Morning coffee

I don’t mean to be no trouble, but I am thinking of dyin.

He sat across from me, sipping his percolated coffee with one or three too many fistfuls of coffee thrown in “for good measure”. If you were to believe the tall tales he tells, he uses an old sock to filter out the biggest of the grounds, but I think that’s probably bullshit. Or it might not be bullshit and I’m just hoping that it is at least a clean old sock he uses for the purpose.

He didn’t say much while it brewed away and I didn’t say much none neither because I’ve got to learning that Frank don’t listen none too well and talks even less well until he’s had his perk and a cigarette or two. ‘Sides, I ain’t one to chitchat just to fill up the empty space on an otherwise perfectly good morning.

I have to admit, tho, when I walked into Frank’s kitchen to have one of our daily sit-ins like I have done every day for going on ten years, I wasn’t ‘specting those words to come out of Frank’s mouth between a puff on a cancerette and a swig of that coffee of his.

Showing off my superior intellect, I responded with a That so?

Frank ain’t the kind to answer right away. He’s old school Montana rancher that sold off his ranch to his kids when raising black angus went from being sensible ranching to damn near a liability when they caught the attention of the big operations. The kids were smart in that they kept enough cattle around to call it a ranch, but mostly AirB&B’d the old homestead to rent off to cowdudes from the city for them to pretend they were reenacting Rawhide or some such silliness. Folks had to sign a waiver an everything before they could rent the place.

Frank didn’t have no stomach for that, but the kids… well they are doing well with their business from what I hear. Making enough anyway so that the corps don’t get all anxious about trying to swindle them out of the land, anyway.

Ayep.

Drink and smoking followed, and I can’t say I blamed him one bit. I mean, how do you carry a conversations on after something like that? I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask for details. I suspected if he meant what he said about dyin’, I’d get all the details after the fact. Frank wasn’t someone you could talk out of something once he set his mind to it, and so I decided to let him run out the conversation a bit further if he felt a need to consult me more about his plans.

Frank looked out between the nicotine-stained curtains into his backyard, checking out that old oak tree that was probably there since the house was first built here in Charlie. Probably long before. But he sat there, looking out at it, just smoking and drinking, looking mighty contemplative about the whole thing.

A chickadee decided to raise a ruckus and serenade the world. Praising the sun or some such thing — who knows what gets them going? They certainly won’t stop for the asking, even if the asking is more like yelling. I should know.

But not today, he said, not turning away from that window. Not today.

Not that I’m looking to rush the process, I said, but is there any particular reason why that ain’t part of the schedule today?

He flicked the cigarette ash at the ashtray, missing it entirely, and took another sip of his coffee.

Not really, he replied. It’s just too nice of a morning to go and spoil it with my dying. It ought to be a bit more on the rainin side the day I die.

Sure enough, it was a bright and sunny day out there. The chickadee was singing about it pretty loudly, if you ask me. I nodded as if I understood, but I wasn’t quite sure that I did.

And it can’t just be just any rainy day, he added. It’ll have to be the right kind of rainy day.

An’ what kind of rainy day is right? I asked

He shrugged and glanced over at me as he stubbed out his cigarette and poured hisself another cup of joe. Offered to top off mine with a gesture, but I held up a hand. There’s only so much of that stuff I can drink in a given day ‘fore my hearts starts racing beyond what is healthy for someone my age.

I’ll know it when it comes around, I ‘spect.

And that seemed to be the end of that. The discussion seemed to peter out and, well, if you know Frank, that’s just how it goes with him. He says his piece and that’s all there is to it. Sounds weird, maybe, but I’m like that myself. We understand each other in that much at least.

I put my hands on my knees to help me stand up. Welp, as we say by way of farewells around these parts.

He nodded. Later, Mick. You stopping by tomorrow?

Is it ‘sposed to rain?

He sucked at his teeth as he thought. I don’t reckon they said it would on the morning report. And my bones don’t say otherwise.

Then I ‘spect I come on by like I do every day, Frank.

Later then, he said.

Later.

After all this time, Frank knew I could show myself out and I walked out the front door. The spring on the screen made a stretching noise as I opened in and once again, just like always, I forgot to grab it before it slammed shut.

Sorry Frank, I called into the darkened hallway.

Ayep, he said.