The Forb solves the cell phone problem.

I walked into The End of Time by myself this morning, abandoning Winnie to the decorating of our apartment for Christmas. She’s very excited about our first Christmas together, and I have an aversion to arranging cute little do-dads in the place where I eat and sleep. It all works out for the best.

I was barely in the door when The Forb signaled for me to join him at his table. His morning newspaper was shoved aside and he was scribbling on a piece of paper. He looked feverish.

“Max, I’m writing a letter to the editor of that rag of a newspaper of yours. I’m going after this thing about banning cell phones in cars. I could care less about cell phones in general, but I maintain my view that the world is dominated by idiots.”

I ordered my coffee as Mirna floated by, carrying a couple of steaming mugs of something and humming an unrecognizable tune. “And you want to read it to me, right?”

“That’s right. I’ll spare you my cultural critique, but I’m offering the world a list of other things that should be banned while driving a motor vehicle, since we’re so keen on preserving everyone from their own stupidity. Listen to this:

1.     Smoking. It’ll kill you eventually, but you don’t need to take others with you when you crash your car while trying to light up. Banned.

2.     Kissing. It’s almost impossible to kiss someone with your eyes open. No one should drive with closed eyes. Banned.

3.     Sex. Goes without saying. Banned.

4.     Other people in the car, especially children. Other people are the biggest distraction ever. My ex-wife is evidence of that. Banned.

5.     Eating. The consumption of a bean and beef burrito while driving is a recipe for death, the indigestion notwithstanding. Banned.

6.     Manual transmissions. The addition of a clutch pedal and six possible shifting positions makes driving way too complicated, especially for the population of morons that we all seem to be. Banned.

7.     Praying. No one should be allowed to pray while driving, for two reasons: First, many people pray with their eyes closed. This puts it in the same danger category as kissing. Second, the Almighty would surely be offended when one second you’re praising his holy name, and the next you’re flipping the bird to the guy who just cut you off. Banned.

8.     Car radios. Too many buttons and too much stupid music. Banned.

9.     Day dreaming. If you’re thinking about something else, then you’ll drive right up somebody’s tailpipe. Driving takes focus. Banned.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “How in the world can the police monitor ‘day dreaming’?”

“Easy,” said The Forb. “They just look for people who look glazed over and are smiling. If they’re smiling, then they are either talking on a cell phone, listening to the radio, praying, or having sex, all of which are banned. If none of those things are provable, then the cop defaults to a charge of day dreaming.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Of course it is, Max! Don’t you recognize irony when you hear it?”

I left The Forb to his work and found my own table just as Mirna brought the coffee. I thought about that crazy list and almost started laughing. I thought about each one that The Forb had listed: Kissing, sex . . . All in a car. Hilarious. Graphic. Interesting.

I finished my coffee and went back home to see what Winnie was doing.

I come clean about my wedding.

Okay. So it’s time to quit fooling around. My niece Daisy, never one to shy away from exposing falsehood, called me on the phone after she read yesterday’s post and put me in my place.

“Uncle Max, it’s Daisy. Your niece.”

“As opposed to Daisy, my 150-pound Rottweiler?”

“Funny. Look, it’s time for you to put down your crack pipe and tell the truth. Your story was cute, but totally bogus. You’d better clean up your act or no one will believe you when you actually are serious about something. You’re a journalist—you should know this.”

Daisy’s right. I need to come clean. Winnie and I did get married, but not in the way I described yesterday.

I did take her to a restaurant—sort of. It was a little take-out taco joint and we ate our food while sitting on the curb looking out on the street. We did stroll by a body of water, but it was the lower end of Fifth Street where a water main had broken. There clearly was that moment when my love for her bubbled to the surface and I turned to her to ask her to spend the rest of her life with me. She looked deeply into my eyes and spoke gently:

“You have some cilantro on your front tooth.”

I picked it out and re-asked the question. She said yes, and we set out to make our plan. Father Gene actually didn’t conduct our ceremony since neither one of us is Catholic and we had decided to get married right away. We got married at City Hall, and Father Gene came as the witness. But he hosted a wedding party for us at his rectory, and we had a great time. I took Winnie out to meet my parents, and they were happy for us and not entirely disappointed that they had not made the trek to our wedding. They don’t have TIVO, so they don’t like to miss their shows.

It’s true that The Forb and Limerick Bill paid for our trip to Montana. But it was at the Hotel Montana in a town fifty miles from here. We were there for two days rather than two months. The Forb said that, because it’s an election year, I can pay him back by listening to his deeply informed views about American politics. I can hardly wait.

It’s almost true about my job. I asked for the new position, and they’re still thinking about it. I moved into Winnie’s place, since it doesn’t require sandblasting prior to habitation.

Okay, so I made up the first story. It was a good one, and the one I would have chosen had I been able. But the true part is that Winnie and I are married, and Life at the End of Time will take a different turn.

Maxwell is back!

I must apologize to my formerly faithful readers for being AWOL all these months. I have no excuses, but plenty of reasons that I hope you will understand. Here are some of them:

The newspaper for which I write gave me a more substantial job than just being a freelance columnist, so now I actually make a living with my writing. I also moved to an apartment that has room for more than one person and a small family of cockroaches. Then I spent two months in seclusion in a ranch-like retreat in Montana.

Why, you might ask, did all these things take place? Hmmmm?

Because Winnie and I got married.

That’s right—we got married. At the end of the summer things started heating up for us. I looked at my reflection in the mirror one morning and asked myself if I wanted to risk spending the rest of my pathetic life without Winnie. I knew that I didn’t, so I took her out to a nice restaurant and then on an evening walk at the edge of town near a lake where people stroll on warm summer nights.

I looked at her and thought about how she was alone in the world—her mother gone, her father and brother acting like thuggish trolls—and how I was alone as well. In the time that I’d known her she had changed my perception of her being uptight and prudish to someone with great depth and beauty. I began to consider myself to be a slob not worthy of her company, which was probably a good place to start.

I asked her to marry me, and she said yes without inquiring about my financial status or potential genetic anomalies. She wanted a small, quiet wedding, one in which her remaining relatives would not be invited. My parents were there, my sister and Daisy showed up, and most of the good folks from The End of Time filled in the rest of the gaps. Father Gene did the honors, which might have broken a few church rules, but I don’t think he cared.

Much to my surprise, The Forb and Limerick Bill got together and sprang for the honeymoon at the retreat in Montana. Apparently The Forb had some old business connections that owed him favors. I was able to email my work to the newspaper, and Winnie and I had a great time in the wilds of Montana for two months.

So that’s the story. Now that we’re back and teetering on a life that is respectable, Life at the End of Time will resume. There’s more to tell, of course, but that will have to wait. Stay tuned.

Daisy Has a Crisis

“Uncle Max, I am cursed. God has destined me to be surrounded by idiots.”

