“Hey, Jim, how are you?” says a familiar voice from a guy with his back to me.  He’s sitting at the end of the table in the café as I go in for my morning coffee.

“Paul!” I exclaim, as I finally see who it is.  I haven’t seen my old coffee-shop friend in quite some time. “What’ve you been up to.”

“Just following Richard around,” he says, nodding to his old friend Richard, who’s sitting near him at the big table full of people.

Richard is wearing one of his trademark tee shirts---this one showing an anthropomorphized  red-hot chili pepper dressed as a cowboy riding on the back of a bucking armadillo, with the big word “TEXAS” emblazoned across the shirt beneath the outrageous cartoon.  One of the other guys at the table had returned from a trip to Texas just the week before and had given the shirt to Richard.

Richard grins at Paul.  “He never knows where he’s going to end up when he goes with me.”

“Usually somewhere there are some fish and a fishing pole, I’ll bet,” I say.

“That’s for sure,” says Paul.  “Last week, I dozed off in the car and when I woke up, we were in Benton Harbor!”

Richard loves to fish, winter and summer, and he often takes Paul with him.  And, he takes Paul out and about town and “does for him.”

“How long have you two been friends?” I ask.

“Longer than I’ve been collecting salt and pepper shakers,” says Bob, who’s sitting to Richard’s left.  Bob has hundreds and hundreds of sets of salt and pepper shakers that he’s purchased at yard sales and here and there over the years.  He’s a good ‘ole guy.

“Long, long time,” says Paul.

“Yup,” says Richard.  “Long time.”

When I first me these two guys, Paul was working at a little café where I hung out, washing dishes and pouring coffee and mopping floors.  He was a fixture there, greeting everyone by name with a cheery “hello” and a grin.  Richard was a regular customer at the place, always occupying the same stool, closest to the dishwashing area where he could talk to Paul while he stacked cups and made coffee.  Richard tells lots of fishing stories, but I’ve never heard him stretch the truth---he often admits to getting skunked or catching a “few little ones.” 

When Paul got sick, Richard filled in for him at the café until he could come back to work, but, alas, Paul never could come back. He lost first one leg, then the other, and now lives in a wheelchair during his waking hours. All through his medical ordeals, the regulars at the café were kept up to date by Richard.

“Paul’s having a tough time,” he’d report one day.  “The doctor’s are really worried about him.”

“Paul’s doing a little better now,” he’d report a few days later.  “He’s gaining a little weight---he was down to nothin’ but skin and bones.”

Eventually, every morning Paul would call the café and Richard would pass the cordless handset around to all of the regulars so we could talk to him, and, finally, he began to occasionally bring Paul down to visit when he was well enough. 

This could not have been easy in those early days when Paul was too weak to help out much—Richard must have had to lift him to put him in and out of the car and into the wheelchair.  But, the smile on Paul’s face to be around his old friends again must have made it worth the effort.

That old café is closed now, but it’s good to know the two old friends are still out cruising the highways and drinking coffee together. 

Beauty comes in many forms.  

                               by Jim Whitehouse

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