Coffee-Stained Romance, Chapter Three: Passing By

Chapter Three: “Passing By”

“‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place?’ What did we think of it?”

O’Reily eyed them all, looking at everyone and no one, picking their brains with his eyes. No one answered. No one had anything to say about it. He wasn’t exactly surprised. College students were useless before noon without some encouragement.

“Group up. You guys in the center, you guys in the back, and you guys over here. Three groups and discuss. Whoever gets it right, gets a quiz grade. How’s that?”

The groups gathered. Todd was pushed together with the fat weird guy who apparently today, ran out of deorant, the blonde texting ace, a guy with a shaved head that sat behind him, and that Kelly girl.

“Okay, so who actually read the story?” asked shaved head.

“I did,” Kelly answered.

“So did I,” fat weird guy added, his eyes veering towards Kelly’s chest.

“I didn’t get it,” sighed texting queen. “Some old guy was drunk and these two waiters were bitching about it.”

“Well,” Todd started, “I suppose we can go from there.”

“I thought it was significant that the two waiters were kinda bored with the old man,” fat weird guy said.

“I think it was more than that,” Kelly added. “Did anyone else pick up on the ages?” she asked meekly, as though every word from her lips was being judged.

“Yeah,” Todd answered. “The young waiter, the middle aged waiter, and the old guy. They got more and more miserable the older they got.”

“So what?” asked texting queen, glancing at her phone as it sat silently on the table.

“Haha! Old people are miserable, huh? That’s no big shocker. My Grandma’s a real bitch,” shaved head said crudely.

“Why is she so bitchy?” asked texting queen.

“I dunno. She’s old!”

Kelly rolled her eyes. Todd caught it and smiled. “Why are old people miserable?” he tried.

“Because they’re going to die,” fat weird guy said with a creepy grim tone.

“Which explains why the old guy was so miserable. And a drunk,” Kelly tossed in.

“He was deaf. That probably sucks a lot and he wants to die,” texting queen said. “That’s why he tried to kill himself in the beginning.”

“Just because someone is deaf doesn’t make them suicidal,” sighed Todd.

“Deaf and old,” she corrected him. “Geez.”

“I’m wondering if the light is important,” Todd said, trying to get things back on track.

“I’m sure it is,” Kelly replied.

“Of course it is!” fatty insisted. “It’s in the title, remember? ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place.’”

“Well, light represents life in a lot of ways,” said Kelly.

“Right. The young waiter, he’s going home - ”

“To plow his wife,” fatty interrupted. Shaved head snorted.

“Right. He’s going home. Married, you can bet his wife keeps things clean. And probably leaves the light on for him at night,” Todd stated.

“I don’t know about that, but I think you’re on the right page.” Kelly tapped her chin. “If you think about it, the middle-aged guy just wants to be someplace clean and well-lit, right? The café is clean and well-lit. It makes him happy. When he goes to that bar, though . . .”

“He loses his faith. It’s dark. He’s afraid.”

“Of death.”

“Exactly.”

Kelly smiled with satisfaction. “Okay. So let’s get this straight. The old man? The deaf one who is suicidal? He wanders off into the dark. Probably going die soon.”

“Yep!” Shaved head added. “Won’t hear a bus comin’ or something like that. WHAM!”

Fat weird-o laughed stupidly.

Kelly gave her head a dismissive shake. “All right, so yeah, the young one is heading home, probably to a clean house. He’s happy. Middle-aged, not so much. Not married, or he’d be going home to her. Instead, he leaves this lighted place and goes some place dark. He’s loses hope and faith.”

“Because why?” Fatty asked.

“Because he’s unhappy and he’s scared of death. I mean, you can have all the faith you want, but at the end of your life, faith or not, death is coming for you,” Todd summed up.

Kelly nodded with approval. “Yep!”

“So what does this mean? What’s the theme?”

“Life is light?” Kelly wondered. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of symbolism.”

“Stay in the light as long as possible,” texting queen said suddenly, sounding smart; as if she received a text message to the brain telling her what to say. “Live your life.”

“Sounds good,” Kelly admitted.

“I’m with ya,” Todd returned.

“Whatever,” Shaved head stated with no commitment to his answer.

“I’m fine with it.”

They were right, of course, thanks to texting queen’s burst of intelligence. The group broke up and they soon were discussing symbolism, which was then followed by a packet of information regarding their first paper.

***

Professor Kate Kaufman was born a woman, but may have preferred to have been born a guy. Aside from the flat chest, thin hips, and the ever-present less-than-subtle facial hair, there was also the matter of her dress and haircut. She wore clothes that were far too large for her stick-like body – often being a power suit or khakis that did nothing to improve her figure. Her hair was short and not cute; it was a bob cut, but trimmed thinly close to her scalp.

If Todd didn’t know any better, he would have assumed she was a lesbian. However, on the first day of class, her husband was in, helping her with a computer program. He looked like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo in human form. Part of him resisted the concept of the two of them in the sack, but his mind couldn’t help but imagine the horrified image.

“Oh Kate, darling, I love how manly you are!”

“I was thinking about buying a strap-on, dear. What do you think?”

“Zoinks! I love that idea!”

Todd shivered and focused on his graphic arts class work. The class itself was a waste of time to him, really. Todd didn’t know Photoshop that well, of course, but it seemed like Kaufman didn’t know it either. The entire course appeared to be them simply following instructions from the book. Cut this, paste it here, spin it, distort, put it here. What was the point of this? He didn’t care that he could one thing, then another. He wanted to know how it worked and when to use it and why he should use it.

