Picture entitled: Dark Angel Rising © by John D. Stanton 2006 www.3AMBlue.com.
Maxie And The Angel
by Ken Head © 2007
Sol looked up and nodded his thanks as the waitress arrived with their regular order of cheesecake and coffee. Sitting opposite him across the table was his old friend Maxie, as usual engrossed in the afternoon edition and chewing on the end of an unlit cigar. The rich aroma of hot coffee filled the space between them, Maxie looked up gloomily and allowed his eyes to roam around the crowded room.
"I don't know why we come here any longer, Solly. Everyone we used to know is either dead or moved to Miami ."
"We come for the coffee and to get away from our wives. We used to come to do deals and make money, now we come to keep ourselves from going crazy."
Maxie nodded. This place still brewed the best coffee in the city, really strong and always hot enough to gossip over without it getting cold.
"Trixie says I should stay home and rest. If she knew I was here with you, she'd set the doctors on me again. The woman is my wife, but she has no mercy. It's diet, diet, diet. Lose weight, Maxie, don't drink so much coffee, Maxie. You want another heart attack, Maxie? You want to make me a widow so soon?"
Sol smiled. Since the two of them had retired to live on the fruits of their years of hard work, life had never been so tough. He sat back to enjoy his cheesecake and let Maxie do the talking. He was a good listener.
"I tell you, Sol, if I'm going to die soon, I want to live a little before the day comes. I want to enjoy myself with my money, not stay home listening to my heart and wondering how many beats it has left. That's what kills me, my friend, not coffee and cheesecake."
"You got to learn to accept, Max. You're not such a spring chicken any more, so don't start thinking you can go chasing girls after all these years."
Sol tried to be light-hearted, but he knew what his friend was thinking. He had never understood how it was that women were so good at being old. He thought it must be something they learned from their mothers along with cooking, house-keeping and sewing. They had all the skills.
A lifetime of making money, runnng businesses, dealing with all that life could throw at them, and now how did they find themselves treated? Like babies! And by women who'd been their wives once, though these days they behaved more like nursemaids. It surely was enough to drive even a good man like Maxie a little crazy.
As things worked out though, it turned him a lot more than a little crazy, because the next time the two met, Maxie had some real news to tell.
"I just quit, I walked out, told her I'd never live under her roof again. I'm a free man, the lawyers will give her everything she wants. After all, there's plenty for us both."
"You mean you and Trixie split up, after forty years?" Sol choked on the words.
"Right! I feel great too and...", he stretched out the pause..."I already got myself a new girl. Her name's Cassie and I've moved in with her just until I find myself a new place. She's a dancer in the bar where I went and got drunk after I left Trixie. She's beautiful, Sol, a real angel, and such a body as you wouldn't believe. I'm a new man, feel twenty years younger already."
"But, Max, she must be just a kid. I mean, she..."
He struggled so long to release the words that Maxie found them first.
"You mean what does she see in me? Why, only my money, Sol! Don't you think I know that? But it's worth every cent it costs me, just for the experience. I tell you, I learned things I couldn't even imagine a few weeks ago. All I can say is, girls should have been this way when we were kids!"
Sol knew what he meant. But to leave his wife, now, of all times, for a dancer, probably in one of those joints where a girl earned tips by letting customers tuck bills into her g-string. How could this be the Maxie he had worked alongside since they were so young they could still remember their bar mitzvahs?
He wanted to remind his friend that angels didn't always bring good news.
"This is crazy, Max. You have to be crazy to do this."
Maxie only smiled.
"Look, Sol, I got to meet Cassie for a movie. She's not working right now, gives us more time together. Why don't we have dinner some night and I'll introduce you? Honest, Sol, you'll love her. She's a wonderful girl. I'm a happy man, I truly am. I'll be seeing you, okay?"
Maxie pushed back his chair from the table, grabbed up his coat and was gone. Sol watched him out of the coffee shop. A happy man? This was madness. How could it be happening?
Through the plate glass, he saw his old friend, shoulders hunched and head down against the cold, step off the sidewalk and wave towards someone on the other side of the street. Heavy with sadness, Sol reached for his coffee but, as he picked up the cup, heard tyres screech, the metallic thump of a collision.
He didn't look round straight away, because he knew what had happened without needing to use his eyes. Maxie had met his angel and been taken into the dark.