For such a bright young woman, my niece had a hard time remembering about the relationships of different time zones in the US.

“Daisy, I’m sure you’ve already had breakfast, but it’s only 6:00 in the morning here.”

“Yes, I have had breakfast, thanks for asking.” She took a breath and recharged her tirade. “So I had to go to this weekend conference for this class I’m taking, and they threw me into a room that I had to share with three other girls. THREE, Uncle Max. It was at some camp or retreat place or something, and there were two bunk beds in each room. These girls were freaks. I mean FREAKS.”

Daisy’s voice hit an emphasizing pitch that almost slipped past the borderline of my ability to hear sound.

“What do mean that they were freaks?”

“You won’t believe it, Uncle Max. First, they were all nerds and couldn’t even engage in a meaningful conversation. It was one-word responses to everything I asked them. I finally gave up. Second, they were all completely bizarre. One girl had a moustache—you know, like the peach fuzz that girls have, except multiplied by, like, a million. The other girl had about eight whiskers on her chin that looked like they could poke out your eye if you got too close.”

“Did they work at the circus?”

“No, they go to school, like me. Oh, wait. That was a joke, right?”

My dear niece was more of a nerd than she wanted to admit. We often despise those things that remind us of ourselves.

“Right. But please continue. This is fascinating.”

“I thought you’d like it. You could write an article about it, and no one would believe it. Anyway, the third girl was all proud of herself because she said she didn’t believe in God, which I could have cared less about anyway, but she thought it was a big deal so when she actually talked, it was about that. On top of that, she had all these demands about space in the room because she can’t stand feeling closed in.”

“So, Daisy, you roomed with two girls sporting bizarre facial hair, and one who was a claustrophobic atheist.”

“You got it. I’m telling you, Uncle Max, you can’t make this stuff up.”

I thought about how this could be the set up for a really bad joke, but couldn’t bring myself to make light of this event that had so traumatized poor Daisy.

“Anyway, I just needed to tell someone. Thanks for listening, Uncle Max.”

I ended the call and decided to get up. I thought I might get to The End of Time early, have coffee, and figure out how to write about Daisy’s experience without implicating her or her erstwhile roommates. One should never make fun of women with facial hair.

I also needed some time to consider how I might get Winnie to unleash her own collection of family secrets that she so carefully protected.

Liberal or Conservative: Looking for a fresh label

A few years ago I flew out to visit my sister and her family. When I was introduced to my sister’s book club friends, one of them wanted to know if I was one of those “liberal media types.” She apparently assumed that because I wrote for a newspaper, I was a leftie and could be lumped in with the commie hordes of broadcasting.

I asked The Forb once why he read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but never the local paper in which my column appeared.

“I don’t read that rag,” he said. “Too conservative for my tastes. Besides, I get enough of you here every morning.”

It’s funny how those labels get thrown around and stuck on people. The Forb sounds like he despises political conservatives, but in practice he hates both conservatives and liberals and speaks boldly about his views. He is an equal opportunity despiser.

As I sat with Winnie this morning in The End of Time, I watched Father Gene come in and sit down, his warm smile bringing grace to the room. What was he? Since he didn’t take a hard line on same-sex marriage, but responded with reflections on theology and the Bible, was he a liberal or a conservative? I didn’t know.

As I thought about it, the labels as we use them today only serve to describe opposing agendas. But at their heart, the descriptions both have value and should, ideally, work together in creative tension.

At its best, conservative means that there are traditions and practices that have value, and they should be protected—conserved. There is a built-in caution in conservatism that is concerned about abandoning the past too quickly in favor of things that may not have lasting value.

At its worst, conservative means fearful protectionism, naming demons and villains when its sacred ground is challenged.

At its best, liberal means that all ideas may come to the table for consideration. Traditions may still have value in this sense, but they shouldn’t lock us into the past, but rather give us motivation to engage the future.

At its worst, liberal means to embrace “progress” at any cost, regardless of history and consequence. In this way to be liberal is to be like budding flowers that have been severed from their roots. They’re attractive for awhile, but soon will be discarded for freshly amputated pretties.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that I want the best of both those categories if I have to have anything at all. Being locked into one or the other is suffocating to me, and risks being linked to people and ideologies that do not speak for me.

I need a new label. Liberative? Conservatal? How about person? Or human? Or maybe just Maxwell.

I was disturbed from my reverie by Winnie sniffing as she leaned her head on my shoulder. She was crying. I put my arm around her and looked at her face.

“What’s going on, Winnie?”

“I miss my mom,” she said. I handed her my paper napkin and she wiped her eyes.

“I know,” I said. I thought about the funeral service, and the people in her hometown, and wondered if she had any contact with them. I remembered the imposing figures of her father and brother, and tried to imagine what comfort they might send her way.

“Have you heard from your family?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, and I won’t.”

“They won’t contact you?”

“No,” she said. “And I don’t want them to.”

As much as my heart was surrendering to Winnie, I still realized that there was much under the surface that I didn’t know or understand. She was a much more complex person than I thought when we first met at the café. I was content in the knowledge that I was simple and shallow. She probably had me figured out before our first kiss.

I made it my intention to rattle some of the family skeletons in her closet.

The American Flag and Church

Winnie and I sat together at our booth, holding hands and sipping our coffee. We hadn’t really talked too much about this relationship that was happening to us, and I was fine with that. It was enough for me just to be with her and enjoy our moments of intimacy, which so far consisted of hand-holding and the occasional smooch. I was happy to delay any further complications.

We watched out the window of the café as city workers adorned streetlights with American flags and patriotic banners, getting things ready for the annual Fourth of July celebration that would stir the hearts of the nation and give a much needed boost to beer sales. I usually spent the Fourth at home alone watching movies or getting caught up on my columns, but this year could be different. I decided that I would do something that Winnie wanted to do, even if it meant suffering through a fireworks show. However, I wasn’t quite prepared for her request when she spoke it.

“Maxwell, would you like to come to church with me this Sunday?”

Because I am a cynical writer, I have chosen churches that are very different from the kind to which Winnie is accustomed. But no matter the church, I have always avoided showing up with the faithful on Sundays where the celebration of national holidays might possibly meld with the body and blood of Christ, causing him to bleed red, white, and blue. I have a real problem with that, so I usually find something else to do on those days.

“Is there something special happening this Sunday, Winnie?” My faked innocence was just a panicky attempt to dodge her question.

“Oh, you know,” she said, “just the regular church service, but with some extra American flags and songs like God Bless America and The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Things that churches do on the Fourth of July.”

I knew it. I would rather have my skin peeled off with a rusty corkscrew than sit through a church service like that.

It’s not that I don’t love my country—it has nothing to do with that. It’s just that I don’t think Jesus is any more partial to people in America than he is to people in Taiwan or Lithuania or anywhere else. It’s great to be thankful to live here and all, but these church services border on nation-worship, and it gives me the creeps.

