“Can I get you anything…else, sir?” said the waitress.
Porter looked at her as if he’d never seen her before. A gold tag read: Michelle. Black hair with a shine. White teeth and auburn skin that would be prune texture in about fifteen years because of sun exposure.
“No,” he said, unsure of her message until he mentally played it back. “Yes! Do you have pretzels?”
“To go with your hot chocolate?” she said, leaning with her hip cocked. He’d already had a full pitcher’s worth, and she’d seen him go to the bathroom twice, leaving his table hidden beneath a flotsam of falling papers and dirty volumes. He’d buried his mug once and taken at least fifteen seconds to find it when she’d come about the twentieth time to see if he wanted dinner. He’d ordered fries. And ranch dressing on the side.
“Please.” His head bobbed back to his books as if she’d already left. With a shake of her head, she disappeared.
Porter didn’t worry about her, or what the manager might hear. He had to make positive the links he already supposed he’d found in the codex. If he couldn’t prove the relation between the Kalpa Manuscript and the Near East, which Albright and Peterson insinuated strongly, his dissertation would be seen as a flop. He had a certain distasteful, but respected, reputation to keep.
And Alred? Porter couldn’t figure her out, but suspected she wasn’t all with him in the project. For example, what was her thesis? Why weren’t they writing the same paper? Yes, yes, they were separate Ph. D’s, but why all the secrecy on her part. She didn’t try to hide anything from him, but her constant defensive posture confused him. And her offensive stance against the chance that Ulman’s find had a relation to the Book of Mormon? Perhaps she hid a religious fear and not an academic one.
“My father died that way.”
Porter heard these words. He couldn’t help but be quick to hear anything related to death, since it seemed a horrible possibility at present.
Over the bench in front of him, Porter could see an old man in a suit sitting alone with a cup of something hot. The eyes, aged with the wisdom of the Greeks and surrounded in similar wrinkles, waited patiently on him.
“I’m sorry, are you-”
“Talking to you?” said the fellow, glancing into his cup. “You’re the only one who heard me!”
Porter looked down at his notes. It seemed that an ant farm had broken open over his papers and ceased living; all the words were unreadable, a mess only. His heart skipped to a start and pounded like a newborn’s.
“Don’t have to listen,” said the old man, sipping loudly. “Didn’t mean to push my emotions on you. Sometimes they rise to the brim and can’t be contained, I suppose.”
“Know what you mean,” Porter mumbled.
“Worked himself to death,” said the stranger. “Just stayed out, away from the family, forming regrets he wouldn’t have a chance to remedy. He drank, but not too much. Some people hide in bottles. He hid in books.”
Taking a breath, Porter looked up at the old man and relaxed a little. The guy was probably just lonely. He didn’t look drunk, and his well-pressed Brione of dark Italian fabric meant he was a man of wealth and possible importance. So his head was on somewhat straight. Why wasn’t he home with his family. Like father, like son?
The doctoral candidate went back to work, and this time the words on the pages made sense. He needed to rest. He dropped a pad to one side and scanned the index of Molin’s volume with hungry fingers and furious eyes.
“He was a attorney. But you look more like a student.”
“You also a lawyer? You’re very perceptive,” said Porter without looking up.
The old man chuckled lightly. “I may be foolish, but…I learned not to follow the path of my forefathers.”
“How untraditional,” Porter said, scribbling on his pad before sticking his mechanical pencil in his mouth.
“Sometimes tradition is a bad thing. Old things die, and they must. Things in the past should be left alone.”
“I’m a historian and therefore have to disagree.” Porter said through the pencil. His eyes never left his books. Peripheral vision told Porter’s brain that the old man hadn’t moved, but continued to sip the steaming liquid. “Simple point. Elementary, my dear Watson.”
“Doyle never wrote that, you know,” said the fellow.
Porter looked up with honest curiosity coloring his face. “Really?”
The old man nodded, but didn’t make eye contact with the student. “Created later in what I would call The Further Fabrications of Sherlock Holmes.”
“Has a good ring to it,” Porter said, returning to the index.
“I can think of no job more difficult than yours,” said the old man.
“I can think of many more difficult jobs!”
“Columbus.”
“What about him,” said Porter with little enthusiasm in his tone.
“The most hated man in America, and the only hated man we celebrate once a year.”
“Depends on who you talk to,” Porter said.
“I speak with Time.”
Porter looked at him. He pointed at the old man with his pencil, “An English teacher, right?”
A gentle shake of the head.
“Back to your father, are we?” said Porter.
“I watch the years come and go. Same as everyone else, though time usually gets in people’s way. They hate it and try to paddle against it’s mighty current. That’s what you’re doing. Don’t have much time, do you. That’s only because time is your enemy. If it were with you, you would always win!”
“I’ve beaten time before,” Porter said, working faster because of the conversation, but gaining little ground.
“You have won battles, like many of us. We win a fight with Time and call ourselves successful, when in reality we are but shortsighted oafs afraid to face the truth.”
“ We? ” said Porter, looking up again. “You lump yourself in with the miserable?
“I meant you, in the plural of course.”
“Sure. And what’s the truth?” Porter returned to his work, expecting nothing profound.
“That you are losing the war. A few battles to speak of, but in the end…stress, unhappiness, bad health…death.”
“You always such pleasant company?” Porter said, scratching behind his ear with the mechanical pencil, but not lifting his focus.
“I prefer to be grave only when I must be.”
“And this evening you feel you have a divine calling to be the bringer of bad news to me?”
The old man stood, leaving a couple dollars protruding from beneath his mug.
Porter looked up as the man put on his black gloves.
The man’s face was the same off-white of the moon in a Halloween haze. His mouth, a ridged crease. His eyes the same. He stood perfectly straight; a gentleman, a model magnate, just what every young lawyer would hope to look like in old age; power in his blood, dignity for a skeleton behind his face, posture…perfect.
“Relax a little. You’ll live longer,” said the old man.
“I have a deadline that will shatter my life if I fail.”
“No one has what you describe. Each man and woman has just what they wish for. Everyone is bound to get what they really want. Some people want to lose a little weight, but they want to rest in front of the television after work more than they want to exercise. Or in other words, they want one thing, but want other things to a greater degree. So they get what they really search for. Your life is no exception. No matter what crucial moment is coming, you can always rise again if you land on your face.”
The philosopher picked up his heretofore unseen briefcase from the side of his booth while Porter watched.
“Make time your friend. Use it to gain knowledge. Don’t fight for what you cannot have right away.”
Porter pinched his eyes tight. “What are you saying?”
The old man smiled, and his whole form became human for an instant. “Don’t rush things. You can always get into another university.” He turned and went for the door, leaving Porter with his dazed eyes fixed on the spot where the man had just been sitting.