Bo's Café (2 page)

A half dozen or so patrons are engaged in muffled conversations. The place looks smoky, though I know the smoking ban in California
makes that impossible. It’s as if all the smoke of years past is still hovering in the air. Or maybe it’s grease from the
grill. The surface of the bar feels a little filmy.

My manhattan appears, and I’m quickly acquainted with why I’ve never ordered one. It tastes like butane with a splash of syrup.
I ask for a glass of water and mindlessly stare at the sports recap on the television.

That’s when the scruffy-looking guy sat down… I think.

Okay, what can I say without sounding like a jerk so he’ll get the message? Why do guys like this go into bars and try to
start conversations with complete strangers?

“She got to you last night, didn’t she?”

“What?” My head whips in his direction.

“Last night.”

Now I’m getting ticked. “
Who
got to me? What are you talking about?”

“Your wife,” he says. “You knew she was right, of course. Same stuff. But no way were you gonna own it. What would you do,
anyway? Say you’re sorry and repeat the same thing next week? I can see why you drink.”

“I’m
not
drinking!” I nearly shout. “I mean, I’m not a drinker.” I put some cash on the bar and get up.

“Sure… lots of guys come in a bar and order stiff drinks by name because they’re not drinkers. Listen, sport, you’re not obligated
to explain anything to me. Most people don’t want to deal with what’s eating at them. Just pretend I’m not here.”

This guy has just called me “champ” and “sport.” What’s next, “chief”?

“Your wife,” he says flatly. “The argument. The whole reason you drove down here instead of going home after work. I mean,
this is a long way from Manhattan Beach.”

I turn and look at him. “What was that?”

“Gotcha there, didn’t I?” he says with a grin. “Pretty hard to just get up and leave when a total stranger starts reeling
off details about your life. Am I right?”

He walks over to me and puts his hand on my shoulder, like he’s about to tell an old friend a joke. In one move I push his
hand off me and step back.

“Get away from me. You don’t know me!”

For a moment the room is frozen, my words hanging in the air.

He raises his hands, palms toward me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa there, partner. Calm down. I’m just talking.”

Just as I get to the door he calls to me. “You gonna just up and leave? You come to this place for maybe the third time in
as many months and finally stumble inside. You’re telling me some guy starts throwing out some pretty accurate details about
your life, someone who takes an interest in you and the problems that got you here…
and you walk
?”

“What?” I turn back from the door. “What are you saying to me?”

“Look, you’re making me strain my voice here, chief,” he says. “You want to talk, then come sit back down with your nonalcoholic
manhattan.”

I walk back to the counter.
What am I doing talking to this nut? I don’t want to talk to anyone.
I sit down in front of the flammable drink.

“—even if he could tell you why you’re so sad?”

“Listen. Who are you, Mister?”

“I just thought you might be thinking something along those lines. See if this fits: It’s like you’re stumbling around in
a dark room, bumping into furniture. How am I doing? Making sense?”

I stare at him blankly.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes.”

His voice gets quieter and lower. “After many experiences, you’ve learned to memorize paths around the pain. You think you’ve
finally figured out how to navigate in the dark. You almost get used to doing life in the dark. Then the next day, week, month,
maybe while you’re sleeping, the furniture gets moved, and you slam your shin into an end table.

“And each time, with each new bruise, you lose more and more hope, more confidence, more sense of purpose. You start reacting
to pain more than anything else. You make decisions based on what hurts least. You avoid stuff you know you should face. You
avoid interaction with people you suspect might be moving your furniture. Eventually that list grows to include a whole lotta
people.

“And the worst part is that it feels like almost everyone else can see you stumbling around. It’s like they can all see the
furniture. They might never tell you this, but you’re pretty sure they know.”

He looks at me, waiting, but I’ve lost my response. He turns back to the television. “So how am I doing, Steven?”

“How do you know my name?”

He ignores my question. “They want to tell you, you know.”

“Who does?”

He taps the bar with his fingertips. “Your friends. Your family. Those you work with. Truth is, some of them have actually
tried. They want to help. But you don’t believe they can help. Sound familiar, Steven?”