I remember reading about how the Nazis managed to convince the state churches in Germany to take down their crosses in the sanctuaries and replace them with swords, and to remove the Bibles from their altars and display Hitler’s Mein Kampf instead. I’m not making any comparisons here, except to say that we humans can screw up worship in the blink of an eye if we aren’t careful.

I don’t even like seeing American flags displayed in churches. Again, it isn’t because I am against the country—I just don’t see the point. You display a flag for different reasons: To show that you are on US territory (unnecessary, in my view, when you are already in the US), or to stake a claim (like when Russia planted a flag on the sea floor under the north pole), or to prove that you are patriotic (which it doesn’t do). None of those are good reasons to put up a nation’s flag in a church.

Also, when you look up “flag protocols” on the Internet (the font of all knowledge), you learn that when a flag is displayed in a church, it has to be given prominence over any other flag, including the flag of the Christian church (where in the heck did that come from?). If the American flag in a church demands dominance, I think the message is not a good one.

So, I am re-cementing my commitment to avoiding church at all costs on the Fourth of July. That’s it. End of discussion. I turned to Winnie to give her my answer.

“Sure, Winnie. I’d love to go with you.” I am such a wuss.

She leaned her head on my shoulder and squeezed my hand. “You are so sweet, Maxwell. How about instead we go to the lake and have a picnic? Then afterward maybe we can go see a movie.”

I’m pretty sure that I love Winnie.

Father Gene speaks out about gay marriage in New York

“As a man of the cloth, Padre, I assume that the gay marriage decision in New York would cause your righteous anger to rise up and shout, ‘Unclean!’”

I was surprised at first to see The Forb sitting with Father Gene when Winnie and I walked into the End of Time. When I heard the topic of conversation, I knew that The Forb was sparring for some action. Winnie squeezed my hand and slipped over to our booth, not wanting to join the controversy.

It was strange to realize that my booth and become our booth.

“Sit for a minute, Max,” said The Forb. “There may be a story in this for your paper.” I sat, signaling to Winnie that I wouldn’t be long.

“So what do you say, Father, about this whole thing? Will God smite the Big Apple?”

Father Gene sipped his coffee and smiled. He struck me as a man who refused to take the bait in a potentially hot conversation and wasn’t driven by anxiety. He set his cup down and looked at The Forb.

“The New York decision doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “Our society is one that is based on the idealization of individual rights. When the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—good values, it may be argued—are the bottom line of a culture, then those rights will have to ultimately be embraced by everyone. Old boundaries are destined to be pushed back or broken altogether.”

“But what about men marrying men, and all that?” The Forb was clearly not getting the response he had anticipated. “Shouldn’t the church be upset by that?”

“The church in its many forms will, for the most part, object to the New York decision and all that will come from it,” said Father Gene. “And well-meaning people will attempt to change hearts and minds by debate and legislation. And none of it will work.”

“So you’ll just roll over and play dead while the sanctity of marriage—a sacred trust that I’ve managed to violate several times—is swept away by the liberals?” said The Forb. “And if all the yelling and screaming that you Christians do won’t work, then what will you do?”

“There will still be plenty of yelling and screaming,” said Father Gene. “And I don’t hold out much hope for that to change. But I believe there is a way that we Christians need to go.”

“Where is that?”

“In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says this: ‘Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.’ We Christians have joined the battle for the culture on the culture’s terms. We need to engage with Jesus.”

The Forb looked at me uncomprehendingly, as though I could interpret Father Gene’s words. I shrugged and looked back at the priest.

“Here’s what I mean: When it comes to marriage, the church has allowed the state to set the agenda. Sure, we have our ceremonies and blessings and rituals. But until the state says it’s a marriage, we don’t recognize it as valid. Now that the state wants to set the agenda a new way, we resist. We can’t have it both ways.”

“I thought marriage was a big deal in the church. Isn’t it a sacrament or something?” said The Forb.

“Yes, for us Catholics it certainly is. And it remains very important throughout the whole church. But these state decisions about same-sex marriage are the equivalent of the state suing us and taking away our coat—the coat that we call the definition of marriage. I believe that now it is time for us to give the state our cloak as well.”

“I don’t get it,” said the Forb. I remained silent, not getting it either.

“The cloak is the collaboration between church and state when it comes to marriage,” said Father Gene. “We need to give that up as well. It is a collaboration that needs to be untangled, and it is time that we viewed marriage within our own communities of faith as something that runs deeper and more significantly that merely the exercising of rights.”

“So you don’t think that the church should do weddings any more?” said The Forb. “Wouldn’t you give up some serious revenue by doing that?”

Father Gene smiled. “It would indeed be costly. I definitely believe that the church should do weddings. But we should do them as faith communities, calling people to deep commitments, rather than merely performing religious services that leave people to the ravages of a culture that discards marriages like last week’s trash.”

“What about the legalities of marriage?” said The Forb. “The church can’t do anything about that.”

“True,” said Father Gene. “But that is the realm of the state to confer legal rights. It is the church’s role to call people into faithfulness before God and his people. It is the church that has to define marriage as a relationship that is grounded in God’s good creation. But I’m getting over my head here. Sorry to sermonize.”

“It’s a puzzle to me,” said The Forb. “Let me know how it all turns out.” He got up and retired to his regular spot, losing himself behind the morning paper.

“It’s too complicated for me to write about, Father,” I said. “Let me know when you preach about it. I might show up.”

“I may have to wait until the Sunday before I retire to preach that sermon, Max,” he said. “I’m not sure it will play well in the US.”

I didn’t think it would play well in Rome either, but I kept that to myself. I left him and joined Winnie. She didn’t ask about our conversation, and I didn’t tell.

Winnie Returns Home

Even after her return, Winnie stayed hidden away. She hugged me tightly when I picked her up at the airport but was not very talkative on the ride home. I walked her to her front door where she kissed me once, and then said she needed some time alone.

This was not what I envisioned. I imagined some long walks and conversation that would allow me to really get to know this woman. Instead, she disappeared into her apartment and I didn’t see her for several days.

It’s strange that someone as curmudgeonly as The Forb would have wise counsel for me.

“It isn’t about you, Max,” he said, dipping his Earl Grey tea bag up and down in his cup. “It’s about grief.”

“How long does it last?”

He shrugged. “Days. Weeks. Different for everyone. I think what you will see with Winnie is a cocooning time. She’ll hibernate for a while, cry, think of her life with her mother, wonder about life without her, and so on. Then she’ll appear again and the former but slightly modified Winnie will return to the land of the living.”

“How do you know all this?” Sometimes The Forb had too many answers to offer, and I often questioned the veracity of his claims. This bit of wisdom, however, rang true.

“I’ve lived with women who have suffered loss,” he said. “We men deal with it differently, and probably not in a good way. We buck up, get back to work, push on, and stuff it all down. Women seem to be better at processing grief. Don’t worry, Max. Winnie will be back.”

