What Bob Remembered by Harrison Kim

Leon drank a coffee with crinkly eyed, cookie eating car salesman Bob, Saturday afternoon at Desliles,

“Service is great at this altar of consumption,” Leon thought.

It was a few months ago he’d last met with Bob, and they’d discussed hats and bears as well as tales from the past and the quirky nature of circumstance.  Bob never forgot anything, but this time, they didn’t mention clothes.

Seventies retro music played in the background.  Leon looked up at the ceiling, “thick beams,” he said to Bob, and what he thought was “An odd yet honest friendship we’ve had these many years.”

“I bought two cookies,” Bob said.  “One’s for you.”

“I can’t accept a cookie,” Leon said. “I gotta stop eating so much sugar.”

Bob pulled the giant baked good back.  

“You’re always the killjoy,” Bob noted, and Leon thought “Yeah, he has a point,” because he knew he lived in his head too much. Where was the joy these days?  Maybe in the coffee. 

He noticed the cookie had a lot of raisins.

“Would you be pissed if I picked the raisins out?” Leon asked and took another coffee sip.  He was retired with an arts degree and doing very well, thank you, on the pension provided upon retirement from 35 years as a psychiatric nurse.  Now he was trying to write and breaking up with his wife.  Bob was always a good guy to talk about stuff like breakups.

On the other side of the windowpane lay the patio.  Bob and Leon could view it directly. A dark-haired lady in her late twenties pushed her elbows along the yellow tablecloth and waved her hands, cell phone, and long green fingernails at the young man across from her and Bob laughed “This is one good looking woman.”

Leon grinned. He checked from the corner of his vision.  The chick had fake eyelashes and healthy teeth, but way too young, maybe she was in the clothing business.  Yes, clothes.  Leon was looking for a unique hat for his collection, with a Highway 1 logo, preferably grey with a green coloured bear under the logo. He mentioned this to Bob the last time they met.  “I’ll look around,” Bob had told him. “I’m going up to Banff next month and maybe they sell them at that gift shop by the hot springs.”

Leon looked at the woman’s trimmed green fingernails again.

The male on the other side of the window caught Leon’s eye and stared, a young guy in a suave brown corduroy suit and a frown below reddish eyes that Leon interpreted as saying “I’m warning you,” very sincere in its intensity, but Leon couldn’t figure out what colour visuals he was looking at, because the sun shone directly on the yellow tablecloth and the guy’s eyes were a kind of hollow beyond that.

“I could hold this stare like a big ol’ bear,” Leon rhymed to himself, and glanced over at Bob who grinned “I think she likes me,” as the woman passed her phone to the young man and he stared at it a moment then pushed it back.

Leon kind of wondered about Bob’s thinking process these days. His friend had recently grown his white hair long, his face looked healthier with the strands all round it, like a rosy apple but in winter shadow, with wrinkles.

“What would make Bob feel this woman was attracted to him?” Leon wondered.

On the other hand, due to his successful car and real estate sales businesses Bob was quite a wealthy man.

Leon raised his eyes again.  The young fellow continued his hard stare.  Leon felt a thrill of stress, like when he worked at the mental hospital and a patient went off the rails.

Maybe this individual was a gang member, they were known to frequent the area.  Gang members liked women with tattoos and this chick had a salmon specimen inked on her upper arm.  The guy caught Bob and Leon’s laughter and their looks at his girl which could be interpreted as disrespect.  Perceived disrespect is the main cause of violence, Leon knew.  But he found himself going to these worse case scenarios way too often, probably due to all those years of mental hospital stress.

“I will remove these thoughts from my mind,” he thought, then turned to his friend.

“I have to tell you that the woman’s boyfriend across from me is the jealous kind.  He’s fixing me with a stone glare.”

Bob erupted in more laughter.

“You think the kid’s mad at you,” he chortled, “But I’m the one who’s looking at her.”

Leon knew Bob was associated with various edgy characters like club owners and music promoters and the side he showed was humour and lightness, except in certain situations where someone didn’t appreciate his jokes… but both Bob and Leon were in their sixties now and the whole episode with the patio people seemed ridiculous.  Anything can happen, Leon surmised, when you’re with edgy characters.

