Sunset Cafe Stomp

a sequel, of sorts, to
it's all true!....


Hemingway, sitting alone by the window with a pile of books in the opposite seat, took the pencil from behind his ear without taking his eyes off the large cafe owner, fat hands clasped behind him, watching three pretty girls in a booth. He wondered if such a large man had the capacity of lust. Dropping the pencil not really caring, he wondered aloud to no one where in the world is Spencer. The large cafe owner wiped his aroused trembling lips with a dirty handkerchief and nodded to the writer. God, I hate this dump.
He gathered up the pencil that had rolled to the marble floor and wrote those five words as his new short story title on a clean lined page from a gift notebook once bundled in delicate white tissue paper tied with blue silk string that Audrey had plucked from the tiny waist of her snug cream colored capris on a lovely rainy day at the old place. It was a mighty good excuse for the white-whiskered man to kiss the cheek of the waif. Spence, Buster, and I applauded politely on that happy day.

Tracy kicked at the black embers on the narrow brick street corner where the Blue Cafe once stood. He looked out amongst the still smoldering ruins shaking his head mournfully, looking at nothing where she once stood. He always did call the place 'her.' Even in the days after she burned and collapsed to the earth. Giving one last angry kick planting a soiled mark on his right shoe, thinking of that horrific phone call giving him the bad news, he turned away and started for the new diggs, the crowded Sunset, to share a bottle with his friend.

I was across the street watching Audrey with her head down crunching dead leaves against the curb under her light step, the reflected sunlight sparking from her silver-studded ear lobes. I'd given her the directions to the new place the day before, just as she had returned to town still carrying her overnight bag, but she looked so lost I went ahead and wrote them out, all right angles, on the back of a yellow envelope. Now she really looked like a lost lamb, but as I started across the street to assist once more, without looking, a car screeched to a stop at my feet and the angry crumpled-face driver thumped the horn like he was proud to have a deluxe accessory and was overjoyed at his first opportunity to try it out. I responded by making a most lovely obscene gesture.

Buster came to the rescue like a hero out of a silent movie. He had been blamed for the fire that destroyed the Blue, but I just know he was not at fault. He might be Mr. Pratfall, but I've never known him to be clumsy. Wearing an over-sized white apron, he had been sweeping the sidewalk at the store front on Audrey's side of the street, and after a few shoulder shrugging words from Ms. Hepburn, he dropped his broom and started to give directions to the Sunset Cafe in a grotesque scene like he was on stage doing a plate spinning routine. Audrey began to laugh hysterically. I smiled watching them as I embraced the driver in a neck lock and was pounding his crumpled face back into a more human-like shape.