The Old Man

Victor Montana’s population was 854 ten years ago. It’s 856 today because Darcy LeRaye had herself some twins a few years back. Darcy is a single mother and waitresses at a little café called The Brand and it’s a place that I know good and well. Well I guess it’s a place I knew good and well because ever since I lit outta Victor I never thought twice about The Brand or anything else that made me into who I am today. It’s like I stopped growin’ up that day and became grown up as soon as my tires aimed south and spit dust. But it’s funny how you can make a plan and it all goes wrong and you can dream something and the world just wags it’s finger in your face. I ended up back in Victor because I reckon I got myself lost and confused and didn’t I have enough confidence to walk both my feet forward. I didn’t want to end up back at home and I didn’t want to end up eating at The Brand again but that’s what happened to me.

It’s the only place in Victor besides the grocery where you can get food on a Sunday and my friends were lugging me along to grab some grub after a late Saturday night. They thought it was cute how we sat at the same table that we used to all those years ago. It’s got a picture on the wall next to the table of a little boy riding high up on a horse, his little legs stickin’ out perpendicular over the horses back because they’re to short and the horse is to wide. I get real sentimental about stuff like that, stuff like reminiscing and déjà vu. I didn’t feel much of anything as I sat there, a little perhaps, like I wished deep down that I was still a kid and I hadn’t gotten as old as I was.

It was ‘99 and we rolled up to The Brand on a rusted green riding lawn mower. We must have put one thousand miles or more and that old rattle trap by the end of the summer. That mower coulda taken us to the moon and back if we’d known the way. Before that summer we always rode our bikes everywhere we went, but the summer of ‘99 is when we really started riding in style. It was about a mile and a half into “town,” consisting of a grocery, a hardware store, a casino, a dentist/doctors office, a hair salon, and The Brand. Every Sunday morning the three of us, Sunni, Amy and I had a tradition. We would wake up early, fire up the mower, and head on into town to eat early bird breakfast at The Brand. We headed a cloud of dust the size of Mt. St. Helens, scaring every cow in the fields we passed with Sunni and I perched up on the back and Amy going strong at the wheel. Roaring at a steady seven miles an hour , it took us a solid twenty fifteen minutes to get to The Brand. We’d park our mower in the same slot every week, next to rusty bailing trucks with panting cattle dogs in the back.

I remember the last Sunday we ate at The Brand because it’s pretty near the most crazy thing that ever did happen to me. It happened halfway through our Buckaroo Burritos. Contentedly absorbed in stuffing our faces, we didn’t notice a plastic packet of grape jelly come sailing over the high-backed booth until it landed in Amy’s eggs and splattered Tabasco sauce onto her shirt. Forks poised halfway to our mouths, we froze and starred at the object as if it were a bomb. At a loss of what to do, Amy suspiciously removed the packet of jelly from her plate and we resumed eating. Well it wasn’t five minutes later that a second grape jelly flew gracefully over the booth and landed squarely in Sunni’s glass of milk. Three baffled faces crowded around the rim of the glass and pondered the object bobbing gently within it. Since I am the shortest and the youngest out of the three of us, I was nominated to find the answer as to what was sending jellies over the booth at us. After a few minutes of argument, I heaved a sigh, shimmied over to Amy’s side of the table, and standing on the seat, I peeked over the edge of the booth. Facing me was a young couple and a baby in a highchair, across from them with their back to our booth was an elderly couple, most likely the parents of one of the younger persons. The young couple and the elderly woman chatted pleasantly and crooned at the baby as it waved a spoon in the air. None of them seemed to notice the old man, however, who was hunched over and concentrating on the utensils in front of him. As I watched, straining to see over his bony shoulder, he placed an object on the curved part of his fork, hit the opposite end with his fist and sent a jelly nearly ricocheting off of my forehead. I gave a little scream and hustled back down to the table to report back to Amy and Sunni’s anxious faces. Never one to miss out on an adventurous opportunity, we promptly agreed to launch defensive fire. Sunni licked her spoon clean, grabbed a jelly, and placing it in the hollow of the spoon pounded the opposite end with her fist. The spoon flipped wildly through the air and bounced off the wall, while the jelly shot upward, hit the ceiling and came crashing back down onto our table. A dry reedy laugh cackled from the opposing booth and the same dry voice announced “you have to use a fork!” This declaration was followed with a bombardment of three more jellies, a packet of half-and-half, and more reedy laughter. Engrossed now, we grabbed up forks and started shooting jellies in every direction. The harder we tried, the more disastrous our attempts became. Meanwhile, the young couple and the old woman carried on in casual conversation as if nothing were happening. Fifteen minutes later, our waitress marched over to our table and informed us that we needed to excuse ourselves from the restaurant. In one last attempt Amy placed a jelly on the end of her fork. As if in slow motion the jelly sailed neatly over the back of our booth and landed with a satisfying smack on the opposite side. Immediately afterward, the wails of a baby erupted, the waitress spun to face us, and the dry reedy voice announced, “Ya hit tha baybay!” We made our break to the lawnmower and sped back to the farm as fast as we could go, given the nature of our transportation.

After that we were to scared to go to The Brand anymore, we had never been thrown out of anyplace before. Gradually our parking spot was filled and a while later, we forgot all about the café where our names were carved on the corner booth.

Looking back it’s hard to imagine I couldn’t care about a place like that. It meant so much back then. I’ll bet it meant more to me then, than anything that makes me feel today. I only wish I coulda held on, grabbed that place and wrapped myself up in it till nothing could hurt me and the world could only see that wars should be fought with jelly. Maybe it hasn’t been long enough, maybe one day I’ll go back to The Brand and those greasy Buckaroo Burritos will taste as good as they did during the summer of ‘99.