An Order of Coffee and Tears Read online

  I felt a pinch in my gut when Ms. Potts stopped to refresh her coffee. Suzette’s eyes were moist, and I was only vaguely aware that she’d reached across the counter to hold my hand. It was cold with perspiration. As Ms. Potts told us about her husband and the kind of man he was, I realized how this was the exact life Suzette was living now. The bruises, the broken bones. The shattered dreams of a family – of a baby. But this time, the pain wasn’t by the cruel hand of her husband, James, this time it was through Ms. Potts’ words.

  When Ms. Potts continued, she talked about that night her husband disappeared. She left none of the details hidden for us to uncover. I could imagine it all, as though I were in the diner with them twenty years earlier. I’m sure Suzette could see it, as well, and more than once, I had to assure her it would be okay.

  Mr. Potts entered Angela’s Diner like a rushed cold invading the corners of a room. His step was crippled by his favorite drink: whiskey. Ms. Potts didn’t have to guess where her husband had been. It was obvious. Mr. Potts drank his fill at the pub across from the diner. He visited earlier than some, and stayed later than most. And, on many nights, he staggered home, but some nights he didn’t. On a few occasions, she found him on their stoop, his clothes wet with morning dew, or with the sour smell of his urine.

  “I need some money, babe,” he struggled to spit out – but his words fell shamelessly to the floor.

  “Coffee, instead – maybe?” she offered. There was a reservation… a hesitation in her voice. Caution was carried in her words. By now, she’d learned to temper what she said; short answers only. Too much could set him off.

  “I said, I need money!” he raised his voice, and staggered to the counter. When he reached the cash register, he began pushing buttons. His fingers stabbed at the machine as he tried to open the cash drawer. Taking no aim, he stabbed and pushed with confused direction. The display window atop the cash register popped numbers up a few at a time until they jammed. He stabbed his fingers in the air again, and then made a fist and punched the face of the register. Numbered buttons broke and flew off to expose their metal posts.

  “Won’t open. Gotta open this,” he snapped. Ms. Potts took a step forward and watched his hand rise and fall.

  “Baby, you can’t do that. You can’t have the diner’s money. Here, take my money,” she started to say, and held out a few dollars in change that she’d collected in tips. “Go back to the bar, and I’ll see you when I get home. Here, take it,” she continued. But even slowed by the whiskey, Ms. Potts didn’t see his other hand coming. He swung a closed fist upward, connecting under her extended hands. Tip money flew across the diner, as he let out a cruel laugh, and pushed her back with a punch to her chest. Ms. Potts was thrown, but caught herself on the counter.

  “I don’t want your dimes and nickels, you stupid ugly woman. Got a poker game, a big one. Gonna use what’s in here and put it back later,” he guffawed. Ms. Potts knew there was no later. He’d lose the money, all of it. His laugh faded as he began to punch at the register. When Ms. Potts got back to her feet, blood sprayed over her glasses. Her vision was blocked by drops of blood as it raced down the lens of her glasses, and fell from the frame. Her heart raced as she reached and padded her hands around her body, looking for the wound. Her breathing quickened as fear grew, and her hand closed around her face and head, searching for the source of the blood. Another spay hit her across her cheek and neck. She cleared her glasses, and saw that it was her husband’s hand. He’d torn open his skin and broken one his knuckles as he’d thrashed a flurry of throws on the face of the cash register.

  “No!” she yelled, and stepped in to pull his arm up. When he looked at her, it was with mad eyes. Her husband was nowhere to be found. He was gone. She saw her reflection in the black of his eyes, where the anger and the pain lived, and it almost killed her. Literally. Before she knew what was happening, his hands were around her neck, and her body was bent over the counter. At once, all the air in the room was gone. It was replaced by the squeezing of his hands on her throat. The floor beneath her was gone, and she kicked in a desperate struggle to run. She felt her feet connecting with his legs, and her heels breaking the coffee mugs and tall fountain glasses innocently standing on the shelves beneath her. The light in the diner began to dim as pressure stabbed at her lungs. Pain in her chest grew until she thought she’d explode. The last thing Ms. Potts remembered seeing was the rage in her husband’s eyes as he leaned in with his face just above hers, screaming ugliness, while laughing at her. She was dying.

