A Lost Cause. A Terrible Cause. [part 6]

"Well where the hell have you been?" A voice barked out at Jack.

Tina wore an ugly look on her face; she wasn't very happy.

"I was uh.. I was just.." Jack sputtered.

Chris came up from behind grabbing his shoulders, smiling, speaking smoothly, "Relax, Tina. He was just taking out the trash for me, and we stopped and had a short chat." He gave Jack a squeeze as he said this.

"Tell that to the rush that just came in, you lazy bums. Now get back to work, ya'idiots." She finished scribbling down an order and gave it to the kitchen, then shuffled off to attend to someone.

Chris twirled Jack around and looked at him straight in the eye, his smile disappearing, "Don't expect that kind of help too often, alright?" His eyes looked gaunt, slightly sunk into his face. He broke his grim seriousness with a fake looking smile and tapped Jack on the cheek. "Now get back to work, ya'idiot," he ordered in a mock-Tina voice. "Or I'll have to hurt you with my knife." From his grim, serious look, he gave another quick smile, released Jack from his grip, grabbed a coffeepot, and went off to fill mugs in his section.

Jack watched as Chris poured coffee and pulled off a few sarcastic comments at a table of flirtatious, teenage girls. They merely giggled at his remarks. Even through the back of Chris's head, Jack could tell that he was rolling his eyes in annoyance.

He glanced over at his own section and there was just one man there: Earl. He sat at the window table opposite the corner booth, Frank's booth.

Earl was an old man. On his left hand was a ring, but everyone knew that his wife had died from cancer a few years ago. He wore a brown, leather, bomber jacket, a white polo shirt, and clean, khaki pants. His white hair was full and neatly combed over. He wore a pair of old, big horn-rimmed glasses. His face was wrinkled, his forehead furrowed with lines of wisdom. He smiled a mouth of neat, overly white dentures. He was one of the oldest men in the area. He had been living there for a while. If you wanted to know about anyone, he would be the guy to ask... He sat there patiently, reading the newspaper.

Jack walked over, "Hey, Earl, how you doing?"

"Well, I'm doing just fine, sir." His voice was that of a man who had been speaking for many years, but stopped recently. It was a bit hoarse, but it was strong. Since his wife died, he didn't talk as much, but he was still friendly with the town, and he periodically played chess in the park.

"Can I get you anything?"

He looked up from his paper and looked at Chris, "Oh, just a coffee, I think will be just fine, son."

Jack went back to grab the second coffee pot and a thick, ceramic mug. He put a teaspoon in it and brought it back to the table. He started to pour coffee into the mug when a thought struck him. "Hey, Earl," He looked up from his paper again, "I've been trying to figure this man out.. You know the man who sits in that booth over there?" He pointed back to the corner booth.

"Mr. Frank?" Earl inquired.

"Yeah, him. I've been asking around... trying to figure out who that man is. He's a strange guy, have you noticed him? I mean, he almost blends into the background sometimes, but I've noticed him recently. I ask people who he is.. but--"

"-- You don't seem to get the same story out of any two of them, do'ya?"

"Yeah! It's strange.. But I know you have to know him, Earl. Who is he?"

He closed his newspaper and folded it up, putting it down on the tabletop and leaned his arms on the table, his right hand wrapped around his coffee, "Mr. Frank.. He is not as significant as you think. He's just a simple man, trying to get by. Just like you or me, sir. Now, the first time I saw the man, he was walking in this diner and he sat right over there," he pointed at the corner booth, " with his wife. Oh, the look that they would give each other. Mind you, this is from many, many years ago. When he was still young."

"When you were younger, too?" Jack joked.

"Son, I was never younger;" he chuckled, "now shut your mouth." He took a sip of coffee, black, and resumed, "Boy.. those two looked happy. The look that he would give her and the look that she gave him. Young love, I tell you. It's pure and tainted with love and lust. Who cared back then? My own darling and I watched them together and laughed. They would hold hands and I would know from the look in his eyes that all he wanted was to be as close to her as he could. It was quite a sight, Jack. Have you ever felt a thing like that, my friend?" Before Jack could respond (it was more of a rhetorical question than a regular one anyway), Earl resumed, "Yes... it was quite something. My, she was quite a looker. We had to wonder how a funny looking guy like Frank got her. My wife said that he wasn't that bad looking. Frank's girl, though.. Whooooheee, she was a looker...

The thing is, a while ago, I can't seem to recall how long ago, she just went away. His wife, I mean."

And Earl paused again, looking into the space in front of him, as if he was trying to remember something. Jack just stared back at him, not wanting to disturb his thinking process. Jack was reminded of his grandfather, and how in his late days, he would also stare blankly at things. The look in his eyes were not unlike the look in Earl's eyes right now. But as soon as he went into a trance, he came out of it, "Wha? Oh, uh.. where was I?" He shook his head quickly to wake himself up, rubbing the stubble on his chin and picking up his coffee again. As Earl took another sip, he saw the veins of Earl's hand popping out, green and thin.

"You were talking about how his wife.. She disappeared." Jack reminded him, eager, but not showing too much excitement, like a boy too afraid to ask the policeman about his gun. He remembered his own grandfather, and how he liked to rattle on about himself or his kids or his friends or his time in the war. Korean. Vietnam. "What happened to her?" He tried to keep Earl on subject.

"No one knows, kid. It was after a while they were together. A long while actually. They just stopped showing up. I seen him around town at the store, but his wife wasn't with him anymore. He didn't come to the Easy at all though. I was one of the few people who notice him for who he is: just a man trying to get by. He didn't come here for a few years, but I still did. Time doesn't stop for one man, for whatever problems he might have. I came here, I always sit down right here, and I look over to that booth over there and I would see if Mr. Frank was there. He didn't come for a few years. But one day, I came here to get some coffee in my thermos before I went out to work, it was ... oh.. say six in the morn'. And there he was. It had been a few years since I had seen that man sitting there.. His wife wasn't with him, of course. I wanted to ask him where she was. I never had the nerve do to it. Even through my days fighting the VC in the jungle, son, I never had the guts to walk up to that man and ask. He's a queer man, and I have no business talking to him."

"So you don't know who or what he is? Where his wife went?" Jack inquired, slightly disappointed now; if anyone would know, it would have been Earl.

"Sorry, son. All those stories you hear, those are who he is. Frank is the man you make him to be. You can never really know a man. Never. Now, Jack, I think you should stop trying to figure this out, respect the man's privacy. I know that's what I would want."

Jack thanked Earl and got up, "Thanks for talking to me, Earl. I'm going to go to the bathroom." He walked to the bathroom, swinging the unusually light door with one finger, got in and shut the door.

You can never really know a man.. Never. He pulled out the letter from Marcy to Frank. He held the corners and twirled it in his fingers. How can you love something like that? Someone who you don't even know... It's so blind.. So useless. There is no reason she should even love him at all. She's just in love with the mystery that surrounds him. He was the only man who would reach out to her. That's why. Nothing else.

He smelled the letter again, trying to figure out what to do with it.