Mr. Terrence by Rick Moss

“Sorry?” The young man looks up from his reading.

“That a mystery?” the visitor says again. Odd for a July night, the tweed overcoat. It’s fraying at the cuffs, and stains, smudges on the one shoulder, soot all down that side, the extra long scarf rounding the throat then across his chest, wrapped like a royal sash, and beneath it a t-shirt, yellowed at the belly.

“Not so much, no.” The young man closed the book for him, the cover – Slaughterhouse Five. “It’s about time.”

The man makes a show of spreading his arms, like a conductor on the podium preparing, then easing them back, folding his hands behind him. A throaty sound, his thoughts a calming grumble — arrummma — grungaranna — then forward, bending at the waist, over the table, squinting tight, lips pursed up nearly to his broad, flat nose, his weedy beard splayed out from the effort.

“SlaughterHOUSE?” The face exploded. “Damn, no. Don’t like a sound’a that.”

The young man checks across the empty tables to the counter, the waiter taking interest, rubbing at a mug with a dishtowel, looking his way.

“Not a mystery,” the young man says. “But I’m just thirty pages in.”

“Any good story’s got a mystery in it,” says the man. “It’s good?”

The young man straightens in his seat, arching his spine, crooking his arms back behind his head, suppressing a yawn, still holding the book, his thumb a bookmark. “Yeah, yeah, so far.”

The grey frizz about the man’s wild hair, a dandelion halo under the diner’s fluorescents. “You need more coffee, son.” It’s a proclamation. He nods at the mug on the table showing nothing but rings, rings inside the thick white mug, rings on the Formica. “Can’t sit here without a beverage of some kind. What you accomplishing with yourself, here at this hour?”

“Reading. I thought I could sit and read.”

The counter guy, still looking, still rubbing.

“Not all night you ain’t, not without a beverage.” Rocking to his heels, back to his toes. Gripping the back of the chair in front of him. “Don’t you have a home for tonight?”

The young man opens the book, closes it, his thumb the bookmark. He sees the visitor eyeing the Army green duffle that he left on the chair opposite, the chair the man is gripping, joints knobby like walnuts, nails scarred, overgrown.

“I’d hoped to hang out in South Station. They said I had to leave.”

“Well, sure. Sure you gotta go. They close that up after the last train. They kick you out.”

“Right. I missed it, the last train,” he says. “And so 7:12 is the first one tomorrow — today. The guard sent me here, said I can hang out here because it’s all-night.”

“Not without a beverage you ain’t. You need a dollar?”

“Well, I suppose. I’ve got some change left.”

The man laughs. “Don’t look’t me for that dollar. Don’t look’t me! Train going where?”

“Philly. I have my ticket.”

“Well, good. That’s sensible. And how’d you wind up in Boston, no damn money and nothing but a damn ticket?”

“Yeah, it’s a story.”

“I bet.” He grins, a gold one and a gap on top, two gaps below. “Bet it is,” snatches the duffle by its strap, slings it over his shoulder. “I know a place you can tell me that story,” he says, turning for the door.

The counter man shakes his head, half his mouth a smile, flips his dishtowel over a shoulder, heads for the kitchen.

The young man dog-ears his page, grabs his jacket off the back of his chair, skips his first few paces to catch up, book left behind, springing out the door and to the left, matching the man’s stride, a stride that’s all legs, stretching out in slow but long, productive strides, heading south along the wide sidewalk beside the boulevard, away from the station.

The air hits him as cooler, a breeze that wasn’t there. The street is now quiet, clear of traffic. Power line abuzz overhead, and a pop, a crack, more buzz, and traffic lights changing for no one.

Far off, police whoop, an echo, whoop whoop, farther off.

“Look, thanks,” says the young man, stretching out, matching the stride, “but I figure I can—”

“Young one like you got no business all night ‘round here,” says the man. “Chef Pablo come out that kitchen, have you outta there soon enough, then where’d you be? Not round here, not a place to be all night.”

“Yeah, I can—”

“You been in Nam? Where’d you get the duffle?”

“No, I’m not draft age, not until next May. Army Navy surplus.”

“Good. That’s good. You wanna avoid any that nonsense, I can tell you. It’ll ruin your life, if you got one left. Look at you, young man. What’s your name?”

“Eddie. Edward. Look, I can carry my—”

“Not draft age? Just a damn child. You a schoolboy? Look at you.”

“I can carry that myself.”

“I can call you Edward. You can call me Mr. Terrence, given you just a damn child.”

“Why don’t you let me—”, reaching for the strap.

“Nah, I got it. You leave it to me. It’s light. You on a short trip? Nothing much in here.”

“How far are we—”

“Mr. Terrence will do.”

“We’re getting kind of far from the station, Mr. Terrence.”

“Oh, no, not at all. Just going through here.”

He stops. They turn and face an alley, a passageway.

“Through here,” says the man, the darkness before them. “Mind you, your time, it’ll change, so take notice. Might notice a change once you go on through.”

And stepping lively, he enters, vanishing into shadows.

—

Mr. Terrence was seated, a threadbare arm chair, springs dangling below. “Good to see, you made it through. Sit, sit,” gesturing to a milk crate, overturned, a pillow, flattened for comfort. The duffle beside it atop cobblestones and patched pavement.

Edward sat, took hold of the duffel strap and wound it once, then again around a hand.