  “When I come to, I couldn’t stand. Took me five minutes, maybe more, before I could catch a decent breath without coughing it out,” Ms. Potts continued, and reached a hand out toward Clark. He was already coming to the front, and put his hand in hers. “My husband tried to kill me. Would’ve too, but Clark… he saved my life.”

  “What happened?” I blurted.

  “I couldn’t speak; he stole my voice with his hands. Nothing come out, but whispery words. I remember crying and wanting to scream when I saw my husband. He was on the floor, right here where I’m standing. His head was opened up like a melon, and lying in a pool of blood. I remember thinking that his blood looked dark. It looked dead, and I wondered if a meanness was something that could be in your blood.”

  “Clark?” I asked, and he closed his eyes and nodded.

  “C-Couldn’t let him do it. I was out back having a sm-smoke when I heard the cash register. Awful, terrible noise that kept crashing. Didn’t know what it was. By the t-time I come in, he already have Ms. Potts over the counter, just choking the life out of her.”

  Suzette’s hand was shaking, her other hand feeling around her neck, as though reliving what Ms. Potts told us. “My husband choked me once. He choked me on our bed. He said I made him do it, and that it was my fault. I remember thinking this is how it feels to drown. When your breath is gone, and everything becomes gray, and all the sounds shrink away somewhere distant,” she said, and then looked at Clark. “What did you do?” She asked. Clark passed a look to Ms. Potts, and then to his hand, before settling his eyes on us.

  “When I come back in and saw M-Ms. Potts and her husband on top of her, I didn’t know what to do. When I saw her feet stop k-kicking and heard him laughing, I picked up my skillet and hit him. Man tumbled down onto the ground like a sack of potatoes. I only hit him once. But it k-killed him. I ain’t proud of what I did, just couldn’t let him hurt Ms. Potts,” he finished, as Ms. Potts embraced his hand in hers.

  “Clark, here, is mo’ than just our cook,” Ms. Potts said, looking up at him. She pulled their hands against her heart, and forced out the words: “He is my angel… and I go to my grave protectin' him.” She wrapped her small arms around his middle.

  This was their secret. The remaining details that had been told by the detective were eerily similar. He’d done his job. And that thought made me sad and scared for them. Detective Ramiz pieced together the accounts from the patrons at the Irish pub as Ms. Potts’ husband left that night to meet his wife at the diner. The detective even had a timeline, as he called it, that placed her husband at given locations, and at approximate times. And these, too, were accurate.

  What happened to Mr. Potts next was the mystery. It was the void in the case that kept Detective Ramiz up at night. It led him back here to Angela’s Diner, and he wanted the case closed before the cancer eating away at his insides destroyed him.

  “And the concrete? The pipes, and the new addition? All true?” I questioned. Ms. Potts let go of Clark.

  “Yes. All of it. Clark was on parole from Holmesburg prison. Saving my life was just a minor detail. He killed a man. He’d surely go back to Holmesburg for the rest of his life. I couldn’t let that happen. I loved my husband, I surely did. But the man that lay dead in front of us, that wasn’t my husband. Not anymore.”

  “C-Concrete was coming in the m-morning. We took Mr.Potts, and p-put him in the b-back.”

  “When Clark put him down, I climbed dow
n into the trench with them, and we covered my husband up with stone and dirt. Nobody would know he was there 'less they was looking.”

  Suzette crunched her face, and asked, “So, your husband is still here? In the floor?”

  “Y-yes, ma’am, and I stay here. Died by my hand, and I pray for my soul every day.” Clark answered with sadness in his voice.

  “Some days, I wished I’d died that night. I wished when the room went gray and then black, that I died. My husband would’ve gotten what was coming to him at Holmesburg, and Clark would be free. But, I suppose, that ain’t how God saw fit for this to play it out.”

