Leaving the Comfort Cafe (5 page)

It was as if by implementing a leisurely, languid pace, he could let Queen see that he did have things of value, that he wasn’t going to vanish into Conyers legend like the imaginary town manager who hanged himself by stepping off the desk, or the shadowy figure of a disheartened administrator who would abruptly depart with a shrug, swear and slam of the phone lines. He wanted her to know there was a time when he was at his best—maybe never quite the comic book hero, but a time when he felt he came close enough to at least imagine he was one. While scrawling educational children’s cartoons helped him scrape together enough money for his rental security deposit, it wasn’t the type of living that would pay pack student loans. But even if his imaginary heroism would never be immortalized in marble or ink, it did fit nicely within the second desk drawer on the left, the only one that locked. He slid the items into the drawer with the same slumbering care he gave to flipping his pillow, searching for the cooler side in the strange twilight moment between relaxation and sleep.

The first item was a framed photo of Austin and Kerry taken after a football game when their alma mater won the regional football championship. The picture was blurry and the color had faded, but it was special because it was one of the few pictures they had taken while they were dating. Strange that they spent most of their time drawing pictures and not taking pictures. They had pictures of everything except each other. The photo featured Kerry and Austin at a local hangout, covered with blue and gold streamers, their hair matted from stray celebratory champagne, and faces painted in school-spirited shades, with Kerry’s cheek displaying Austin’s artistic rendering of a cougar, the school mascot. They were hugging each other with one hand and holding beers in the other. Austin never really cared for beer, but he drank it when Kerry was around. And when Kerry was around, he liked it.

The next item was his freshly framed master’s degree in town administration and planning. It was always important to splurge and buy the most expensive frame, the ones where the piece of parchment was complemented by a large 8 x 10 photo of a campus landmark. The most expensive frame ensured the parchment would be noticed, and any arguments about Austin’s competence would be met with the assertion that at least one university found him qualified, even if the Snake Lady and Mayor felt differently.

The third item was a small Thor superhero action figure. When he was a child, Austin had hundreds of action figures heaped into a deteriorating vinyl case he kept under his bed. Just as the superheroes had saved him from boredom many afternoons after the bus dropped him off from school, Austin had saved them from an even worse fate when he rescued them from his mother’s misguided yard sale, emphasizing that they were too valuable to simply be put in a bin for a dollar each. He thought his mother understood until she phoned to tell him he was right, they were too valuable to be placed in a yard sale, and he should look into setting up a store front on eBay instead. When he explained he’d meant sentimental value, she launched into a tirade of how she didn’t want him to be like one of those overgrown “comic book man-children” spoofed on movie sketch stereotypes and “The Simpsons.” As if his fate would be as a wifeless, childless, thirty-something balding and overweight relic reading science fiction novels from the basement of his parent’s house. It seemed like everything he did was to keep them from this ridiculous fear that he would amount to nothing.

Finally, his favorite: a small, framed 4-by-5 inch drawing of what he would look like if he were a superhero. If Austin couldn’t have control, he could remake himself into someone who did have control. It was large enough for him to appreciate the detail he hoped would be reflected in his Norse god statue, but it was small enough to fit discreetly into a desk drawer where it would keep Thor company. The picture portrayed a new Austin—one with flowing, feathered hair. With one hand, he spontaneously hurled fire. His mind could comprehend the secrets of the universe. And fly. Of course, he could fly. Why be a superhero unless you could fly? The drawing was the perfect size, discreet enough to hide should anyone wander in while he’s looking at it.

Like Queen did, just now.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, that…it’s nothing. Just…a character I created a long time ago.”

Queen looked at the drawing as if she were about to compliment him, but after a quick glance in his direction, her eyes gave him the impression she was afraid praise would embarrass him, so she pursed her lips to the side and let out a thoughtful “Hm.”

“An old class project. Ancient history.”

“I like it. Very Gustav Klimt.”

“Who?” Austin had studied Klimt. He had based the character’s costume on the strange circular patterns in Klimt’s work, and Queen’s recognition startled him.

