Looking Death in the Eyes at New Wave on Friday

A cowboy in black walks into a café.

Like that joke, this story has no punchline.

This man in black walks into my café. He’s an older man, but you wouldn’t call him an “older gentleman” yet. Could be 50. Could be 60. Could be aging fast. Could be aging well. He’s wearing the black cowboy boots, the black cloak and a black cowboy hat with its devilish black curves. His boots don’t have any spurs, but the toes come to a silver tip. And as I notice them, I notice also that he walks with a enigmatic limp that sort of drags his right foot behind him as if dead. In pain, he scowls ever so slightly under the brim of his hat, behind his silver barrel of a mustache, over thin silver knife of hair that runs from his lips to his chin.

He is going to be the villain of this piece, I think. If this were an old west saloon, the room would choke-off silent as the cowboy in black drags on in. He would order his drink and the bartender would stammer his assent: whiskey—no brand, no directions, no quantity. The barkeep would say “right away” and call him “Mr. ____”

The cowboy in black takes a seat at a table for two against a brick wall across the room. He doesn’t take off his coat or hat. He digs his hands throughout his coat—I can’t make inside from outside in that obsidian mass—and holds it low in hard, white hands, each added weight by bulging silver rings.

He looks up. His red eyes look right at me.

If this were an old west saloon, this would be it. I’d be a fucking dead man. And every man in here would know it.

He’d be my huckleberry. He’d throw a gun at my feet and tell me to pick it up. He’d shoot me dead the moment I bent for the handle. He’d tell me I am no daisy. He’d look around the room. He’d tell the room:

“You all saw him. He had a gun.”

And I would die the western death of the unwise.

He looks back to his phone and in a minute is joined by, improbably, a wraith-thin Asian woman in a native American tribal sweater. She is young and seems happy—not particularly elated or animate, but buoyant for a Chicago girl come mid-December.

Hey, the saloon breathes a sigh of relief. Go on and re-write the number on the chalkboard: "26 days without an 'accident.'" A round for whole bar! Charge it to that black fellow in the glasses, who doesn't know how lucky he is!





Currently listening to: “Wake” by the Antlers