I sit up straight on my stool and nearly knock over my glass of water. “Look, I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t
know you. Now stop the game, pal, and tell me how you know
me
.”

No response.

I pick up my water glass and lean closer to him. “You want me to call the manager? Or do you want me to pour this glass of
ice all over you before I throw you out in the street?”

His voice is quieter now. “Yeah, I guess you could do that. Then you could drive home and pretend this didn’t happen. You
could go back to what you’ve been doing. Pretend it’s just a bad week, a couple bad breaks. But you’ll be back. If not here
then somewhere else.”

He pauses.

“And until you let someone shine a light into your room, nothing’s gonna change. Life’s gonna get more painful, more confusing,
and darker. Pour ice on me if you want. Heck, throw me out if it makes you feel better.”

The man tips up his glass and shakes a couple of ice cubes into his mouth.

“Oh, by the way, you might wanna take that name tag off your shirt if you don’t want strangers calling you by name, Steven…
. Just a thought.”

I look down and see the name tag—the little sticker with my name on it that I’ve worn all day since that meeting outside the
office.
What an idiot!
Might as well have been wearing a sign around my neck saying, “Please talk to me, I’m lonely!” I rip the sticker off my shirt.

We’re both quiet, except for his obnoxious crunching.

“Look,” I say. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I’m… I’m not in a very good place. And some stranger starts spouting stuff
about me and I don’t know what to do. Maybe this is all a joke someone put you up to, but I need it to stop. What do you say
we start over? Tell me your name and how you know me.”

He shakes his head. “Oh no you don’t. I’ll call the manager out here and see why a perfect stranger wants to know my name.”

I chuckle. “I deserved that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.

“Steven,” he says, “would it help if you knew that I’m from this neighborhood? I grew up here too. I remember when this place
was Petrazello’s. Gracious Sister of Monrovia, they had great pizza! The sauce… It had this sweetness to it. Remember? Nobody
was sure if it was cinnamon or what.”

“I’d forgotten that.”

“You can’t find that sauce anymore. It died with old man Petrazello.”

Then he smiles warmly, searching my eyes. “Maybe it would help if I told you that I know your dad.”

“You do? Why didn’t you say that at the start?”

“I’ve seen you before this,” he says. “You were sitting in the parking lot.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Your dad told me about the car. Steven, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there aren’t a lot of late-model SL-Class Mercedes
in this neighborhood.”

“So you know my dad, huh?”

He nods. “We were pretty good friends when you were a little kid. Hung out here a lot. Then I got on the fast track, and we
sort of lost touch until a few years ago. Anyway, he brags about you, you know. So I’ve kind of kept a watch for you and followed
your life the last couple years. That’s how I was sure it was you today when you walked into Fenton’s. I was walking out of
Radio Shack next door and thought,
How cool is this? I know this kid, but he doesn’t know me. Let’s have some fun.
”

“So that’s how you knew about Manhattan Beach?”

“Yep.”

“So, you’re not a mind reader, after all?”

“Not really. But I kind of was there for a while, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, you were.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t told you about me.”

“Me too.”

We’re quiet again, both staring at the television set. Finally I laugh. “So are you going to tell my dad I threatened to beat
up one of his friends?”

“No, that can be our secret.”

“Explain this, then.” I look away from the TV. “You said some things a couple minutes ago that my dad wouldn’t have known.
What was that about?”

He gives me a sideways look. “What stuff was that?”

“You know, the fight with my wife and… that whole bumping-into-furniture thing.”

“Oh, I just get those little sayings off the Internet. Sometimes they’re from Dr. Phil, sometimes Oprah.”

“No, you don’t.” I shake my head. “How did you know those things about
me
? I hide that stuff pretty well.”

“Maybe not as well as you think.” He lets that last statement hang in the air for a while. I’m not sure what to say. This
guy may be my dad’s friend, but he’s still pretty annoying.

He spins around on his stool and jumps up, like a little kid.

“Come outside for a second? I wanna show you something.”