  “That is why the detective is back. The diner’s sale! The construction!” I yelled, realizing exactly what the detective meant when he brought up the sale of the Angela’s.

  “T-Tearing down the diner, they might dig, and if they do that, then they’ll find Mr. Potts, and we’ll g-go to prison. I can’t go b-back,” Clark cried in a soft voice, his face littered in fear.

  “Then we just can’t let that happen. Can we?” Suzette declared. Ms. Potts fixed her glasses.

  “I appreciate the thought, but the detective is set in his ways to see this through. He is after us like we’s just rodent prey.”

  The reality of what was being faced was daunting, if not impossible. I liked having answers, but had none. Ms. Potts’ husband was buried in the floor of the diner, and the detective was eager to dig it up. And, if he got his way, then my friends would be going to prison. If I were living in a trailer or a tent, I’d be looking at the clock about now, and waiting for the sun to wake the day. An hour before the first rays of sunlight peeled away the night sky, I’d be on the road walking. But this was family. My family. I didn’t look at the clock. I didn’t look at the road outside. I stayed where I sat, and, as Clark’s lips moved to a new prayer, I joined him.

  12

  For the next week, life at the diner felt somewhat normal. Of course, the idea that a dead body was in the floor beneath Clark’s nook was strange – I’m guessing that is where they put Mr. Potts. Strange or not, the diner continued to function. And whether I did or didn’t know about the body didn’t mean a thing to the person waiting for their coffee. But, now and then, the thought of it did give me the willies, and reason to pause. Would I have done the same as Clark, given the circumstance? Yes. In fact, I think I would have done more. Certainly there was no judgment from me. Fear, however, there was plenty of – especially with the prospects of Angela’s Diner being sold, and what Detective Ramiz was after.

  Life stayed the norm at Angela’s Diner. My regulars came in. They ordered their meals and their coffee, just as they had the days, weeks, and months prior to my learning anything about a dead body. And, for regulars like Keep on Truckin´, polishing off his third cup of coffee, how was he to know? He winked at me as he let out a hearty burp. Dropping a few dollars on the table, he wished me well, and told me he would be back in a couple of days: had to drive a load of plumbing supplies down in Virginia, or something like that.

  People came and went. They gave appreciative smiles almost as often as they complained. They tipped good and bad. The hours and days moved along no differently than before. I suppose that is how Clark and Ms. Potts managed it – how they moved into every day. For them, it was a matter of life or death. And, even then, people were still going to come in and order the same meal they ordered the day before.

  Sometimes, when I was alone, and Angela’s was empty and quiet, I’d close my eyes and think about the body in the floor. I’d sit and lay my hands down on the cool surface of the table, and try to feel something, anything. I wondered, if I concentrated enough, would I be able to sense that there was a dead person with us? Would I feel a dead heart beat thumping beneath my feet and echoing in my head?

  A part of me was glad I never felt anything. But I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed, too. It was a silly thought, and I blamed it on my high-school days and reading Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart. Standing from the table, I was relieved the only things I sensed were the comings and goings of cars, and people outside the diner’s window. A few times, I caught myself looking down at my feet. No Chuck Taylors, just my waitress shoes pushing on the light green tiles, and I’d imagine a body lying there. Instinctively, I’d step over what wasn’t really there.

  It would have been Ms. Potts who was killed that awful night, if not for Clark having saved her. I never let myself forget that. I considered this, and wondered where I would be today if Ms. Potts hadn’t taken the help wanted sign from my hands. Where would I have ended up? Would I still be living on the streets? And who might have been standing in her place? Would they have blue hair, too, and thick glasses that needed to be pushed up every five minutes? Would they have offered me a meal sprinkled with magic? Would I be alive?

