Cloudy Days In Charleston

I'd been in Charleston, WV for work for about a week. It was my first real job after college, not counting the sales job in which I made zero dollars. This job didn't pay much, but it paid something, and I got to see a lot of the country. Actually, seeing the country was my job. Let me explain.

I’d just gotten my commercial pilots license and I needed a flying job so I could build flight time for bigger, better flying jobs. So, I did what other low-time pilots were doing: I took a job flying aerial survey missions. Basically, I flew an airplane with cameras sticking out of it and snapped pictures of the earth from thousands of feet in the air. The work, the pay, and the hotel rooms were crummy, but the flight hours in my log book increased little by little and I could buy shampoo without begging my mom for cash. I was doing OK.

So, every two weeks or so, I would pack luggage into the cramped Cessna 172 that was assigned to me, and fly to a new project location. This particular week, I was in Charleston, WV. It was my first time here and I was having an OK time. The Holiday Inn I was staying at was fairly nice. This wasn’t to be taken for granted; by this time I had seen many awful hotels.

On one day of my stay in Charleston, I stumbled into a Vietnamese restaurant. I really didn’t have high hopes for Vietnamese food in West Virginia but my lunch had been surprisingly delicious.

I’ve finished my meal and now I’m waiting for my check. The waiter is being a bit slow but I cut her some slack because the restaurant was packed that day. I wait, and I wait some more. I rearrange my utensils on my plate just to be absolutely clear that I’m done. Nothing. My impatience gets the better of me. I get up, walk over to her and – in the sweetest voice I could muster – asked her for my check.

“Oh, it’s already been paid. That man who just left paid it,” she says with a smile.

“What guy?” I respond, shocked.

I whipped my head around toward the door to catch a glimpse of the man but I didn’t see anyone.

“What guy? I don’t see anyone,” I asked.

“Oh he just left,” she shrugged.

Baffled, I return to my table and pack up to leave, pulling a few dollars from my pocket and throwing them on the table. My emotions are irrationally frazzled right now. On one hand, I’m intensely curious about the stranger who has just paid for my meal. On the other hand, I’m annoyed that the waiter didn’t tell me. I wasted a lot of time waiting for a check that wasn’t coming.

Anyways, I head back to my hotel room and spend the rest of the day watching TV.

The next morning is the same as most of my other mornings. I wake up, check the weather, then shower, dress and head out to the airport. After a full morning of flying, a cloud layer starts rolling in under me and I head back to the airport. The client definitely doesn’t want pictures of clouds.

I decide to stop for lunch before heading back to the hotel. This time, I picked an Indian restaurant. Again, I am skeptical.

When I walk into this restaurant, it’s almost completely empty. I’m now thoroughly suspicious.

Anyways, I find a table, order some food and begin to settle in for a relaxing lunch. That is, until a small voice commands my attention from behind me. I turn around to find a small, frail, elderly white man sitting across from me.

I don’t remember how the conversation begins but I remember that he told me about his ex-wife, his son, and his service in one of the wars. I remember what he said about his son the most. He confided that he hadn’t seen or spoken to his son in over 10 years, and the reason seemed more and more trivial as the years went by.

You see, 10 years earlier, he had just divorced his ex-wife and they had been settling into a cordial co-parenting relationship. His son, who was 18 at the time, had verbally disrespected his mother and the man wouldn’t stand for it. The man had told his son in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t tolerate disrespect towards his ex-wife.

“That’s your mother, I told him,” the man explained, “I won’t tolerate none of that nonsense.”

After that, their relationship went silent. At first, the silence seemed like a natural cooling off period after any disagreement, the man explained. But then the weeks, months, and years went by. The longer the silence went on, the harder it was for him to break it. So, he didn't.

We wrapped up our lunch and he scribbled his name and phone number on a piece of paper, which I slipped inside a book. Then he did the most incredible thing: he paid for my lunch! I tried to stop him but he had slipped the cash to the waiter before I noticed what was happening. I’m not sure what the odds were of this happening two days in a row, but I was sure it was insanely low.

It’s been seven years now since my trip to Charleston, WV but I often think of those two men. The one whose face is a complete mystery, who paid for my meal and slipped away before I could even catch a glimpse. And the one whose quiet pain I still carry with me. My heart identified with the old man's pain: the pain of a broken heart and a lost relationship. I had had my own heart shattered not long before meeting him.

I found that old man's number in that book a few years after meeting him and decided to give him a call. It seemed kinda silly as I was dialing the number. He might be dead, or simply not remember me. But I wanted to see if he had made ammends with his son.

Someone picked up the phone. I explained who I was but I'm not sure he remembered me. And I had no way to confirm who I was talking to. It's not like I could remember what he voice sounded like. We chatted for a few minutes but his breathing sounded labored and I didn't want to stress him out.