This made sense to me, so I sipped my coffee and gave his words some consideration. After a few minutes it dawned on me that I was in The Forb’s territory. I looked over at my regular booth and saw two strangers sitting in it, an apparently retired couple just passing through. They didn’t know better.

“Where is Limerick Bill, Forb?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him for a few days.”

“He’s off doing business somewhere,” he said.

“Business? What kind of business? Is there really a market for bad poetry?”

“While it defies logic, Bill is a genius in his own right,” said The Forb. “He’s brilliant about some obscure area of software integration, and his talents are occasionally summoned by some major institutions. He works on a contract basis and makes some big money from time to time. He just banks it, wears ratty clothing, lives in a lousy studio apartment, and writes dirty limericks. I think he may be a bit autistic.”

I had a hard time imagining Limerick Bill slithering through the marble hallways of large financial corporations. I wondered if they asked him to work during the nighttime hours in order to keep the employees from being offended.

“How did you come to know Bill?” I asked.

“He’s my godson,” said The Forb. “His dad and I were in the Army together. When he and his wife died in a car crash a few years ago, I started looking in on Bill. I help him keep his accounts straight and set him up with a financial planner. He’ll be okay.”

I see The Forb in a new way now. I realized that once you chip away at someone’s outer presence, you find some surprises. With Winnie, The Forb, and Limerick Bill, the surprises were good. With people like Alan, not so good.

When I saw Winnie walk in the café door at that moment and look around for me, I was not only delighted, but slightly shaken by the realization that my own outer presence was chipping away. I was a little worried about what surprises would worm their way out.

The Afterlife Explained

It would be a few days before Winnie returned home, and I wondered how mornings at The End of Time would change once she was back. Would we sit on the same side of the booth? Would we start sharing meals? Dressing alike? Things could get complicated.

When I entered the café I saw The Forb and Limerick Bill in deep conversation. It must have been something important, because The Forb rarely sacrificed his newspaper time for in-depth discussions. He was more of a bullet-point conversationalist than he was a listener and responder.

The Forb saw me come in and motioned for me to join he and Bill. I sat next to The Forb because I was still unsure about Limerick Bill’s habits of hygiene. The Forb jumped right in.

“Max, the death of Winnie’s mother has caused us to ponder the possibility of life after death. What are your views?”

“I’m still trying to figure out life before death, Forb,” I said.

“I’m working on that myself, Max,” said The Forb. “As you know, I avoid being specific on the topics of heaven and hell. If pressed, I would have said that neither one likely exists, and that when people die, they just die with no subsequent glory or fiery torture on the cosmic horizon.

“However, in thinking of the loss of Winnie’s mother, I can’t help but consider Winnie. I have a fondness for her, and I’ve been thinking that I might not be comfortable with my theories if someone I really cared about—like Winnie—died. Theories tend to break down when confronted with real life.”

“I know what happens when we die,” said Limerick Bill.

“Bill has reached a point of certainty on the topic,” said The Forb.

“When we die,” said Bill, “our life force gets scattered into the brains of newborn babies. That’s how people get creative and smart.”

“And how do you know this, Bill?” I asked.

“I had a dream about it once,” he said, “and it made sense to me. Plus, no one can ever prove me wrong.”

“So if a person dies in India, his creative molecules can infect a baby in Alaska?” said The Forb.

“No,” said Bill. “You have to be closer. Like maybe a mile. Mile and a half at the most.”

“You astound me, Bill,” said The Forb. “Hey, wait: Let’s ask the authority on the subject.”

We all turned to see Father Gene walking through the café door. The Forb called out to him.

“Padre! We need some counsel over here!”

Father Gene offered a quizzical half-smile and came to our booth, seating himself next to Bill. Bill’s unkempt and possibly unbathed appearance was a stark contrast to the Priest’s clerical neatness.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “Having a theological crisis, I assume?”

“It’s about the afterlife, Your Eminence,” said The Forb. “With the passing of Winnie’s mother, we’ve spun some theories about the great beyond and would like your informed views. Do we go somewhere else with angels or devils? Do we sleep for centuries until the great trumpet sounds? Do we just decompose and feed the worms? Or what?”

Father Gene scratched his chin and put on a thoughtful face. I imagined that he had been asked questions like this many times in his career as a priest and he probably had his answer all worked out. I was surprised at his response.

“I don’t know, really,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” said The Forb. “Aren’t you in cahoots with God? I thought you would have the celestial itineraries all worked out.”

“Well,” said Father Gene, “the church does have its teachings on what happens to human beings after they die, but historically there haven’t been single agreements on the precise pathways of life after death. Some speak of instantly appearing in either heaven or hell after a swift divine judgment; others suggest a silent waiting until the day of resurrection. Beyond that there are any number of ways that theologians and philosophers have speculated on the next life.”

“So what do you think?” asked The Forb.

“I’m sure it goes without saying that I stand on the religious side of the question,” said Father Gene. “Yet, the most I can say is this: When we die—each and every one of us—we enter the care of God. For some that will be paradise; for others it will be agony.”

“You mean, like torture?” I had images of a grandfatherly god patting some of his children on the head and offering candy, while pinching the ears off of others. The possible duplicity disturbed me.

“No, not at all,” he said. “It would be agony because some would not want God’s care. It would be like being hugged by someone you deeply dislike. There are folks who don’t like God right now—why would they like him on the other side of death?”

Father Gene’s comments quieted us enough for him to relocate to a quieter corner of the café. The Forb opened his newspaper, Limerick Bill resumed work on a new literary masterpiece, and I fled to my booth to drink coffee and think about Winnie.

Life at The End of Time almost felt normal again.

The Funeral, Part 2

People began to arrive for the service, so the encounter with Winnie’s father and brother was, thankfully, delayed. I removed myself from the front row and found a place in the back next to an elderly woman who smelled of Ivory soap and lavender.

The service was, at first, traditional in the playing of old hymns, the reading of scripture, and a brief homily by the pastor that had to do with hope and trust in God. Then, the pastor invited people to speak about their memories of Winnie’s mother, whose name turned out to be Marjorie. I noticed that two basic categories of people came up to speak: Younger people who had been student’s in Marjorie’s Sunday School classes over the years, and female friends who wept about missing their very close friend.

At first I thought it was my imagination, but after the third or fourth woman glared at Winnie’s father after speaking, I suspected that he wasn’t the most popular member of the family in that community. I also noticed that Winnie, while on the same front row, sat a fair distance from her father and brother. Her desire to be detached from them was evident.

The pastor concluded the service and invited everyone into the fellowship hall for a lunch that had been brought in by some of the parishioners. Apparently there would be no graveside service.

I ate my share of chicken casserole and potato salad by myself, watching the people of the church express their condolences to the family. Most of the people spoke with Winnie, and only a few of the men approached her father and brother. My journalistic curiosity got the best of me, and I shored up my courage and walked over to greet the testosterone bearers of Winnie’s family.

