i know a place, oh i know it so well

I underlined a line in my book before turning the page, and the man at the counter got up from his seat and took the one directly in front of me. I was surprised at his abruptness, but not uncomfortable or afraid. it was mid-morning at a Huddle House and there was nothing indicating anything particularly foreboding about the man. he was older, considerably so, with almost no hair and thick glasses. He smiled, a full-toothed white smile. I smiled in return, strangely serene.

"I wanted to say what pretty hair you've got, honey" he told me, glancing to my head as if making usre it was still pretty. My hair fell down over my shoulders, it was getting long, and almost matched the fire-engine red of my long coat. "Thank you so much," I replied to him through a broad smile. "My wife's hair was that color," he said, his voice dropping along with his smile, "Red hair has always been the most beautiful to me." I wondered if she had left him, or if she died seeing how old the man really looked. He wasn't repulsive though, he seemed to have aged in the way that Paul Newman had. He had lost his youth, but the dashing gentleman beneath the old face had not dissapeared. His eyes were wide and expectant.

"Where is she this morning? I asked, doing my best to be non-chalant. "She left me a long time ago," he said almost in a whisper, "Died the morning we were planning to see our great-granddaughter being born. I went, with the camera and the card, we both signed it, and I said she was too sick to come. Didn't have the heart to tell 'em with a new baby, waited a while for that. I haven't seen 'em really since then. Hadn't really seen nobody." I wondered how old that little great-granddaughter was now. How long it had been. How long he felt it had been. He reached across the table and touched my hair and I did not flinch. I let him brush my face, I may have let him touch whatever he wanted. I might have gotten up from that table right then and gone home with the man old enough to have a great granddaughter. The feeling of pity was so strong and sour in my stomach I felt like I was going to vomit. Loneliness was aching in this man in front of me, so much that he reached across dinier tables to brush nineteen year-olds' youthful cheeks. I wondered how many morning he was here, eating breakfast with his meticulously folded newspaper waiting for a young girl with red hair to sit down. Perhaps I looked like his wife.

We sat in silence for several minutes, until I glanced at the clock and saw I had ten minutes to make it back to campus for drawing class. I told the man thank you and to have a beautiful morning, and that he was very nice for talking to me. He looked at me with a content face, his smile returning wider than before, "You are a beautiful lady." I nearly cried, and walked away then to keep from doing so. I paid for my breakfast and waved at the man as I walked out. He waved back, revealing he had a wedding band tattood onto his hand. I hadn't noticed it, seeing as how I didn't think to look at his hands. But he had been young once, sitting in a tattoo parlor with his red-haired wife, kissing her lightly on the forehead as he had their ring etched into his skin. As I walked out and glanced back into the window, he sat staring directly where I had been sitting, pressing his thumb on his ring-finger, as if spinning a band that he had once worn, but long since removed.