The last time Bob and Leon got together was with Bob’s pub owner friend Ellis who told a story about keeping a street thief tied and gagged to his business fridge for a couple of days after the guy dined and dashed from his establishment.

“Did I believe that story?” Leon wondered.

He shared some stories himself about the psychiatric hospital.  All three fellows had a good old time laughing together around the anecdotes.

Now, trying not to glance at the young man on the other side of the window, he tried to think of something witty.  Bob lived out of the box in the wit department.  That’s one thing Leon really appreciated, though it was hard to know if Bob was ever serious.  On the other hand, maybe he was always serious.  He covered it up with his jokes.

“It’s time to leave anyway,” Bob continued.  “I’ll go round the patio so I can get a better look at this lady.”

The woman was again gesticulating and thrusting her chin forward, intensely explaining something. 

“She looks like someone who’d be interested in an exciting guy,” Bob said.

“I’m kind of wondering if her guy who’s looking at me is a gang member,” Leon told him. 

“Well, he’s not going to start anything in here,” Bob said.  He took a sideways look. 

“You know, if he was a successful gang member he wouldn’t act so jealous.”

The young lady moved her hands and phone around some more, smiling and laughing, Leon couldn’t hear what she was saying but he was curious, because the young man’s lips did not move.

“See how she’s looking at me?” Bob said.  “You know, I think she’s bored with that guy.  He’s glum.  Nobody likes a glum guy.”

Leon nodded.  “I’m a bit of a downcast fellow myself,” because although he tried to make conversation these days it was always about his breakup.  He should be happy now he was retired and drinking coffee in a café with a fantastic morning ambiance and a good friend.

“You can seem a sober guy,” Bob grinned, and stood up.  “But I think it’s all an act.  You act like you have no confidence, but I know you do.  Your head’s lurking in the shadows lapping up all the information.  When you have it all figured out, you do your thing.  You worked with very difficult people, and that includes your ex-spouse.  I don’t know how you did it, man.”  Bob paused.   “I’m going to take the walk. You can go round the back or round the front.”

He stood up, grabbed his hat, which featured a giant bluebird on the front and underneath printed “Reifel Bird Sanctuary,” and headed for the patio.  Leon watched Bob’s skinny bare ankles move, his brown cargo pants shuffling just above his knees.  Then he stepped out the front, stood and watched as Bob walked to the young folks’ table.

“Howdy,” Bob said, and went into an easy smile.  “I like to see an attractive couple together, just wondering if you’d be interested in checking out a 2014 Mercedes SLK two door roadster I’ve got for sale, you look like Mercedes people.”

Leon moved closer.

“Yes, how did you know I was in the market?” the woman said, her face upturned and shiny in the sunlight.

Leon wondered why he wasn’t attracted to such women.  Now that he was separated, he liked them pensive, introspective, older and working in a library.  He grinned in his mind and the grin came out and spread across his face like a watermelon slice.

The young man sat in the background, still staring at Leon.

“Well, it was easy,” Bob said.  “I couldn’t help noticing through the window here,” he pointed, “That you were looking at vehicles on your phone.”

He had his own phone out now, showing the girl the car.

“As you can see, it’s a gleaming silver like your friend’s sport jacket buttons, got heated seats and mirrors, 1600 rpm torque, that’s zero to a hundred in seven seconds.”

“I like fast,” the woman turned her face to Leon.  “And silver.  And who are you? You’re the handsome one here… I mean, for your age.  No offence meant.”

Leon didn’t quite believe the way she perceived him, but now, outside the restaurant, face to face, under the actual sun, more dimensions unfolded.  As Bob said, it was all in the attitude.  You had to present an air of confidence to exist in the world, or at least, to exist in the minds of other people, to attract them towards your sphere of influence.

“I help Bob sell cars,” Leon said.  “Outside beautiful restaurants on sunny summer mornings to young energetic people with their whole life ahead of them.”

“Are you in?” Bob asked the young man.  “You look like you could use some speed.”

The young man ran a spoon along the rim of his coffee cup. He looked at Leon.

“We were talking about buying a car,” he said.  “About buying a car together.  If we can afford it.”

Bob chortled.  “You’re not a gang member, are you?  Leon here thinks so.”

