The Mason Jar by the Pie Case

I let myself into Quam’s Cafe at five o’clock on the last Monday of October with a hospital letter folded in my apron pocket and a speech I had practiced all the way down Highway 210.

The speech was two sentences long. I had worked it down in the truck, the way you trim fat off a roast, until only the part worth keeping was left. Harvey, I need an advance on my pay. I will work it off.

I did not expect anyone to be there. Harvey Quam has owned the cafe for thirty-six years, and he comes in at 5:30 to start the grill. I came early on purpose, so I could say my two sentences without a single customer looking on.

There were nineteen vehicles in the lot that morning, and I never saw one of them. They were parked around back by the dumpster pen, where nobody parks unless they would rather not be seen from the road. All I saw from the highway was Harvey’s white van and the dark windows, and I thought, good.

The front door was unlocked. That was the first thing. The lights over the counter were on, the rest of the room sat dim, and the pie case hummed under its little yellow bulb the way it has hummed since before my daughter was born.

Then my eyes adjusted, and I saw the stools.

Every one of the eleven was taken. Four of the six booths were full. Nobody said good morning. Nobody had a cup. A cafe full of people at five in the morning, and not one of them was drinking coffee.

I counted twenty-three before I stopped counting. I knew every face. I had poured for every one of them that very week.

At the far end, by booth four, Gunnar Dahlberg was standing. He is eighty-two years old and he has not stood up for anybody since his wife’s funeral. Norbert Solberg was behind the register with a quart mason jar held in both hands, the lid off, and the whole room was looking at me like I was the one who had been caught.

My two sentences went clean out of my head.

I will tell you what Gunnar said next, and what was in that jar. But it did not make sense to me standing in that doorway with my keys in my hand, and it will not make sense to you from the middle. So let me start where the trouble started.