“Very Klimt.” She sensed his surprise. “What? You think black people don’t know anything about art history?”

Austin stammered, afraid he had committed a huge, unforgivable PC sin that required more penitence than he could afford. When he finally met her eyes, she was smiling.

“Take it easy,” she laughed. “I just sensed all that white liberal guilt in the room and couldn’t resist. I like Klimt. I also like Matisse. I like Klimt better, but Matisse matches my sofa.”

“Where did you study?”

“Just bits and pieces here and there,” Queen said. “Raising a family hasn’t left me time for much else. When the kids were young, I’d drop them off for story time at the library and then sneak over to a corner table to get caught up in paying bills, writing notes, balancing my checkbook, but I always ended up looking at these huge coffee table books. That’s what I get for sitting at the table near the art history section. Well, what little library has of an art history section.

Queen’s eyes wandered to the photo of Austin and Kerry that he had strategically placed at the corner of his desk so his eyes could focus on it while he fielded phone calls from frustrated residents.

“I like drawing cartoon characters. I know it must look incredibly immature.” Austin tried to change the subject and distract her from the photograph.

“Well, you’re working with your own cast of characters here. We even come up with our own colorful names for them…let’s see, you’ve already met Snake Lady…then there’s Tobacco Man, Church Guy, Save the Animals Girl, Lawnmower Neddy and my personal favorite, Kiss-My-Ass Woman.”

“I guess there’s no shortage of inspiration around here.”

“Want to review your agenda today?”

“Certainly.” Austin sat at his desk, intending to convey a sense of authority, like a captain on a starship or one of the high-powered, handsome business tycoons featured in the movies. But when he leaned back in the chair, it let out a loud, moaning creak, begging in desperation for a shot of WD-40. Instead of feeling like a powerful town leader charged with shaping the future, Austin felt like a child trying on his father’s oversized work boots. The chair also needed tightening, and instead of a leisurely, determined, Captain Kirk pose, Austin found himself scrambling to keep from being dumped onto the floor.

“Who’s that?” Queen pointed to the photo of Austin and Kerry.

“Oh that, she’s my girl—” Austin stopped short of saying “girlfriend.”

“No she’s not.”

“What makes you say that?”

“If she were your girlfriend, you wouldn’t make such a big deal out of her—photo front and center on your desk—looks like you’re trying too hard.”

Was I trying too hard? Was that the problem? Or not trying hard enough?

His phone rang.

“I’ll let you get that,” Queen said, leaving the office. “I just wanted to tell you the mayor will be swinging by this morning for his weekly roundup.”

“He doesn’t actually call it a weekly roundup, does he?”

“‘Fraid so.”

“Dear God. Don’t tell me he’s going to be like one of those little yappy dogs that follows me around all day?”

The phone rang again.

“Don’t worry, the mayor’s bark is much worse than his bite.”

“Maybe I should speak softly and carry a big stick.”

“Screw the speaking. Just carry the stick.”

Austin answered the phone. “Austin Parker, town manager.” It still sounded strange and foreign to him.

“Well…I see they did get that new town manager after all. I was afraid it was just a rumor.”

Snake Lady.

Austin’s throat went dry. He tried to form words, but could only manage a low mumble. “Um…can I help you Sna—ma’am. Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Well, you sent a boy down here the other day to take care of my snake problem. Scrambling through the bushes. Boy didn’t have one lick of sense because they don’t grow snakes up North where he comes from…”

Grow snakes? How do you grow snakes? Austin pictured long flowing fields of snakes, rising like cornstalks, with neat hand-painted signs designating which rows were rattlers, cottonmouths and garters, just behind the rows of peas and carrots.

“Anyway, Mr. Manager, I just wanted to tell you not to worry about sending in a snake eradication team because Blythe took care of ‘em.”

The waitress from the café? She heard about the snakes?
“I’m sorry, ma’am, who did you say took care of them?”