As soon as class ended, Todd darted out of there. He made for his bike and rushed across campus. He left campus on the west side and rode over to Comic Land! Since Labor Day was Monday, New Comic Book Day was pushed back from Wednesday to Thursday. He locked up his bike and walked in.

Behind the counter were two gentlemen, one older, bearded, and wearing an Avengers t-shirt. The other was scrawny and a few years younger than his associate. He waved to Todd and fetched Todd’s comics from the row of short-boxes behind the counter.

Uncanny X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, JLA, and Fantastic Four. “Marvel heavy this week,” the scrawny guy, Chuck, had to say.

“That’s fine, actually,” Todd replied. “I’m in a Marvel mood.”

Chuck snorted a little. “Heh. Cool. What do you think of Disassembled?”

“Meh, it’s okay. JLA is really losing me, though.”

“That what you mean by being in a Marvel mood?”

“Yeah. Mark Waid’s FF run is genius. I mean, okay, well, the Fearsome Five story sucked, but this one with Galactus has been great. Plus . . . Ultimate Spider-Man is Ultimate Spider-Man. 100% quality.”

Chuck nodded. “No kidding. Oh hey, Rick wanted to talk to you.”

The bearded clerk – Rick – walked over. “Hey Todd, I wanted to know if you could give us a hand at the Epic Con in a few weeks.”

“The tenth through the twelfth, right?”

“Yes,” Rick said after a second of recall. “We just need someone to help handle customers. Can you get off work?”

“Can you pay me?”

Rick nodded. “Yeah. Plus store credit the next Wednesday as long as you don’t buy any trades.”

“I’m up for it.”

Todd paid up, tossed the comics in his bag, and headed back outside to his bike. He rode over to the Coffee Haven. Once there, he pulled off his back pack and entered. He ordered a Vanilla Latte, got it, then had a seat.

His hands moved swiftly through the stack of comics, creating a reading order. Fantastic Four first, then Ultimate Spider-Man, JLA, and then Uncanny X-Men at the bottom – if just to wash out the taste of JLA. Really, he should drop the book from his Pull List.

Just as Todd was about to open up Fantastic Four . . . when his eye caught the door opening up and Kelly walking in. She was dressed in all black, topped with a navy blue beret; two braided pigtails hung across her shoulders. Kelly didn’t even notice Todd as she went behind the counter.

Todd blinked and looked down at his comics. He felt the beginnings of embarrassment. What if she saw him reading comics? Would she go to the cliché? That he lives in his parents basement or is a super-nerd?

Before he knew it, Todd was putting the comics away and replacing them with his school sketchbook. He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t. He had always prided himself of not being ashamed of his love of comics . . . but here he was, scared this girl he barely even knew would make fun of him for it or think less of him.

Todd did his sketch homework, which was to draw and shade an inanimate object. He did so with the mug in front of him. It wasn’t hard work, really. He was quite good, despite how much he put himself down and how much he sometimes felt he couldn’t figure out.

With the homework finished, Todd decided to return the mug to the counter. Kelly saw him and offered him a smile.

“Oh hey,” she said, her cute twirled hair swishing around her face as she came up from behind the counter. “What’s up?”

“Not much. You?” he asked, putting the mug on the counter.

“Oh, just working.”

“Oh yeah? You work here?” STUPID!

Kelly giggled a little. “Yep, I guess so. Been here about two months.”

“Really? I come in here all the time. I guess I just never noticed or just haven’t been here at the right time.”

She smiled and nodded.

“Uh, well, it’s clean, well-lighted place,” Todd said then, trying to be sly and witty.

She giggled again. “Well, I hope so. I have to clean it up enough times, y’know?”

“Yeah. Okay, well, see ya.”

“Tuesday!”

“Yeah, Tuesday.”

He grabbed his bag and took off, wanting to smash his head in for the ‘You work here?’ comment. What an idiot . . .

***

Kelly returned to her apartment shortly after 11:30 that night. She unloaded her backpack. Tomorrow she would have to work in the morning, but after that, she was done for the day. No work, no school, just the afternoon to bum around campus or whatever. Kelly pulled out her packet from Democrats At Maxwell. Included in this packet were two Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers, a list of scheduled events, a Kerry/Edwards pin, a ‘Somewhere in Texas, A Village Is Missing Its Idiot’ pin, and a contact sheet. She smiled, but wondered if she was really making any sort of difference here. Kelly was excited to be a part of this and loved bashing Bush, but . . .

It didn’t bring her brother home from Iraq. The headlines mentioned more deaths in that far away land, but it didn’t indicate that Josh was among them. She didn’t even know where in Iraq he was. It pained her, not knowing. The whole fucking war pained her.

She pulled her hair out of the braids, leaving it a wavy, curly mess. There was no point in messing with it now. Kelly put it back in a ponytail and changed into her pajamas. She turned on the television just to drown out the all-too-real imaginings of hearing about Josh’s death.

Some old episode of Friends helped with that. It got her laughing, flushing away dark and frightening thoughts. Got her mind away from all this mess.

After Friends was over, she grabbed her latest read (Stephen King’s Everything’s Eventual) and went to bed. She read through some of one of the short stories in said book. Kelly prayed routinely, but was sure to emphasize Josh’s safety. Shortly afterward, Kelly fell asleep, her hair lying around her face like pinwheel.