Old Fat Guys

       The other day, I noticed that when I got out of bed, my feet hurt. I actually had to sit there, cursing silently, while my feet became usable. While having my coffee, I mused over the fact that I had recently needed my eyeglass prescription strengthened. Yes, I was also the bearer of forty extra pounds, and my hair was no longer the luxuriant thickness it had once been. Babes in convertibles no longer cast impish looks my way when they pulled up next to my 10 year old Honda at stop lights. My daughter no longer wants to bury me in the sand at the beach. Maybe it’s because she can’t drive the bulldozer it would take to accomplish such a feat before the summer ended. My clothes seem to fit awkwardly and I don’t have a clue as to where to shop anymore for the comfort I require. The Goodwill Store is no longer an avant-garde preference. It’s a haven. So that’s where I headed one Saturday, when I had a little time to burn.

        If you’ve never noticed, Goodwill Stores are never in a nice part of town. I guess rich people don’t really need a Goodwill Store. Anyway, my old Honda looks right at home in their parking lot. This particular Saturday, I was looking for some cheap picture frames, and after poking around a bit and not finding anything that wasn’t broken or exceptionally ugly, I gave up and wandered towards the used book section. I had to pass a glass enclosed jewelry case and saw another man about my age standing and staring at something in the case. As I passed by, I noticed that the man seemed obviously distraught. He was staring at a medal of some kind and as he looked up I saw that his eyes were red and his hands were splayed on the case, almost as if he was trying to brace himself.

       “Are you all right, sir?” I asked, quietly.

      “Yeah…, I’m okay. I was just… remembering something.” He was a biggish fellow, well, round might be a better description, silver hair just a bit over his paint stained work shirt. Glasses that looked a bit too small for his face perched on his nose. He looked as I did, dressed for comfort on a weekend, wasting time junking for some unimportant item. His grayish eyes had a kind of faraway look in them as he looked at me and said, “That’s a pretty good imitation of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The highest medal awarded in this country. My boy earned one in Iraq.” He paused to look at me before adding, “Posthumously.” Okay, crap. Now I felt like an idiot having interrupted this man’s private moment. I didn’t know what to say and could only come up with, “I’m…sorry.” Feeling like I was intruding, I turned away thinking to head towards the exit. A few moments later, I noticed that he had exited too, both of us no longer feeling like junking any more. We both paused for a second, blinded by the bright sun and on a whim I spoke up, “Think I’ll go over to that diner for some coffee. It’s sure to be strong as hell. Care for a cup? I’m buyin’.” I pointed to the trucker cafe just across the parking lot.

        He looked my way and I could see that he was still partly lost in the memory of his son, and I thought I’d probably overstepped my bounds. He looked up for a moment before nodding and saying, “Coffee sounds good.”

        We both turned towards the café, silently watching our work boots hit the cracked asphalt. “Bet they’ve got some good pie to go with it,” I offered, “these places always have the best.” He smiled faintly as we walked into the noisy diner.

        We both ordered big, steaming mugs of hot, strong coffee and big slabs of homemade apple pie, topped with cold vanilla ice cream. We were served by a middle aged, gum popping, wise cracking waitress who seemed to know everybody by name, but called us both “Darlin’.” No matter how busy she got, she never let our coffee get low or cold. Don’t get that kind of service anymore. The whole atmosphere seemed to remind everyone there of a time long ago.

        Neither of us spoke until we had finished our pie. Then my dining partner decided to begin.

       “Name’s Eller. Jack Eller. My wife and I are both from North Carolina. We moved here just after my son was born and ain’t never been back since. This became our home.” I sipped my coffee and waited for him to continue.

       “I owned a construction company. Did pretty good, wasn’t rich, but…did pretty good. Retired now, and we just pretty much spend our time trying to feel good and travel a bit. Had to sell the company…no one to take it over. I always thought I’d give it to Jack Jr., but…well, I just sold it and invested the money.” Jack paused while the waitress filled our cups and assured us she’d be back to check on us. We both said, “Thank you, ma’am,” at the same time. She winked an overly made up eye at us and walked away.

        I figured it was my turn. “My name is Nick Bryan. I’m from Texas, the wife’s from Iowa. We’ve been here for the last nineteen years. My daughter was born here. She’s in college now, up in Montana. We’re both retired too. Want to get one of those big, damn travel trailer contraptions and do a bit of sightseeing ourselves.”

       “You ever in the service?” asked Jack.

       “No, bad back and can’t see as far as my hand.”

       “Well, me neither. Flat feet and bad heart.”

       He sipped more coffee and went on. “Jackie didn’t have to go. He was never the kind of boy who would want to go to war. Always so kind and gentle. He was never even the outdoors type. Couldn’t get him to join the Boy Scouts, go fishing, hunting…none of that stuff. He just wanted to read…loved school, said he wanted to teach. It used to make me mad that he wasn’t like all the other guys. He didn’t have a lot of friends and most of the ones he did have were girls. Guys at my construction company used to kid me a lot. I didn’t understand it. Made me mad. I used to yell at him. Told him he was never gonna’ be a man.” Jack’s face took on a haunted look, a kind of gray, sad, faraway cast to his features. I refused the urge to reach out and touch his shoulder but, he looked me in the eye as he continued his story.