While they both responded to my offer of a handshake, they just stared at me with stony looks as I explained who I was and how sorry I was about their loss. Once I realized that their social skills appeared to be limited to harsh stares and sour expressions, I excused myself and went to see Winnie. When I told her that I needed to head back to the airport, she followed me outside.

She thanked me over and over for coming to be with her. I started to offer my best “Aw, shucks, it weren’t nothin’,” but instead opted to kiss her again. It was even better this time than before, although I confess to opening my eyes once to be sure her father wasn’t watching from the church door again.

I promised to pick her up at the airport when she came home, and she was grateful for that. She left me with a look that reminded me that we would have to somehow deal with what had been started between us once we returned to the relative normalcy of our lives. I felt the summons of proper adulthood crashing through my self-imposed isolation.

On the plane ride back home, I thought about Winnie’s family. I kept seeing her father and brother standing side by side, and I kept thinking that someone else belonged with them. Then it hit me: Alan would fit perfectly with them, in stature and attitude, creating an unholy trinity that started to unnerve me.

Was Winnie attracted to Alan because he represented an abusive maleness that was familiar to her? Why would she want that kind of attraction?

Most disturbing of all was the thought: Why, then, would she be attracted to me?

The Funeral

It was a short drive from the motel to the church where the memorial service would be held. My rental car was a compact and had been well used, but at least it didn’t smell like cigarette smoke. I hung my suit coat in the back seat on a hanger I lifted from the motel closet. I didn’t want to create any additional wrinkles on my suit, since it had seen me through many weddings, funerals, and newspaper cocktail parties.

I arrived at the church a little early, which was a good thing since my cell phone rang as soon as I parked the car. It was The Forb.

“Did you get the flowers ordered, Max?”

“I did, Forb. I called before I left for the airport.”

“Good man,” he said. “Give Winnie my love when you see her. Just one more thing.”

I was sure that the “one more thing” had nothing to do with Winnie and something to do with The Forb’s moral outrage, so I waited until he offered his daily commentary on world events.

“So that you know I’m a fair man, let me say that Democrats are just as stupid as Republicans,” he said. “This Anthony Weiner guy sends off photos of his plumbing to some women and imagines that the news will never leak out that he’s a perverted idiot. With a name like Weiner, maybe the pictures were his personal logo. Ha!” The Forb clearly enjoyed his own joke.

“Seems like they all have the moron gene,” I said.

“Must be,” he said. “The liar gene, too. Stupid and liar go together in politics, right?”

“Probably everywhere, Forb.” I noticed that there were only a couple of other cars in the church parking lot, and the front double door to the sanctuary was open. “I need to go,” I said. “I think the service will be starting soon.”

I turned off my phone and entered the church. It was a relatively small space, able to seat maybe a couple of hundred people. I guess people in this town didn’t expect their churches to be the size of football stadiums or concert halls. It was an old building, maybe built a hundred years ago or so, by my estimation. It had a warm, well-kept feel to it, like a building that had been cared for by generations of faithful people.

The room was empty except for a simple wooden casket covered in flowers, and a lone figure sitting on the front row. I could see that it was Winnie. I walked up quietly and cleared my throat a couple of rows behind her. She turned and saw me approaching.

Her eyes were red from crying, but she still looked lovely. She just stared at me for a few seconds as I sat next to her. She started to cry again and threw her arms around my neck.

“Maxwell,” she said through tears, “you’re here. I can’t believe it. Thank you, thank you. I’m so glad to see you.”

She released my neck so that I could breathe again, and dabbed her face with a handkerchief. I put my arm around her and didn’t say anything. After a while, she spoke again.

“I just wanted some time alone before everyone arrived,” she said. “My father and older brother will be here soon, and we’re not really . . . close. I just wanted some time alone with Mom.

“I’ll let you have some time, Winnie,” I said.

“No,” she said, grabbing my hand that was resting on her shoulder, “please stay. At least until they come.”

I wondered about they, assuming she meant her father and brother. I suspected that there was some hidden pain in there somewhere, which probably explained why a young woman like Winnie would choose to move away from her family and live by herself.

She continued to hold onto my hand, which I liked very much. “I just can’t believe that you came all this way, Maxwell. I’m very grateful.” She looked at me with her vulnerable eyes, and I was captured.

“The folks at the café chipped in for flowers,” I said. “The Forb sends you his love.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, still looking at me.

I had not intended to kiss Winnie, but I did. She kissed back, which allayed my fears about the inappropriateness of kissing her in front of her deceased mother. Winnie didn’t seem to mind. It was a warm, sweet kiss, and when it was over she leaned her head on my shoulder.

The voice at the back of the sanctuary startled the both of us out of our shared reverie.

“Winnifred.” It spoke authoritatively, like a parent who had discovered his five-year old acting disobediently.

We both turned to see the source of the voice. Two men stood at the entrance to the room. One was younger than the other, but both carried the same stern visage. They were sturdy men in ill-fitting suits, and neither one looked like his face had often been disturbed by laughter.

Clearly, I was looking at they.

Life Sparks

I waited around until the taxi arrived to take Winnie to the airport. I sat in her tiny living room while she packed. Her place was neat and tidy, as I expected, and I was pleased to see books on a shelf and in little stacks on a couple of flat surfaces. I liked it that Winnie was a reader.

She emerged from her bedroom looking small and fragile, holding a single bag that held enough belongings for her trip. The taxi arrived seconds later and I walked her outside. She turned to me and thanked me for hanging around with her, and started to step into the car. I touched her arm and turned her around and hugged her again, telling her to call me if she needed anything. I gave her one of my business cards from the newspaper so that she would have my cell number. I watched as the taxi disappeared down the street.

The next morning I showed up at The End of Time as usual. The Forb was already there and was talking with Mirna when I arrived. Limerick Bill was nowhere to be found, but Father Gene was there and in deep discussion with someone who I assumed was from his church. The Forb nodded at me when I came in, and Mirna left him in order to tend to other customers. I went to his booth and told him about the death of Winnie’s mother. He motioned for me to sit down with him.

“Maybe a few of us here could chip in and send flowers or something,” said The Forb. I was touched by his uncharacteristic thoughtfulness and told him I thought that was a great idea and that I would be glad to organize the donations.

“I imagine Winnie was fond of her mother,” said The Forb. “She seems like the type of person who would love her family.”

I agreed with him and shared my own impressions based on Winnie’s response to the phone call from her aunt.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve seen a lot of death over the years, and sometimes I’ve been sad and other times I’ve wondered why the grim reaper took so long to show up.

“I had this uncle—a vile, cloven-hoofed bastard of a man—who managed to hang on until his late seventies. He outlived two ex-wives who left him long ago because of the beatings they endured, as did his abused kids who left home as soon as they could and never looked back. Out of some perverted sense of family loyalty, I looked in on the old villain once in a while at the veterans home where he lived.

