A garbled
argument between her companions was slowly escalating. Tom shook
his head and made a strained face and the woman in the long red
dress and black hair seemed amused at his discomfort.
“You need a place to crash tonight?”
“Probably. Why?”
“You could stay at my place tonight. There will always be another
bus."
She looked at Tom, and laughed, but continued staring at him. Tom
didn’t look away. She shrugged and nodded. He got up, paid for
both of their coffees and picked up her suitcase. They walked out
together. As they strolled past the shops on Main street, the lights in
the shop made Tom feel he was on stage with an unseen audience
watching from the street.
Spring came quickly. This has all been a dream, thought Tom. Things
are never surprising in dreams. He was looking out his window at
the rain, which was more than a drizzle and less than a downpour. It
was foggy and even though he had stared out his bedroom window
countless times, the view seemed to flicker between the familiar and
some other place. Tom leaned over the bed and shook Mary.
“Let’s go down to Shorty’s for breakfast. Come on, we’ll walk.” Mary
acted annoyed, but beneath that Tom sensed her reluctance - almost
- but not quite - fear. But he ignored it, subconsciously telling himself
that she was just sleepy. “Come on, it will be fun. We have not been
back there since we met.”
She sat up, then after a bit, got up, and pulled on faded jeans over
her well shaped legs. She slipped on a black sweater and combed
her long dark hair straight back and then let it fall lightly on her
shoulders. Meanwhile, Tom pulled on a tee shirt and climbed into a
pair of mechanics overalls. They walked out into the cool spring rain,
holding hands.
The rain matted Mary’s hair down. Tom looked at her with awe and a
smidge of fear. He suddenly realized he was - happy, complete, more
than content - but in love? It might be love, he wasn’t sure - this was
the first time he ever felt this way. He must have been, even though
the winter had passed almost without notice. At least it must have
passed, he thought. As they exited Tom’s apartment, they skipped
together for about ten yards, Yellow Brick Road style, a little ritual
they had acquired somehow. But soon stopped and walked steadily,
watchfully. Tom couldn’t remember the last time they had been out
together.
A Lincoln Continental with dark mirrored windows pulled up next to
them and stopped, and a small man in a gray, tight fitting jacket and
a skinny dark tie, got out of the back seat and stepped toward them.
“He wants you to come home,” he said to Mary. She squeezed Tom’s
hand, and looked up. She lowered her head and stared blankly at
Tom. The water on her cheeks could have been rain or tears.
“Come with me?” she said.
Tom nodded once with a determined and worried look.
They got in the back of the Lincoln together. The front seat was
empty, and the man in the tight-fitting sport coat got in the driver’s
seat and drove down Main a couple of blocks and parked in front of
the bank, the biggest building in town. He waited while Mary and
then Tom got out. An old man in a bellhop uniform came out of the
bank and ushered the three of them into the main entrance.
Inside, several men respectfully said hello, but the man in the sport
coat ignored them and led Tom and Mary behind the counter, and
down a hallway to an elevator with a security number pad. They got
in, but it went down. It came to a stop and the three of them got out
in front of spacious, clean well-lit offices. They saw a number of
beautiful people working. It was like there was an modern metropolis
underneath Tom’s sleepy college town.
“Mary?...”
She gave Tom a stony look, as though to say “not here!” There was
no fear, no remorse, no hint of what was amiss on her face. But no
awe or surprise either. Tom tried to wipe his mind of any thoughts.
They turned right and walked through a glass door and stepped down
into a vast lobby. Across the room on an elevated platform was a
naked man nailed to a wooden cross. The naked man lifted his head
and opened his eyes and cried,
“Mother!”
“I gave him his chance in the desert.” Tom turned around and
looked at the man in the tight fitting sport coat who had driven them
to the bank. “The bastard could have used Mystery, or Caesar's
sword, he could have fed them, awed them, and ruled them. It would
have all been so much simpler. Instead he gave them all false hope.”
“Mother forgive me! I didn’t know what I was doing!”
With a stoic face, she turned away and said to Tom, “Let’s get the
hell out of here.” She sneered at the thin man in the gray jacket, “We
are closing our account,” she exclaimed. She and Tom walked back
to the elevator.
“OK,” said Tom. “What now?”
“Get your savings out in cash. We are going to need more room. I
am pregnant.”
*****
Tom looked out the window of Shorty’s all night cafe. The dark haired
woman was lugging her heavy suitcase across the street to the bus
station. The thunder that had seemed distant before was now closer,
but somehow it was less ominous.
It was starting to become light outside. Tom waited for the bus to
leave, then walked back to his basement apartment in the drizzling
rain.
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