       “I laughed in his face when he told me that he had joined the Army. I said they would send him home in a month. Told him that he wouldn’t have much time to read. I think I was mad that he could go and join the service but not go camping with his own old man. I guess we were both mad. He left without even saying goodbye. Only time he ever made my wife cry.” Jack paused to look out of the window at the afternoon traffic. “We barely heard from him. He didn’t even come home after boot camp. He called to say that he was staying in Georgia. After that he sent us a letter saying he was being deployed, and then…nothing. For six months we tried to contact him. We wrote almost everyday, we tried Skype, cell phones, email…everything. But no word from him.”

       “Finally we got a letter. In it he apologized for leaving the way he did. He said he loved us very much and missed us. He described the horror of what he was going through and how scared they all were, how changed they had all become.” Jack blinked a couple of times at his coffee.

       “That was the last time we heard from him. The Army sent two officers to the house to explain that Jackie had been killed in the battle at Haditha Dam. Later that year later we were invited to the White House for a ceremony awarding our son the Medal of Honor because of his courage above and beyond the call of duty. They didn’t tell us everything about his death, but two Army helicopter pilots wrote us letters about what happened. It seems that he held off a group of enemy soldiers by himself so that his patrol could withdraw with the wounded. Then he picked up another wounded soldier and carried him on his own back to their extraction site. When the enemy attacked the helicopters trying to get the wounded out, the stupid kid did the same thing again! The chopper pilots said he refused to get on and continued to lay down suppressing fire so that they could get away. In their letters, the pilots said they only got away because of him. As it was they barely got back. Jackie was credited with saving fifteen men, almost every one of them wounded, including the helicopter crews. The last crewman to see him said that he was down on one knee, taking hits, and still firing. They never recovered his body. And…I never got to…tell him…how much I loved him.”

        Jack was crying. I was crying. Somehow the waitress was standing behind Jack with a pot of cold coffee. She was crying. Through the silence, I noticed two big bellied truckers who had turned to listen to the story. They were crying. It was then that I noticed that the entire diner had gotten quiet. Those things are small and our conversation must have been heard by the whole crowd. Just then, one of the truckers leaned forward and placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Tough luck, fella…I’m…sorry. God bless.” And with that he swiped at his own eyes, tossed some money on the counter and walked out to his rig. The waitress brought some fresh, hot coffee, placed it on the table, and, giving Jack a quick hug, hurried off to the ladies’ room.

        And then, an amazing thing happened. The whole joint erupted in conversations centered around just how it was that parents got so far away from their children. People came up to our booth and spoke with Jack about experiences concerning their own kids, perfect strangers trading stories and advice about themselves and their offspring. But it was the burly owner of the diner who paid the most meaningful compliment. He put his hand on Jack’s shoulder and asked, “Excuse me. Did your son have a favorite dish? A little something he liked more than anything else?”

       “Yes,” answered Jack, “homemade apple pie and vanilla ice cream. His favorite thing since he was ten years old. It was the last thing my wife made for him, the last thing he ate in our home.”

        The owner sniffed loudly, “Well, if it’s all the same to you, we’re gonna’ change the menu. From now on its gonna say ‘Jackie Jr.’s Favorite Dessert’, not Apple Pie. And it’s gonna’ be on the house for you anytime you come by. That be okay with you Jack?” Jack nodded, the waitress sniffled and the rest of the lunch crowd clapped loudly.

         I had trouble explaining the lunch conversation with my new friends to my wife, that evening. I couldn’t quite capture the beauty of the few moments in a greasy spoon diner when strangers poured part of themselves into a hurting heart. I couldn’t quite paint the picture of the feelings of sympathy, of…love, I guess…that was given freely by a bunch of old, fat guys sitting around crying. No, I couldn’t quite get an angelic cast to the image, but there was one thing that I could do that night.

         It was late when the number I called was finally answered.

       “Hello,” said a sleepy voice.

       “Hi, honey.”

       “Dad?” 

       “Yeah, it’s me.”

       “Is anything wrong? Is mom okay?”

       “No, no, everything’s okay. I just wanted to call and…uh…uh…”

       “Dad?”

       “Yeah, I just called to make sure you were doing okay…you need anything…you know…”

       “Dad, I’m fine. I just talked to you last Friday. I’m eating right, studying hard and I’m not pregnant.” I laughed, at once feeling comfortable again.

       “Yeah, well, you always were a smart one.”

       “So, what’s up Dad?”

       “Nothing honey, just wanted to make sure that you knew how much we loved you and miss you. And how proud of you we are.”

       “I know that. Look, it’s only a month before Thanksgiving. I’ll see you then, right?”

       “Sure. We’ll have all of your favorite things ready for you. I know what you like.” She laughed at that. Then she surprised me.

       “Hey, Dad? You know where we can get some really good homemade apple pie for dessert? Maybe with some really cold vanilla ice cream? I’ve really been craving that lately.” I almost dropped the phone.

        “Yeah. I think I know a place.”

        “Great! What’s it like?”

        “Very…uh…casual. Bunch of old fat guys sittin’ around crying.”

        “What!?”

        “Nothing, honey,” I laughed. “I’ll take you there when you get back. They’ve got the best in town. Theirs is really…special.”

The End