“When he died, I had to take care of wrapping things up and seeing to it that he was planted. After cashing in a couple of measley life insurance policies and clearing out his savings account, I was able to get him buried with enough left over for his bus fare to hell.

“The crazy thing is: I was sort of sad when he died, even though he was the president of the sons-of-bitches club. I kept thinking about how a life sparks up and burns out so quickly that you wonder why it came about in the first place, except to cause pain or bring happiness. Mostly these lives of ours just get by and don’t do much of either one. So there was my uncle, living three-score and ten of a miserable life and then, poof—gone without the world even taking notice.”

I didn’t go to my regular booth that morning, but stayed there with The Forb while he read his newspaper. For some reason I wanted some company at the moment, and The Forb’s philosophical musings got me thinking about my own life. My singleness (which allowed me to stay as disconnected from people as I wanted to be), my routines, my job—none of it seemed like anything more than getting by.

I drank a cup of coffee and then left the café. I called Winnie on my way home and asked about the details of the funeral service. She seemed happy to hear from me even though her voice sounded thick and weepy.

When I arrived home I opened my computer and went to the airline website. I bought a ticket to the town where the funeral would be held. I didn’t know whether or not Winnie would even notice my presence, with her immersion in grief. But at least there would be a moment when this life would do something more than just get by.

Loss at The End of Time

The morning clouds were breaking up, revealing enough blue sky that reminded me of the opening credits of The Simpsons. The light breeze that stirred Winnie’s hair made the air feel more like it came from the beach rather than the city.

As Winnie and I walked toward her apartment I resisted the urge to take her hand. She seemed vulnerable and wounded, even though it was me who got slugged in the face. I thought that my overture could be startling to her, and might also start something that I wasn’t sure I could finish. I had plenty of experience in writing checks, so to speak, that I couldn’t cash.

“Thank you for walking me home, Maxwell. But you can’t really do this everyday, you know. I’m sure that Alan will leave me alone now.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. Alan appeared to be a man who didn’t give up easily and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him emerge again. At the same time, I knew that Winnie was right: Accompanying her on a daily basis was probably not sustainable.

“We’ll just do this for a while, Winnie,” I said, annunciating carefully so that I wouldn’t sound like an old boxer on cheap booze. After a few days, we can reassess the situation.”

Winnie’s apartment was on street level in an old three-story brownstone. As we approached the building the sound of a telephone ringing caused Winnie to hurry to the door and fish in her purse for her keys.

“Wait just a minute, Maxwell. It might be my mother.”

She found her keys and ran inside. I stayed on the sidewalk and watched the birds flit through the trees that lined the street, judiciously avoiding the places where they would most likely drop their poop. I once got nailed on the top of my head just as I was ready to get onto a bus. No one would sit by me.

I heard Winnie’s voice rise, and the thank-yous that she squealed as she ended the call suggested that it was good news about something.  She appeared at her front door, her face lit up like the neon Budweizer sign that used to adorn my college dorm room.

“Maxwell, that was Mr. Taylor,” she said. “He gave me back my job, and said I would even get a pay raise. I can go there today!” She ran to me and threw her arms around my neck, hugging me tight. I hugged back, and liked it very much.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, stepping back. “I didn’t mean to be so forward. But I’m so excited! I need to change. Can you wait? Would you walk with me to the bus stop?”

I said that I would, and she disappeared inside to prepare for her renewed workday. I positioned myself in a non-poop area of the sidewalk and waited. It occurred to me that the vile habit of smoking would be handy in a situation like this. Instead, I watched the street to mine inspirations for next week’s column. It was a quiet neighborhood and didn’t offer much dramatic hope for a blocked writer.

My knowledge of Winnie had expanded rapidly in the course of a couple of hours. I learned where her apartment was located, that her job was in tact, that she had a mother, and that she was very nice to hug. I decided to ride with her to her office and obtain her phone number—two worthy goals for the day.

I hadn’t spoken to my own mother or father in a month or so. Maybe two. Or three. Thinking of Winnie anticipating a call from her mother caused me to add call parents to my list of things to do. They had plenty to occupy them in the retirement community in Tucson, but maybe they would remember their son when he called.

I wondered if my blossoming relationship with Winnie was a sign that I might be actually growing toward responsible adulthood. I was only in my mid-thirties, I had a reasonable job as a writer that paid my rent and left enough for food, I had two unfinished novels in my laptop, and the future looked . . . foggy.

Winnie’s phone rang again. It seemed funny to hear a real land-line telephone ringing on a kitchen wall, since I had long abandoned such old school technology for a cheap cell phone. I heard Winnie’s muffled voice as she picked up the phone. I figured it was her boss calling again, until I heard her cry out and drop the phone. I cast off my awkward sense of propriety and went inside.

The tiny kitchen was immediately to the right of the front door with a window that faced the street. Winnie had her back to the kitchen counter and was covering her face with her hands, stifling sobs. I went to her and put my hands on her shoulders.

“Winnie, what’s the matter?”

She pulled her hands away and looked up at me, tears dispersing her light mascara down her cheeks.

“It was my aunt, Maxwell. My mother had a heart attack. She’s dead.”

Winnie buried her face in my chest and wept. It still felt good to hold her, but in a different way. For a guy who earns his living as a wordsmith, I couldn’t find anything to say.

Winnie's Bodyguard

Winnie clicked off her phone and dropped it into her purse.

“Sharon said that, after I left the office the day I resigned, she got a group of women from the office to confront Mr. Taylor about Alan’s actions. It seems that I wasn’t the only one he pursued, and up to now no one talked about what had happened to them. Sharon really got them stirred up.

“Plus, Alan got my home address by going into confidential personnel files,” said Winnie. “With that, on top of a possible sexual harassment suit, Alan was fired. Now he blames me.”

“He blames anyone but himself, Winnie,” said Father Gene. But in the meantime, you’d better keep a watchful eye. Alan could reappear any time.”

“You might meed thum hepp, Winnie.” My lips were starting to swell and my words came out like hash through a meat grinder. “Ike a bobbyguard.”

“A bodyguard, Winnie,” Father Gene interpreted. “More like an escort, I think. Maybe Max would be willing to help out. He could walk you to the café in the mornings.” The priest smiled quizzically at me, as though he was innocent in his attempts at matchmaking.

“Would you do that, Maxwell?” asked Winnie, looking at me with doe eyes.

“Yub. Gad too.”

“He’ll be glad to do that, Winnie.” Father Gene stood. “I serve as a police chaplain once a week. I think I’ll stop by early and have a chat with the sergeant.”

