The exit door

The man in the nice trench-style coat and suit who walked into Henry’s that morning stood out a bit, but not much. It was the reaction he got out of Charlotte, one of the waitresses, that caught Joe’s attention.

“But who…” Charlotte asked, staring at a check in her hand and with a tear rolling down her cheek.

“All I can say is, it was left to you. My client wants to stay anonymous,” the man had replied.

Charlotte tried a few more times to fish for an answer, but at each attempt the man only held up a hand and shook his head. After a time, he turned to walk out the door, pulling from his pocket the second thing that would catch Joe’s attention that morning: a small black notebook.

Not some leather-bound planner, or the kind of anything else Joe would have expected a man dressed that well to slip out of his coat pocket. This was a simple little notebook, worn around the edges and with duct tape along the binding to hold the black cardboard covers together.

The man pulled it out as he walked to the door, paused for a moment to make a single line in it with his pen, dropped it back into his coat pocket, and walked out into the early morning chill.

When you see a thing a thousand times in a way and place that’s as familiar as your own breath, then see it again completely out of place, it gives an odd kind of twinge to memory, almost like dejavu.

Joe closed his eyes, trying like hell to shut out every sound and stimulation as he searched his feelings for what it was about the notebook that had caught him so.

He was ripped from that search by Charlotte walking up, asking if he needed more coffee.

Joe kept the swear words in his head, swallowed down the unreasonable irritation Charlotte didn’t deserve, and came out of his own mind with a smile that she did, as he looked up to answer.

“Yeah, sure, of course, always,” he threw out, unhurried and not unkind. Then, as she poured, “So, what was that with the suit?”

Charlotte looked back to the door, as if the spot he was last sighted was a stand-in for reference, “Hell if I know.”

She turned back to watch herself pour the coffee and continued, “Someone left me twenty grand, but the check is from a law firm. Guy wouldn’t tell me anything else.”

Charlotte sighed out a giggle that sounded oddly sad, and her eyes welled-up to a point just short of tears.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m – well, I’m certainly happy to have it, but I would sure like to know why.”

“Understandable,” Joe replied, reaching for the creamer as Charlotte finished her pour.

She walked off to check another table, her eyes wandering to the door as she did.

Joe watched her for a moment, then the door, and then his thoughts turned back to the notebook.

He closed his eyes, tried both to concentrate and not at the same time, attempting to hold the notebook in his thoughts the way a person holds anything soft and delicate in a hand, knowing too little could let it fall, but too much could crush it.

When he finally realized where he had seen the notebook before, all the rest of what it meant hit him in a rush.

Joe’s eyes snapped open and his hand slid into his pocket for his phone, then he hesitated. He set the phone on the table and went to his coffee instead. He stirred in the creamer, and he argued with himself.

It was one thing to suspect, to hold a notion in his head and then, if he was right, get to feel a bit smug when he was proven out. It was another to actually speak it out loud to someone else, even someone like Bill.

But, still, there it was, that notebook.

On the other hand, again, a silly little notebook? That was one hell of a leap to make from just a notebook. It’s not like they didn’t sell for something like a buck in any corner store or Walmart. And why wouldn’t someone dressed well have a cheap notebook? You don’t get to a place in life where you can buy expensive clothes by wasting money elsewhere.

It was the consequences that finally got him: the consequence of being right and keeping it to himself would be a lot bigger than the consequence of saying something and being wrong, in the end.

So, he picked up the phone, went to his contacts and thumbed through. It wasn’t a number he called often, but by fortune of the alphabet, it was still near the top in his contacts list.

A couple rings in, Bill picked up.

“Hey, Joey, what’s goin’ on? You hate your elders so much you gotta’ harass an old man at ungodly hours of the morning?” Bill hollered into the phone in mock-anger, followed by a fit of dry smoker’s coughs.

“Hey Bill,” Joe responded, smiling as he felt the familiar calm come down on him that Bill’s voice always brought. “You know I’d never pass up a chance to piss you off.”

“Fuck, no, I wouldn’t figure. Ya’ fuckin’ asshole,” Bill chuckled back at him.

Joe didn’t quite know how to start with what he wanted to ask, or even what words would fit the question, and he let things fall to a pause.

“You still there, Joey? You didn’t just call up to hear me breathin’ heavy in the phone? I’m supposed to be the one callin’ for that kinda’ thing, ya’ pervert.”

“Bill,” he paused again, though not long enough for discomfort, “Bill, you been thinkin’ about headin’ west?”

The long pause that followed gave Joe as much answer as he was likely to get on the subject from Bill. They both knew what it meant, like a personal code word he’d just created in that moment, a reference to plenty of past conversations about the quietest way to get out of the world without giving anyone else too much trouble over it.