“Ha ha,” Leon chimed in.  “Initial impressions can be really off the wall, I thought you could be a gang member, because of your very cool look.  I’m always going to the most charismatic scenario.  Truth is, we figured you might be in the car market due to Bob’s superb observation skills regarding your phone choices.”

The young man tapped his spoon on the top of his coffee cup.

“You think I have a cool look?” he asked.   “You were giving me kind of a weird stare in the café.”

“Leon’s in a bit of a strange zone because he just broke up with his wife,” Bob said.

“She’s probably the gang member,” the young woman reached over for her coffee cup and raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Leon nodded. 

He took another look at the young woman’s salmon tattoo.

“Do you by any chance sell hats?” he asked.  “I’m in the market for a Highway 1 cap with a bear logo.  The hat must be grey, and the bear must be green.”

The young man sat up, scratched his moustache with a middle finger.

“You’re looking for lids?  You’re messing with us.”

“They’re not messing with us, they’re trying to sell us a car,” said the girl. 

“I’ve always been a hat guy,” Leon said.

“Leon’s a writer,” said Bob. “He’s got a big imagination always thinking of his next book idea.”

“You guys really need to change your clothing choices,” the young man said.  “You can’t expect to be taken seriously in cargo pants.”

“Have you published anything?” the girl asked.

Bob handed her a piece of paper.

“This is an old-fashioned delivery method,” he said, “But here’s my published number, if you want a test drive.”

“Thanks.  I’ll put it in my phone,”

She tucked the paper into her blouse pocket, a blue short sleeved blouse crossed with images of red diamonds where the material tightened over the tops of her shoulders.

Bob and Leon walked out to the sidewalk that led down to the path along the river.

“It was good to be young once,” Leon said.  “To dress well in a brown corduroy suit and trade intriguing conversations with beautiful ladies.”

“They were having an argument,” Bob said.  “About buying a car.”

“Life’s full of problems,” Leon looked out over the river, where several people in kayaks strained to push against the current.

“While you were watching the killer stare at you in the café, I picked all the raisins out of your giant cookie that you never ate,” Bob said.  “Here you go.”

He held out his hand.  At least a dozen of the black crinkly blobs stuck to his palm and to each other.

“You’re very good to me, Bob,” Leon said.  “I don’t think anyone else would have done such a service.”

He took the raisins and stuck them in his pocket.

“You really think that sexy young woman was attracted to you?” he asked.

“A guy can believe anything he wants,” Bob said.  “That’s what keeps us ahead of the game.”

“Anything he wants?” Leon asked.

“What do you believe?” Bob asked.

“I believe that squirrely guy was a gang member.”

Bob rubbed his hand under his chin.  “Gol darn rights” he said. 

 The two friends hiked along the street and arrived at Bob’s convertible Mercedes Benz.  The top was down.  Bob pulled something out of the back of the seat.

“Sweeter than the raisins,” he said.  “And free as joy.  You just gotta reach out and grab it.”

He handed Leon a grey hat with the Highway 1 logo and a green bear just below it.  “Got it on my last trip to Banff.  Thought you might like it after we talked lids a few months ago.”

“Thanks,” Leon said.

“Of course, that chick was attracted,” Bob continued, and gave his broad smile that opened clear across his red apple face, “I would bet you those sweaty raisins and fifty bucks that in less than a day, she’ll be calling me about this car, this car which is always for sale.  I’ll take her for a ride and yeah, she’ll buy it.”

Leon placed the hat on his head and agreed, “Confidence, that’s all we need.”

Bob stepped into the car, stopping a moment to adjust his pants, then drove off, his long white hair blowing behind him.  The convertible roared up the street and through a caution light.

Leon scattered the raisins under a tree.  Their decay would help it grow; he figured.  He had to watch his sugar intake.  He didn’t doubt for a minute there would be some kind of further communication regarding the girl and the Mercedes. 

“A guy can believe anything he wants,” Leon said out loud.

He chose a bench overlooking the river and tried out the gifted hat.  He sat there the better part of an hour, with the gratitude that Bob had remembered. 

Harrison Kim

Image by Hans from Pixabay – a pile of raisin cookies.