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.