“That’s a weird question outta’ nowhere Joey. Should I be worried about askin’ you the same?” Bill chuckled into his words with a little too much effort.

“It’s Charlotte, isn’t it,” Joe responded, another question half-fishing and half-afraid to actually tell Bill the crazy theory Joe had worked out in a flash of recognition.

“Charlotte?”

Joe lowered his voice, trying to keep the conversation private.

“Charlotte. Waitress at Henry’s. She’s in that list of names you keep, isn’t she?” Joe took a deep inhale before dropping the biggest accusation. “She’s the daughter.”

Bill was silent again for too long not to have meaning, then recovered and tried to sound jovial as he responded.

“The fuck you been smokin’, Joey? You gotta’ share that shit, man, none a’ this bein’ stingy with the good shit.”

“Bill, I’ll drive over there. I’ll block your fuckin’ driveway and tie you up if I have to.”

Joe suddenly didn’t feel any of the doubt in his theory that he’d been holding onto.

Bill wasn’t arguing back either.

“I’m serious, Bill. This is bull shit, man. This is a bull shit way of bein' shitty, and it ain’t goin’ down like this.”

Bill sighed, “Joey, Joey, fuck. I love ya’ kid. That fuckin’ fire like that, I miss havin’ that.”

“I get it, Bill, I –”

“The fuck you do. No offense, but the fuck you do, Joey. I know we’ve talked plenty about regrets and mistakes, but until you get 60-some years of ones like mine behind you, the fuck you do.”

“Alright, fine, but it’s still bull shit. It’s selfish, self-pitying, self-serving bull shit, and you’d say the same to anyone else tried to pull what you are,” Joe snapped back.

Bill audibly sucked his gums on the other end of the line.

“And so what if it is? It’s the last self-pitying, self-serving, bull-shit thing I’ll do.”

Joe wondered for a moment to himself how this approach would sound to someone working a suicide hotline, but in the same token, he knew it’s how he would need to be talked to. And, if there was anyone to talk to as if he were talking to his older self, it was Bill.

“Well, boo-fucking-hoo, Bill. I mean, what the fuck? You abandon a kid for 30-some years, her mom too, and – you know Mary’s dead, right?”

“Of course I fuckin' know that, asshole.”

“Fine then, and, what, twenty grand for her troubles and you fade off into some romantic sunset and she never knows, but you get to tell yourself you made it closer to right? Wait, no, that’s not it. You’re tryin’ to buy your fuckin’ way out.”

“And so what the fuck if I am?”

“No. Fuck that. We don’t get off that easy, Bill. You want to make some kind of penance, you do it in the here and now and by being the man you weren’t.”

“Joey, shit, I never stopped being that man. I’m old, man, too old to be anyone other than who I am. It’s time, man. It’s time.”

“Not your choice, fucker. You know that. More important, you believe that. Giving away all you’ve got to people you hurt and checkin’ out, you know the kind of bull shit that is. You wouldn’t let anyone else get away with it, and I’m not seeing you go out a hypocrite.”

Bill snorted a bit of contempt into the phone, then sighed.

“I gotta’ go, Joe.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Joey-boy, I really hate to end like this, but we’re both smart enough to know how stubborn we both are. You can try to come speedin’ out here – fuck, I’m sure you’re already headin’ to your car – but I’ll be gone by then.”

“Proposition.”

“Heh. You can try.”

“Come to Henry’s.”

“Oh, you are smokin’ the good shit.”

“Seriously, just, do that for me. Come to Henry’s. Sit and have breakfast with me. I’ll keep my mouth shut about all of this. Not even one fuckin’ word. Just come sit with me for breakfast at Henry’s. You can see Charlotte and I won’t say nothin’ or spoil it, and then we don’t end like this. Not you and me.”

Joe took the silence on the other end as a good sign.

“You can see how happy the money made her. It’s – just come down and have breakfast with me before you – before whatever you do with the rest of your day.”

The next breath that Bill took went in a sigh, but came out a laugh.

“Alright, fucker. At least this way I can cross your name off my list.”

“Nah, you can’t. You gave the suit your fuckin’ notebook, asshole.”

Joe didn’t know if Bill’s laugh at that was for the comment, or the epithet, but it was good to hear just the same.

“Yah, fine, fucker. I’ll think about it. Too fuckin’ early for any Christian soul to be eatin’.”

“Well, then, you oughtta’ be just fine enjoyin’ a full meal.”

“Fair enough. Fair enough. But you’re buyin’.”

“I mean, I figure. Pretty sure you’re a bit short of cash at the moment.”

“Ha! You fucker. God love ya’ –.”

“Ain’t no one else goin’ to, Bill.”

“You and me both, Joey. You and me both.”