As Father Gene left The End of Time, I considered the paradoxes of his life. He was a peaceful priest, an ex-boxer, a widower and now celibate, non-violent and yet a minister to the police department and apparently not shy about enlisting armed help against the likes of Alan. In contrast, my paradoxes boiled down to verbally promoting health and organic foods while spending too many evenings eating cheap ice cream and chocolate donuts while watching TV. I guess that really isn’t a paradox; it’s more in category of lazy hypocrisy.

The Forb and Limerick Bill entered the café together. They both approached my booth and slid in across from Winnie and me. Bill immediately started writing something on a dirty piece of wrinkled paper. The Forb compressed his eyebrows as he looked me over.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“An awful man who threatened me hit him. Maxwell was trying to protect me.”

Winnie told the story to The Forb while Bill scribbled away. When she finished, The Forb looked pensive.

“I know some guys, Winnie,” he said. “They could make sure that Alan doesn’t come around any more.”

I shook my head vigorously, discouraging The Forb from enlisting any underworld support for Winnie’s safety. He shrugged and dropped the subject.

“Anyway,” he said, “the big news today is that Sarah Palin needs to take a high school US history course. She garbled up the story of Paul Revere in another freaky interview. The Republicans will sure rally with Sarah at the helm.” He rolled his eyes, exposing the irony that he intended.

Limerick Bill looked up from his work. “Who’s Paul Revere?”

The Forb stared at Bill as though he was looking at a giant pumpkin that had spoken for the first time.

“He was the leader of a rock band in the sixties, Bill,” said The Forb, looking at me with eyes that screamed astonishment. “All national leaders should know their rock ‘n roll history.”

“Damn straight,” said Bill, returning to his work.

As The Forb continued his critique of American politics, I gave thought to how I might serve as Winnie’s companion until Alan disappeared from the scene. It felt as though I was being drawn into Winnie’s life in a way that simultaneously charmed and frightened me. I was sure that I had some sort of intimacy issues, along with a lack of fighting skills.

Maybe Father Gene could show me some moves.

Violence at The End of Time

There was very little blood shed in the old movies. When John Wayne punched it out with some desperado, they pounded each other in the face with abandon yet never produced bloody noses or blackened eyes. When they got shot, there was rarely evidence of life fluids escaping from the wounds. Even the victims’ shirts remained holeless.

Not so with me. Alan only hit me once, square in the face, but my nose bled copiously and my lip swelled up like an overripe squash. If I would have hit my head on the cement when I fell, I would have blacked out and missed all the little birdies twittering around my head.

It wasn’t like I didn’t see him coming. I was sitting in my booth at The End of Time and saw Winnie outside the window, walking toward the front door. She stopped suddenly because this big guy approached her from the opposite side of the street. I had never seen Alan, but I knew it had to be him. He was not only a big guy, but he also looked angry. And Winnie looked scared.

I never thought that I would consciously put myself in harm’s way, but then I’m not sure I was fully conscious at the time. I felt deeply protective of Winnie, and I don’t even remember leaving my seat and exiting the café. My last memory before Alan knocked me stupid was of me grabbing his shirt from behind and ordering him to back off. He looked at me like I was a pile of cow ploppage and then threw just one strategic punch in the middle of my face.

Even though I was on the ground bleeding to death, I heard Alan yell at Winnie.

“They fired me, you bitch! What did you say? WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

Alan sounded like an enraged bull when he yelled. I wanted to get up but I couldn’t seem to find my feet. I could hear Winnie begging Alan to go away and leave her alone, and then I heard leather shoes slapping the sidewalk from down the street.

When my eyes remembered how to focus, I looked up to see Father Gene standing between Alan and Winnie. In contrast to the rage that emanated off of Alan, Father Gene had an aura of calm. He had one hand raised at the level of Alan’s chest, either in a gesture of cessation or of blessing. When the priest spoke, it was with the same tone that he might say, “The body of Christ, broken for you.”

“You will not harass this woman,” he said. “You’ve injured a man, and now you must leave.”

“Get out of the way, priest,” growled Alan, “or I’ll take you down. Your collar won’t protect you.”

“I know it won’t,” said Father Gene. “If you have to inflict more violence, then you will do it to me, but not to her.”

Alan hunched his shoulders and seemed to grow five inches taller. I thought he was going to hit Father Gene, which would leave Winnie defenseless. Father Gene remained the portrait of a man at peace, one who didn’t fear violence.

“Your life will not be better if you follow this path.” The priest’s hand moved closer to Alan’s chest. “Already you have committed an act of assault, and there may be consequences for that. If you go now, you can think about what you want your life to be like. This will not end well as it is.”

Alan’s entire frame started to vibrate, his fists clenched like fingery anvils. Then he abruptly turned and stormed across the street, spitting invectives as he went.

As lousy as I felt, I didn’t mind having Winnie fuss over me and press her fingers lightly to my face as she cleaned off the blood. We relocated from the sidewalk to the inside of the café, where the ministrations of care were performed for my benefit. Father Gene kept asking Winnie if she was all right. I guess he hadn’t noticed that I had been nearly bludgeoned to death. After a while, he turned to me.

“If you would have dodged left, he would have missed you, Max.”

I was in the process of checking to see if all my teeth were still in my mouth. His comment caused my investigation to cease.

“How do you know about things like that, Father Gene? You’re the poster boy for non-violence.”

“I fought Golden Gloves for two years after high school,” he said. Even Winnie looked surprised at that. “I know my way around a street fight.”

“But you didn’t even act like you were about to throw any punches,” I said. “You looked like the Pope out there.”

Father Gene smiled. “My fighting days are long behind me, Max. My vocation calls me into the way of Jesus, and because of that I have to be willing to allow the forces of violence to have their way with me, if circumstances demand. This was one of those circumstances.”

In my mind, being a priest was a perplexing life because of the vow of celibacy. Now it seemed even more complicated, with the commitment to non-violence, even at one’s own detriment, trumping a life with no sex.

I tried to ponder Father Gene’s words, but my face was starting to hurt in spite of Winnie’s tenderness. I wondered what it would be like to willingly take such pain without resistance. I just couldn’t find a place for that.

Winnie is Attacked

I’ve never thought of myself as a peaceful man, or a pacifist, or as an intentionally non-violent person. My last fist-fight was in the sixth grade and it lasted all of thirty seconds. It was with my best friend and within a couple of minutes we were playing Pac Man again, forgetting about our conflict. That’s how boys do it.

Today, however, I considered homicide preceded by extended periods of painful torture. I imagined my victim screaming in pain and begging for mercy while I turned up the power switch connected to the car battery that was making his private parts feel like all the scorpions on the planet where having their way with him.

Winnie had been violated.

It wasn’t the worst kind of physical violation, but it shouted impropriety, and that unleashed a maggoty darkness in my heart that took me by surprise. Winnie told me about it as she let her cup of tea grow cold while she dabbed her teary eyes with a Kleenex.