“Let’s get him started, this young Edward, his story, the story of Edward,” said Mr. Terrence. “That bag, it’s real light. A brief excursion was the plan. Or maybe this Edward, he didn’t plan quite right. Maybe young Edward, he packed too light.”

Edward’s face showed nothing. Above him loomed the concrete beams, around him the ancient brickwork. On the ground, an oil lamp, flickering, coaxing jittery shadows out from Mr. Terrence’s things, along the walls and stacked and piled, in satchels and crates, his paperbacks and journals, cookware, plates, and forks, shoes and pants, rags, towels, and bags.

Three passageways led off, falling off into blackness, three aside from the one through which they’d entered. Which that was, that was unclear.

Edward’s eyes were blank, undirected, welling up.

“Ah, yeah, the thoughts,” Mr. Terrence said, “they come back slow. And time, once it’s lost, it don’t return, not ever. Gone for good.” Nodding to the archway on his right, “We leave through there, sometimes a day gone, maybe a week or longer. One time, three years or nearly, and the boy we knew, he didn’t wait. Nearly three years gone, and that boy gone with ‘em. A fine boy, though not the same as this fine boy. As fair and as fine, but in his manner, in his way. But here we have Edward, this schoolboy and visitor. This one will tell us now, why does he travel?”

Edward, the visitor, his eyes came back, seeing the man before him, Mr. Terrence in a chair.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Terrence. “A story of how he came, of how he came to be, to be here tonight. Young Edward must tell us ‘cause this home of ours,” raising his palms, “welcomes past things.”

“Deborah,” said Edward.

“A girl!” He clapped. “Should’a known, a girl. She leave him, that it? She left and he come chasing? Chasing Deborah all the way to Boston?”

“No, no, she’s studying.” Wiping under his eye. “Yeah, studying near Gloucester.” He felt the tears on his thumb, slick between his fingers.

“Came up for love?” Mr. Terrence leaned forward, twisting a strand of his beard around a finger. “Two sweet young hearts, tenderness and love.”

Edward breathed deep, then exhaled, rousing. “No, no, not like that, we’re friends,” said Edward. “I took the train, then the bus, a slow bus up to Gloucester. Close friends, you’d say. It was the weekend and now a day. No more than friends. A weekend was the plan, and now another day.”

“All that way?” Mr. Terrence stood, shedding his coat, folding it on an arm, laying it on a pile. “No love in return for all that traveling?” he said, returning, sitting, unwinding his scarf pieced from many, stitched together to a fantastic length.

“No, no, though we could. I suppose we might have, but no, you see, Deborah, she paints, she writes. We walked along the shoreline. She read me her writing. We might have, but no. No, no, though we could.”

“Maybe Deborah ain’t Edward’s type? While Deborah, I bet, she likes what she sees, a lovely young man. I suspect Deborah, she wants some, she wants this young Edward, but maybe girls ain’t his type.”

“Oh no, I like her. Deborah is— well, anyway.”

“Maybe this Edward, he prefers the love of men.”

“We could of, but then, you know, the bus was expensive, and then I missed it, the one back to Boston. I thumbed back from Gloucester, got a ride into town, then walked, then ran, ran for quite a ways. I ran for the last one, the last train tonight, the last train for last night. Then I missed that one too.”

“And so, young Edward, he didn’t lose no time. His thoughts they came back to him,” said Mr. Terrence. “The time stayed with him, but in this past of which he speaks, he lost a chance to love, to win his love, Deborah. It was a chance lost to love, but now I got to wonder, would a man do instead? Could this boy love a man?”

“I don’t think I’ve lost a chance, it’s not lost.” Edward smiled as he stood, swinging the bag to his shoulder. “I’ll see her again. The chance is ongoing, don’t you think, Mr. Terrence? I’ll see her in the fall.”

“The choice is Edward’s, his choice alone, one choice of four might lead him to love. Choose the wrong passage, love vanishes in darkness, along with his time, if he chooses like a fool.”

Edward circled, his shadow stretching long, wavering and deep, circling the space, across Mr. Terrence, swallowed by each passageway, each passageway, his footsteps, his echo too swallowed.

Mr. Terrence leaned back, crossed his arms, closed his eyes, his endless scarf coiled loose by his feet.

“Does one go back, is there back, Mr. Terrence?” Edward circled on and peered down each void. “Maybe back to Gloucester or even before. Could one go back and return, Mr. Terrence?”

“Not for me or Edward,” he replied, sounding drowsed. “Not in this world, not in this city. Just think, each morning we wake up, we lose, we jump ahead forward, lost hours and dreams. But ever wake up and gain back a day, gain back a year, gain back a life? No, never backward, back can’t be done. Returning to the past can’t happen in this world.”

“I won’t be a fool,” he told Mr. Terrence. “What choice I make, I make for her love. And if I fail with a choice made in earnest, who can fault me and call me a fool?”

With that the young man ran through an archway, likely the one by which he had entered. And yet Mr. Terrence, with one eyelid raised, held no hope of Edward’s return, mourned his passing, longed for another, closed that eye, surrendered to sleep.

—

Rubbing a glass, the waiter will see him, then a lag in his motion, the dishtowel suspended. He’ll watch as the young man nods to him in greeting. In reply he’ll nod toward the same empty table where a chair and dog-eared book sit waiting, and the young man will settle, with hours yet until dawn.

Rick Moss

Image: An elderly man’s face in black and white. Wonderfully wrinkled with a kind expression. Photo credit : Youssef Elbelghiti