“Blythe. She was delivering me some pecan pie from the Comfort Café—the mayor even paid for it himself, wasn’t that sweet? He must’ve felt bad about leaving me out here with all these snakes. Anyways, so Blythe comes up here to my house, and so help me God, when she was in the front yard, there was a snake big as whatnot come clear out from under my porch and slithered up to her. I was frantic. I screamed, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, woman, there’s a snake at your ankle!’ But she took care of it. Killed them flat. There were two of them. I’m just glad someone finally got it taken care of.”

For the first time, Austin appreciated the Southern art of story embellishment, and for the first time, he wanted to hear more. He tried again, unsuccessfully, to get comfortable in his desk chair, but opted for standing up, where he could look out the office window and watch the warm glow of August trickle into his senses. “Mrs.…” He forgot her name because he always called her Snake Lady. “Uh, I’m so glad your snakes were taken care of.”

“Well, Blythe said she was a friend of the new town manager, and you sent her to take care of those snakes. So glad at least she listened to me. She knows about snakes. Knows how they can be.”

“And exactly how can snakes be?” The cord of his Nortel desk phone—-a new model that Robert purchased just before he left—started to kink, and Austin watched the black coils cling together with unshakeable determination. He couldn’t uncoil the cord without moving the receiver uncomfortably far from his ear, and he didn’t want to miss a word of the Snake Saga.

“They’re the curse of Eden. Curse of Eden,” she said. “I had been working in my Victory Garden the other day when Blythe came by—you’re probably too young to remember Victory Gardens, but that’s what we called them during the war. When Blythe came by, I set my hoe by the front porch and went to greet her. That’s when I saw the snake. Right at her heels. About to nip, nip, nip away at her. Then with one motion, she grabs that hoe her in right hand and smacks it on the ground and she hoed that snake to death.”

“She hoed it to death?”

“She hoed it to death.”

“Well…” Austin stammered. What do you say after that? “Hoed it to death.”

“Good grief, boy, can’t you hear? That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Blythe didn’t even drop the pie. Hoe in one hand, pie in the other. Snap. Hoed it to death. Then I told her where there was one snake there was two, and she said this was the second one because she ran over one in the road on her way to see me and she figured it was probably the snake’s boyfriend as they looked the same and all.”

“The snake’s boyfriend?”
Snakes have boyfriends?
The phone coil wound itself tighter, its determination growing as the Snake Lady’s story rattled on.

“Well, how else do you think they lay eggs? But you know, I think Blythe has done that kind of thing before.”

“How so?”

“Well, I told her I was afraid there might be some snake eggs lying around out there, and she said these weren’t the egg-layin’ kind of snakes.”

Austin didn’t know there were different kinds. He didn’t interject.

“I can definitely tell that Blythe is the type of woman who has hoed something to death before,” Snake Lady continued without stopping for a breath. “She told me all about it. She used to live out West with her grandfather—he was one-quarter Navajo. She lived out there with them and said they had a way of communing with the earth. You know, the way things used to be before big cars, computers and the smut that’s on television. That’s where Blythe learned Spanish. Living in Arizona or New Mexico or something. Maybe she lived in the Old Mexico for a while. Anyway, she said there were a lot of snakes out there. And not the ones that slink through that grassy lot—these were the rattlers! Those dangerous kind you hear about in the movies.”

Wait a minute, weren’t rattlesnakes everywhere? Austin decided not to think about it. “I’m glad your snake situation is resolved.”

“Oh, it’s not over yet. If you think I’m going to pay you for this snake detector, you are out of your mind.”

“Snake detector?”

“I knew it! Blythe said you’d try to take the credit for it, but it was actually something her grandfather gave her when she was living out West. It’s this special kind of stone the Navajos used back in ancient times. You set it in front of your door, and before you go outside, you check the rock—if it turns a pale white, it means there is a snake in the area.”

“What?”

“Blythe said it had something to do with the snake’s body temperature or something and how it interacts with the earth and the rock. You see, the rock picks up on that change from the earth and—well, I didn’t think you’d understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“Anyway, for now the snake situation is under control, but don’t think of sending me a bill for the good work Blythe did. Maybe she should manage the town.”