Bo's Café Read Free Page A

me.”
    “Me too.”
    We’re quiet again, both staring at the television set. Finally I laugh. “So are you going to tell my dad I threatened to beat
     up one of his friends?”
    “No, that can be our secret.”
    “Explain this, then.” I look away from the TV. “You said some things a couple minutes ago that my dad wouldn’t have known.
     What was that about?”
    He gives me a sideways look. “What stuff was that?”
    “You know, the fight with my wife and… that whole bumping-into-furniture thing.”
    “Oh, I just get those little sayings off the Internet. Sometimes they’re from Dr. Phil, sometimes Oprah.”
    “No, you don’t.” I shake my head. “How did you know those things about
me
? I hide that stuff pretty well.”
    “Maybe not as well as you think.” He lets that last statement hang in the air for a while. I’m not sure what to say. This
     guy may be my dad’s friend, but he’s still pretty annoying.
    He spins around on his stool and jumps up, like a little kid.
    “Come outside for a second? I wanna show you something.”
    He takes a few steps toward the door and turns to me. “Come on, it’s not like you’ll miss your drink.”
    So I follow his flip-flopping feet out to the parking lot. There, sitting directly next to my car, is a shiny cherry-red vintage
     convertible.
    He leans against the trunk. “Nice, huh? Buick Electra—1970. Only about six thousand ever made it to the street. Less than
     two hundred still running. Four-fifty-five with eight cylinders and 370 horses pulling this sled. I redid the whole thing
     myself from the ground up.” He looks lovingly at the car. “Even the upholstery. The door panels and the whole steering assembly
     came from an Electra owned by Cary Grant.”
    When he sees my blank stare, he says, “He was an actor… in the forties and fifties, um, before Brad Pitt was born. Anyway,
     you gotta jiggle the passenger door handle from the inside to get in, and she drinks a lot of oil. But if you want to get
     your hair scared, there ain’t nothing like this ride! You can sit in it if you’d like.”
    It truly is an impressive vehicle, especially the storage compartment which makes up half its size. You could drive a present-day
     hybrid into that trunk and still have room for groceries. This car looks like a shiny safety-deposit box on whitewall tires.
     No big fins, no gimmicks—Detroit’s last attempt to build a car that could comfortably fill an entire lane.
    I shake my head. “Thanks. I can see it just fine from here.”
    He hops in the car, starts the engine, and puts it in gear. “Suit yourself. Maybe we’ll see each other again. Nice to meet
     you, though.”
    “Hold on a minute,” I yell.
    He puts the car back in park and lets the engine idle. “Look, Steven, you’ll never discover most of what you went searching
     for tonight as long as
you’re
setting the terms. That’s how this stuff works. Maybe you came here for a reason. Or maybe you were brought here.” He peers
     into my eyes. “What if God brought you here to meet an old guy with a Buick Electra who may be just a little further down
     the road than you? I don’t believe much in coincidence. Maybe this is nothing more than a funny practical joke God let us
     stumble into. Or maybe both of us have been led here.”
    He reaches into his wallet and fumbles around.
    “My name’s Andy. Here’s my card.”
    I take it from him. There’s nothing on it but a name—Andy Monroe—and e-mail address.
    “You decide you want to ride around in this cream puff, e-mail me. Okay?”
    He puts the car into reverse. Then he smiles at me and slips on a pair of sunglasses as if it were noon.
    His giant Buick Electra with white upholstery and whitewall tires slowly rumbles its way out of the parking lot. By the time
     I look up from putting his card in my wallet, he’s vanished down Colorado Boulevard into the chilly early spring night air.

“You Really Don’t Get It, Do You?”
    (Late