He takes a few steps toward the door and turns to me. “Come on, it’s not like you’ll miss your drink.”

So I follow his flip-flopping feet out to the parking lot. There, sitting directly next to my car, is a shiny cherry-red vintage
convertible.

He leans against the trunk. “Nice, huh? Buick Electra—1970. Only about six thousand ever made it to the street. Less than
two hundred still running. Four-fifty-five with eight cylinders and 370 horses pulling this sled. I redid the whole thing
myself from the ground up.” He looks lovingly at the car. “Even the upholstery. The door panels and the whole steering assembly
came from an Electra owned by Cary Grant.”

When he sees my blank stare, he says, “He was an actor… in the forties and fifties, um, before Brad Pitt was born. Anyway,
you gotta jiggle the passenger door handle from the inside to get in, and she drinks a lot of oil. But if you want to get
your hair scared, there ain’t nothing like this ride! You can sit in it if you’d like.”

It truly is an impressive vehicle, especially the storage compartment which makes up half its size. You could drive a present-day
hybrid into that trunk and still have room for groceries. This car looks like a shiny safety-deposit box on whitewall tires.
No big fins, no gimmicks—Detroit’s last attempt to build a car that could comfortably fill an entire lane.

I shake my head. “Thanks. I can see it just fine from here.”

He hops in the car, starts the engine, and puts it in gear. “Suit yourself. Maybe we’ll see each other again. Nice to meet
you, though.”

“Hold on a minute,” I yell.

He puts the car back in park and lets the engine idle. “Look, Steven, you’ll never discover most of what you went searching
for tonight as long as
you’re
setting the terms. That’s how this stuff works. Maybe you came here for a reason. Or maybe you were brought here.” He peers
into my eyes. “What if God brought you here to meet an old guy with a Buick Electra who may be just a little further down
the road than you? I don’t believe much in coincidence. Maybe this is nothing more than a funny practical joke God let us
stumble into. Or maybe both of us have been led here.”

He reaches into his wallet and fumbles around.

“My name’s Andy. Here’s my card.”

I take it from him. There’s nothing on it but a name—Andy Monroe—and e-mail address.

“You decide you want to ride around in this cream puff, e-mail me. Okay?”

He puts the car into reverse. Then he smiles at me and slips on a pair of sunglasses as if it were noon.

His giant Buick Electra with white upholstery and whitewall tires slowly rumbles its way out of the parking lot. By the time
I look up from putting his card in my wallet, he’s vanished down Colorado Boulevard into the chilly early spring night air.

(Late Evening, Wednesday, March 11)

By the time I work my way down the Coast Highway and into our gated Manhattan Beach neighborhood, it’s after eleven. Our gaslight-lined
street looks even more quiet, safe, and elegant after driving through the area of sketchy, weed-choked rental houses that
dominate life around Fenton’s.

I pull into our circular driveway and turn off the car, admiring our home. The landscapers did a good job this week upgrading
our ground lighting. This is the first time I’ve seen it at night. It really takes the shadows out of the front terrace and
ties it in well with the surrounding trees and shrubs.

Lights are all still on inside. That’s not good. It means Lindsey’s up, probably rehearsing tonight’s version of her disappointment.

I don’t need this. Not tonight.

I sit there a while longer; tapping my fingers on the dash, hoping the lights will turn off.

We weren’t always like this. It wasn’t this hard. I actually used to look forward to coming home. We’d call each other during
the day. And when I walked in, I don’t know, it was fun. I’d open some wine and we’d talk.

More tapping.

And what does she have to be disappointed about? What am I not doing? I could be doing a lot of other things than working
this hard. If anyone should be complaining, it’s me.

Ten minutes later I finally walk into the house. Lindsey’s standing at the kitchen sink and doesn’t turn around at my “Hey
there!” My wife is a strikingly attractive woman. She has dark brown eyes and hair exactly the same color. She’s in great
shape and dresses like she knows it. I married her, in part, because of her self-confidence. When we get crossways, it’s what
I can’t stand about her.