“He seemed like a nice person, Maxwell,” she sniffled. “We went to a nice restaurant and had dinner, then sat in a coffee shop and talked for a while. He mostly spoke about himself, and didn’t ask much about me, but I didn’t mind because I was interested in learning about him.”

“Did something bad happen that night?” I asked. I saw Winnie the morning after her big date, and she seemed fine at the time.

“No,” she said. “This happened last night. He came by my apartment—I didn’t know he was coming over, and I hadn’t given him my address—and brought flowers, which I thought was very sweet.”

The hair on the back of my neck was starting to get spiky as I guessed what might be coming next. Every movie about sexual predators played trailers through my mind.

“I let him come inside,” she continued, “and he grabbed me right away. He kept pawing at me until I slapped him in the face.”

I never imagined Winnie as someone who would slap anyone, and I found this new, unexplored area of her life to be intriguing, even though I was having fleeting fantasies that involved weaponry.

“He got really mad and called me a bad name,” she started to cry in earnest. “I can’t even repeat it, Maxwell. It was awful.”

Without forethought I reached across the table and took Winnie’s hand.

“I’m really sorry, Winnie. What can I do to help?” At the moment I wanted to scoot next to her and hold her in my arms, but I suspected she would find that to be scary. She looked up at me with a pleading look.

“Would you go with me to my job, Maxwell? I’m going to quit.”

“Why are you going to do that, Winnie? It’s not you who has done anything wrong.”

“I know, but Alan is a supervisor there, and I just can’t stay.”

I made no attempt to talk Winnie out of her decision. This was clearly a case of sexual harassment, but I doubted that she could make a case since it didn’t happen on company time. She probably wouldn’t have a chance against a veteran employee of the company.

“Sure, Winnie,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

Within the hour we walked into the Title Insurance company where Winnie had gotten her so-called dream job. Had I shown any interest in her life prior to this I would have known where she worked, and that it seemed like a decent place to be employed. We walked into the reception area where a young woman was sitting behind a desk. Winnie stepped up to the counter that buffered the desk from visitors and spoke to the woman.

“Hello, Sharon. Please inform Mr. Taylor that I will not be working here anymore. I am leaving as of today.”

“Winnie,” she said, glancing at me, “what’s wrong? What happened?”

“I’m just quitting, that’s all,” said Winnie, fighting to keep her composure.

Sharon looked over her shoulder down a hallway that probably led to the offices. When she turned back to Winnie, she spoke quietly.

“Winnie, does this have something to do with Alan?”

Winnie looked down at her hands and fiddled with her fingernails. “I just need to leave, Sharon. I don’t want to talk about it, please.”

“That bastard,” said Sharon.

“Please, Sharon,” said Winnie, “I just need to leave. Tell Mr. Taylor that the job didn’t work out for me. That’s all.”

“That dirty bastard,” said Sharon, with renewed emphasis.

Winnie turned and walked toward the entry doors with me following behind. I felt like excess baggage, but I was glad to be there with her.

We returned to The End of Time, but Winnie stopped at the door.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone about this, Maxwell. And I don’t want to go home yet. Will you walk with me for a while?”

I was happy to do that. We walked without speaking, until we found a bench near a small park just a few blocks away. We sat down and let the city come to life around us.

Once again, I reached for Winnie’s hand. She did not pull away.

I hated Alan and wanted to smash his stupid face. At the same time, I blessed him for creating this new scenario for Winnie and me. It’s funny how life works out sometimes.

The Flavor of The Forb

As I approached The End of Time from the east, I could see The Forb approach down the street from the west. Two young men were walking toward him, and as they passed him they must have said something to him, because he stopped and looked back at them before proceeding on to the café. I waited at the door for him.

“Everything okay, Forb?”

The Forb looked puzzled and just shook his head as he walked in. I followed behind, sure that a story was here somewhere.

Some would call The End of Time an old school diner, because it has no trendy furniture, no stacks of cards advertising local concerts, no coffee paraphernalia for sale, no free wi-fi. It’s just a diner with old naugahide bench seats in the booths, a decent breakfast, and good coffee. The place is like an old pair of slippers that are worn around the edges and a little dirty, but feel really great on tired feet.

The Forb went straight to his booth of choice and sat down, but didn’t automatically open up his morning newspaper as he usually did. He just stared out the window. Rather than plopping myself into my regular spot, I felt an irrational urge to join him and to see what was going on. The absence of The Forb’s usual ebulliance  meant that there had to be a rupture in the fabric of the universe.

I sat down and The Forb turned to look at me. Foregoing any attempt at preliminary conversational pleasantries, he got right to the point.

“Helluva thing, Max. People continue to give me pause.”

“Why is that, Forb?” I asked. “Did something just happen?”

“It did,” he said. “Did you see those two young guys who just passed by me on the street?”

“Yes, I did,” I said.

“Well, they gave me a funny look—you know, the kind of look that men usually give to women—and said something that I don’t understand.”

Even though The Forb was of the generation that fostered the ethic of free love and celebrated the memory of Woodstock, he was the kind of person who liked his categories to remain stable. That younger men might leer him at was less offensive than it was incomprehensible.

“Were they speaking English?”

“Of course they were speaking English, Max. We’re not in Bulgaria, you know.”

I wondered whether Bulgarians spoke Bulgarian or Bulgarish or what. “Okay,” I said, “so what did they say?”

“One of them said, ‘There’s a tasty old man.’ What the hell does that mean, Max.”

A memory emerged in my mind of a conversation I had with my niece, Daisy, back when she was in high school. She was describing a new boy in her school who had caught her fancy. He sat across from her in one of her classes and she was in a constant state of drool over him. Her description of him was remarkable:

“He’s absolutely lickable, Uncle Max,” she drooled.

I was fairly certain that Daisy would not talk that way in front of her mother, and I kept the exchange a secret. I may speak of it one day at Daisy’s wedding.

I returned to the moment I was sharing with The Forb.

“I think it means that they found you attractive, Forb.”

The Forb just shook his head and looked out the window. After a few minutes, he spoke again.

“Boys need to play more basketball when they’re young. Otherwise, they just get confused about things.” He opened his newspaper and forgot that I was there. I got up and slipped into my regular booth. No sooner had Mirna brought my coffee than Winnie walked into the café.

She was wearing a light pink sweater and a gray skirt that fit her fine figure—a figure normally hidden by baggy clothes—in a way that made me catch my breath. Her hair was down and laid against her slim shoulders gently, causing me to imagine the sweet smell that might be found there. She remained at the counter and ordered a coffee to go from Mirna. Winnie must have been in a hurry to get to work. She looked over at me at smiled, giving me a little wave. I waved back.

As Winnie took her coffee and walked toward the door, I watched with more than a little interest. I didn’t want to know about her recent date, unless the guy she was with turned out to have Tourette’s syndrome and barked out obscenities over dinner or picked his nose over dessert or something. It occurred to me that Winnie was truly lovely.

Indeed, she was lickable.