The Stuckville Cafe

Enjoy this excerpt from the upcoming anthology Hot Apple Cider. You can order the book from amazon.com.

The town has a real name, but I call it Stuckville. Because, boy, oh, boy, I'm stuck here. Plunked down in the middle of nothing-to-write-home-about by a husband who wanted a change (so we moved here), then wanted a bigger change (so he left me). Now, I'm the sole proprietor of one rinky-dink café right across the street from the train tracks. I sell ice cream, espresso drinks, and Mexican food. I know the combination sounds cock-eyed, but most everything about this town is cock-eyed.

Don't think there aren’t times I think I should cut bait and run. But I suffer from the worst of human maladies - a double whammy of a total lack of a plan and an over-developed sense of responsibility. Like I said: stuck.

 

∞

Gene's a regular. When I say 'regular' I mean a constant presence. He's old, like dirt. Or so he says. One day he says, "Carol, I'm old." Me, diplomatic and tactful like I am, I say something like, "Oh, Gene, you're only as old as you feel," or some such gabber. He looks me square on and says, "Woman, I'm as old as dirt." And he pounds his cane on the floor. Now, I'm not old, but I've been around long enough to know that when an old man calls you 'Woman' and bangs things on the floor, its best to just smile and nod.

Gene comes in twice a day, after lunch and just before supper. Sure, he likes the coffee, but he’s actually coming to see me for medical treatments. Cancer has chewed away at his ear, and the doctors have taken most of the rest of it. They left a piece though, a ragged, festering gob of flesh that requires a salve to be applied three times a day. Unfortunately, Home Care only comes once a day, and Gene is half blind and so he can’t see to apply it himself. So, he walks the block and a half from his house across from the post office to my cafe twice a day. When the place is devoid of other customers, I apply cream to the stump of his ear with a Q-tip and tape new gauze to the wound.

One morning he presents his ear for my inspection and says, "What kind of a God lets an old man get cancer?"

I pull off the blood encrusted tape and say, "The same one that let you get as old as dirt."

Gene grumbles, but I see a smile pull at the corners of his mouth.

He says, "Who says there’s a God? You can’t see Him. You can’t know Him."

I squint at the oozing blob of flesh that used to be his ear. It looks bad. Worse than yesterday. "The Bible says you can know God if you are born again in the Spirit. ‘The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you can’t tell where it comes from or where it’s going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit,” I quote.

Gene pulls his eyebrows together until they form a V in the middle of his forehead. “Bible says that?”

I dab at his ear. It smells terrible. “Yeah, a guy named Jesus said that. Ever heard of Him?”

Gene smiles and nods like a bobble head.

"Hold still," I say. "Did the home care nurse say anything about the way your ear looks today?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. When you see her tomorrow, you ask her about it, OK?"

Grumble.