Dave was distracted, but not by all the noise around him. The grill cook rattled his utensils like a mad jazz drummer. The dish washer clattered away at a huge pile from the morning rush. Chit chat and rumor buzzed amongst the remaining booths. It was mid morning and breakfast was well over, but the regulars hung around trading gossip and bad puns. Dave’s brain swirled like the creamer in his coffee. A beige puddle collected in his spoon after he’d set it down. He looked out the window and thought, so this is North Little Rock.
He had gone to Memphis to find her, but hadn’t. In escaping with his life, he had only just kept his freedom. The jury was still out on that too. Another bad pun.
As the stoneware coffee mug touched his lip, the warm memory of her kisses swept back over him. He recognized the frosted glaze atop the brown mug; a copy of a classic pottery design that had originated in Ohio. God ... Ohio. They had fallen in love at a small college in the Miami Valley. Dave was there because of his father’s connections. Toni had enrolled because of the well known classical dance program. Her family was from New Orleans, but she had been raised in Memphis. A dark beautiful mix of voodoo and soul, she had been life changing. She had been his. And then she’d left him for New York and an Off Broadway gig.
His Mother should have loved her. Toni sang in the church choir. Her voice was beautiful, clear and strong. You could get religion just hearing her sing. But his parents had reacted in a completely unexpected and backward way. The relationship had brought up issues that he had never had to confront back home. His Dad felt their relationship threatened his position on the school board. On the phone, his Mother had just cried and cried. In the confusion and frustration, he had paused when he should have been strong. He had been weak and indecisive at the most perfectly tragic moment. That’s when Toni had left for New York without him.
She was hurt. There was more crying on phones. He had never wanted to let her go. Constraints he no longer accepted had stopped him from helping her pack, driving her to New York and staying there with her.
Soon Toni had lost her bearings somehow on the Great White Way. The demands were steep and the pace was frenetic compared to the genteel South she had known. Just as the bright white lights of the marquee never quite reach the damp grit of the street, she had never quite fulfilled her dreams. She had gone back to Memphis and had gotten into some trouble; a mistake with a local tough guy, Tavo. Now she, and her newborn child, were hiding.
In Memphis, Dave wasn’t expected in the neighborhoods where he searched for Toni. He was a pale, freckled Midwesterner. Everyone there seemed to know all they needed to know about him yet he knew nothing of them. But then he had found Toni’s sister. And he found Tavo too. The sister had told him Toni was in Texas. The tough guy had told Dave he was going to be dead.
“Is that all, Hon?”
The waitress jarred him back to North Little Rock. Dave hadn’t remembered eating the pie, or finishing the coffee, but there it was — an empty plate, a thin, cold puddle in the bottom of the mug, the messy fork draped across the plate, and the dirty spoon. He hadn’t used the knife. He hadn’t expected to use a knife. It was a deadly surprise for Tavo that he’d even had a knife.
“Yeah … thanks,” he said slowly.
He couldn’t go back to Tennessee, but as soon as he got to Austin, he could tell Toni that she and her baby were safe.
===
Note: This is an old short story of my polished up. 10/01/2018.