  Today was Thursday, and I wasn’t racing to see my reflection in a toaster, or to the bathroom mirror to check my teeth and hair. My one minute of infatuation for Jarod Patreu had slipped. Sadly, it may have been squashed. He never showed up last week, which was fine, given the revelation about Ms. Potts’ husband. But still, when the bell rang, my eyes popped up to see who was coming in. I felt a smile on my face; what’s wrong with that? Suzette met my eyes with a returned smile, and then frowned at my disappointment; I waved it off as nothing. She told me she stopped in to pick something up. And, as quickly as she was here, she was leaving. But not before crossing her fingers while waving a hand in the air and saying that she’d be back to join us later, when it was a little busier.

  Suzette’s days were much like mine. She even started helping out at the diner. Nothing permanent, just a few hours a day here and there to earn some dollars. When she left her husband, she didn’t leave a forwarding address. She’d told him she was visiting family or something like that, but decided, instead, to disappear. To vanish completely. I could help her with that. Disappearing was easy; remaining so could be hard work, and took some care. With a few dollars, anyone can live anywhere they want and never be found. Disappearing is easy: I know.

  When Suzette ran from their home, she took with her some clothes, a handful of cash, and the pearls her husband had given to her. That was all she had to work with. It wasn’t much, but it was something to get started with. She’d told her husband the pearl necklace had been lost on the streets around Pennypack Park, lost when he dragged her body with the pull of his car, throwing her to the ground, and nearly ending her life. And, she told us, her husband never said a word to her about losing their baby.

  An eager gentleman from the pawn store a few miles away offered to buy the pearls. With a toothy grin and a whistle in his words, he said they were a fine string of natural whites, and that he would pay almost top dollar. When Suzette hesitated, Toothy voiced a disappointment, and then whistled a sweeter offer, by throwing in some store credit, too. She took him up on the sale and used the cash to pay for a room next to Ms. Potts. The pearls were gone, and in their place, she had cash in hand, and a kitty-cat clock whose tail and eyes moved in a count of the seconds. As she put it, the clock made her new room homier. I didn’t think so, though. I thought the clock was just creepy.

  As Suzette left the diner, I heard a distant rumbling sound from outside as sunlight bounced off a passing car. Sun and thunder – an exciting mix. Spring storms toyed with us most afternoons, and they gave me a perfect opportunity to take a break and watch from the diner’s stoop: storm junkie, through and through.

  I followed Suzette through the door, where I saw a deep purple curtain approaching from the west. Razor-thin lightning pierced the center; some accompanied by thunder, and some without. More rumbles held promise for a good storm, and I could see sheets of rain spilling. In a few minutes, the rains would be overhead, soaking the diner. We were in the throes of spring weather, and I could taste the warm dampness of the air. Electric.

  The bell above the door rang as I entered, and I was quickly joined by Brown, who was holding the arm of a tall boy. They gave me a smil
e, and made their way to a booth. He was a boy a few grades older than Brown, and was sporting the same color hair, and a cute pair of dimples when he smiled at her. It had been a while since I’d seen any of the teenage girls. Walking past the fast-food joint, I did see them through the windows now and again, and, once, got a nod and a small wave from Brown and Black. The kids said a quick hello to me; the boy’s voice was low, but hitching, as if stuck in an adolescent change. The two collapsed back into each other as they went on chatting a teenage language I once knew.

  A giddy feeling lifted me. Brown and her beau had a secret, and it was all over their faces. A sunburn on her nose and cheeks had all but hidden some of her freckles. The same sun painted a faint red burn across his nose and the back of his neck. My guess was that the two had cut class for the day, and had spent the morning and afternoon together. Could this be the infamous Jimmy Taylor? The subject of the near-pregnancy experience shared by Brown and Blonde and her other friends? I suspected it was, and would have to let Ms. Potts in on it and share the table with me.

  The two ordered a plate of fries and a milkshake, a favorite of the teens. The milkshake, of course, was for dipping the fries into. The kids thought they came up with the idea, but I knew better. I gave Brown a wink and raised a brow in her friend’s direction. She gleamed, smiling wide, and pulled his arm closer to her. The bell rang out, and pulled my attention from the young love.