Cotton-eyed Chester 04.28.08 #1

An old guy, dressed in worn clothes and a United States Navy cap, is standing near the front register with two much-younger girls at the bar. He is talking to them in a spittle-filled toothless blabber with his hand on the left one's shoulder. He moves in between the two girls, putting the other hand on the right one, and sticks his head through the closed circle.

The Navy geezer asks, “Ya know what my faverit song on the Waffle House jukebox is?”

“You just told us,” Left says.

“Hush!” Right says to Left. “What?”

“I'd have ta say it's Cotton-eyed Joe.” He pulls the girls closer to him. They cringe their shoulders trying to shed off his old weathered hands. “I could dance ta that if I were younger. Want me ta play it?” Without waiting for Left or Right to answer he releases them and turns to the jukebox. He pulls a quarter from his clay-stained threadbare jeans and slides it into the jukebox, and for the third time that day, starts looking for Cotton-eyed Joe on the back lit selection list.

“I'm going to kill somebody if I listen to that song again,” Left tells Right. Left and Right pick up their short strapped purses and pay their tickets. They sneak out while the Navy geezer is still blinking at the Waffle House jukebox.

“Can I get you something to drink?” A waitress with a pen and order pad asks me.

“Yeah. I'll have a coffee and bring extra of the little creamers, please.”

“Are you ready to order?”

“No thanks, just coffee.” I look around the waitress as she finishes taking my order. The geezer is looking around him, maybe for Left and Right. He takes off his hat, runs his hand through his hair and walks to the bathroom.

“Sometimes, he thinks he's at a bar with all his war buddies and some lady called Sheryl, even in the morning like this,” the waitress says.

“What?”

“Chester, the old guy in the hat. He's got bad Old Timer's. We watch after him and keep his granddaughter's phone number at the front desk.”

“Is he actually a veteran?”

“Who knows? He thinks he is. Let me get your coffee.” She goes back behind the counter into the open kitchen. Chester comes back out with wet silver hair slicked back on his head and the bill of his hat pinched between his hands.

“Boy! I wonder who put on Cotton-eyed Joe. I could dance ta that if I were younger,” Chester says aloud. He sits down at the bar where Left and Right had been. “Hey miss!” He points to my waitress and waves at her. “What's your name?”

“It's Carroll, Chester.” Carroll stands in the middle of the kitchen holding a glass of ice water and a mug of coffee looking at Chester.

“Could I possibly git me a glass of ice walder, Carroll?” She puts the glass down in front of him and then comes through the swinging half-door to bring my coffee.

“How did you know?” I ask.

“Know what?” Carroll takes a pile of the creamers from her apron and puts them on the table. I begin to stack them into pyramids of flat-topped half-and-half cones.

“About the water.”

“Oh. He always asks for a glass of water when he gets back from the bathroom.”

She walks to the table next to me and asks, “Can I get y'all something to drink?” I put a generous teaspoon of sugar into my coffee and start to sip it black and blow on the top when it is too hot.

I blow into the cup and rearrange the creamers into a diamond, then a circle, then a figure-eight infinity. Chester drops down into my booth in the seat across from me. I choke on some of the boiling hot coffee and cough.

Chester takes off his hat and raises a flat hand to his brow, touching his forehead at an angle.

“Do you know what this is?” he asks.

“Uh.”

“A salute. I always salute my elders.”

“I'm only twenty.”

“Ya seem old ta me. I can't see well, but it looks like yuv found what ya want. I'm here ever night waitin for my buddies to come back, waitin for the girls in shimmerin dress to show come an sit beside me.” He puts his hand down and his hat back on. I take another sip of coffee, cooler now, and begin stacking the creamers into a pyramid again. The paper tops are soggy from condensation. Chester watches my hands stack it up to five floors before it crumbles.

They fall and he says, “That's why I always git walder. I don't wanna git drunken up before they git here.”

I drink my coffee and listen for him to continue, but Chester says nothing more.

“Can I get you some more coffee?” Carroll asks and takes my mug.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“More creamers?”

“I'm all right.”

“What about you, Chester?”

“I'll have a walder, please.” Chester gives Carroll a charming toothless smile.

“OK. Be right back.” She takes the mug with her back behind the counter, fills it, and grabs Chester's glass of water off the front bar. She puts the drinks on the table and leaves again to pick up another party's order. I mix more sugar into the cup and test it. The coffee is stronger than the last, further into the pot and more boiled down.

“Ya know what my faverit song is?” Chester asks.

“I Walk the Line?”

“Nah. Never were a Cash man.”

“Then what?”

His face twists back into his charming smile, and I can see straight through his gums and into the back of his throat.

“I'd have to say it's Cotton-eyed Joe. I could dance to that if I were younger. Want me to play it?”

“Yeah, go for it.” He stands up with the glass of water in his hand. Some of it spills and wets his sleeve as it drips onto the table. “Wait.” I stop him and pull a quarter from my own pocket. “Take this.”

“Well thanks,” Chester says. While Chester walks over to the jukebox and starts to scan the selection list again, my phone begins to ring and vibrate on the table knocking over the newest creamer pyramid.

“Hey Aveda. Are you here?” I ask.

“Yeah. I'm outside, hon. Are you ready to go?”

“Let me pay the check. Be out in a sec.” I hang up the phone. “Can I get this to go?”

“Yeah,” Carroll says. She grabs a paper cup and top and fills the cup with steaming coffee. I walk to the front register where we exchange the coffee and four dollars.

“The rest is tip.”

“Thanks. You have a good day.”

“You too.”

As I walk past the jukebox, Cotton-eyed Joe starts to play, and Chester looks at me and salutes again. I raise my hand to my brow in a gesture not nearly so noble or practiced, but Chester sees me, and his back straightens, the angle of his elbow becomes more deliberate. His lips make him serious.

I push backwards through the swinging glass door, dropping the salute and entering the warm autumn noon air. Chester becomes Chester again. He takes off his hat and bends the bill in both hands.

“You be careful, sir,” he says as the door swings closed. As I get into the car with Aveda, I watch him through the windshield, through the big glass Waffle House wall. I watch him walk back to the bathroom, running one hand through his silver hair with an old United States Navy cap in the other.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...