Just this morning, this very morning, I decided I should stick my head into The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse and get things revved up. The last time I had been in, everyone was sort of depressed, dontcha know. I went in through the back door, and a distinct murmur from The Foo Bar caught my attention. I peeked in. Most of the stools were filled and behind the bar – behind the bar – sat Foo with a toothpick between her lips, a green eyeshade on her head and  cards in her hand.  I thought I heard someone say, “Hit me.”

Foo saw me first and inclined her head toward an empty stool; I headed right for the swinging half door to go behind the bar and she met me there. “No patrons behind the bar,” she says. “Foo,” I said, “this is me, AmeliaJake.” And I tapped my foot and gave her a look. She shrugged and told me I hadn’t been around for a while and she had an “easement”.

I lifted up her eyeshade, looked right in her eyes and told her she was playing 21 and running a gambling parlor and she told me I was right. So I plucked the toothpick right out of her mouth. It is hard for Foo to look put out

but she managed to alter this sweet face into a pout. “You left me playing sudoku; I had to move on.” I told her I had expected she would sort of stay the same, waiting for me as the dust gathered and she informed me that wasn’t how the real world worked.

“Well, I am back,” I said, “and we are stopping this nonsense right now. No more 21 and no more of that.” I pointed at the wall.

“My slot machines??? You want me to get rid of my slot machines????

Yes, yes and yes.

“And I suppose my merger with Donald the T is out, too?”

You got it, kid.

I sharpened her sudoku pencil and gave her a slug of sparkling grape juice and she looked up with her sweet face and asked, “I don’t suppose you’ve been in the cafe yet?”

I’ve alluded a couple of times to the state of affairs at The Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse; well, more specifically to the echoes I hear that whisper, “Where have you gone, AmeliaJake?” I think I’ve answered a couple of times to the tune of “Why, I’m right here.” But, then, we all know I can’t carry a tune. The truth is I’ve been a ghost there; I think I’ve been choosing to be a ghost of the present and future because, well,  I’ve learned things change and I’ve been sad and I’m worried about this being a trend.

So, the tables have grown dusty and Lydia isn’t playing ragtime on the piano and Cletus and Arnold just sit in the corner with their faces in old newspapers – their rocking chairs balanced at the point of rock solid ‘still’. Grover doesn’t come anymore to check in on The Foo Bar, where he got his start. And, Foo? She’s sitting on a stool behind the bar with  a sudoku book and a stubby pencil and no pencil sharpener. I guess when dullness reaches the point of nothing left but the wood casing, no more squares will be filled in and she’ll just sit there with her elbows on the bar and her little, round, flat-topped head in her hands.

Oh, and the WE STILL CAN’T STAND JOE BIDEN poster has fallen out of the window and gathers it own dust on the floor.

Where have you gone, AmeliaJake?

I don’t know. Mother’s gone and for the first time in ten years I didn’t buy a special book for Daddy’s Christmas present – one to sit on the table by his chair will all the others. This year there was no inscription: Christmas 2009 . . . I’ll always love you, Daddy. But I haven’t gone where Mother and Daddy have gone. I’ve been somewhere else. A place where I’ve felt sorry for myself for the mistakes I’ve made and a place where I feel everything is getting ready to be gone.

I think if I stay here in this little space between before and after, I will ultimately find I have been carried into the “after” anyway and will regret just allowing myself to be moved along, making the mistake of omission all the way. And, to tell you the truth, I miss the sound of Lydia’s red piano and Foo’s disgruntled exclamations of “What? How can there be two “4’s” in this block of my sudoku.” I miss the guys quickly hiding their wi-fi connected computers behind quaint small town newspapers when strangers come in looking for “quaint.”

And I miss exclaiming,  I CAN’T STAND THAT JOE BIDEN. So, maybe the first thing I dust off will be that poster – and maybe I’ll draw a moustache on his smug, arrogant face that lurks beneath the hair plugs. Did I mention that I can’t stand that man.

Maybe I’ll even hang a bell on the door. Right now I’m going to go have Foo mix me up a “cure”; I think she updated it to Coke, Diet Coke and fast acting crystal Bayer aspirin. Maybe I’ll have her use shaved ice. No, I think I’ll stick with crushed. Then maybe a bite of a foldover.

Has anyone seen the megaphone for the Rudy Vallee sing-alongs?  Let’s get those rafters ringing – we’ll just shake off the dust.