The Booth Bench On Moms Porch

Nobody breathed.

“They’re assigned, Carol,” he said. “They always were. That’s what a supper club is. It’s the only place in the world that remembers where you sit. I took that out of the building and put a lamp on my shirt, and I didn’t even know I’d done it until a woman from Illinois told my booking agent we weren’t authentic anymore.”

Somebody near the back said, quietly, “Well, now.”

“I owe the bank four hundred and ten thousand dollars,” Derrick said. “I still do. I’m not going to stand here and tell you I don’t. The Friday count went from a hundred and forty-two to fifty-one. I didn’t lose that because of a bench. I lost it because I threw out the people the bench was holding up.”

He set the foil pan carefully on the card table, on the cherry cloth, next to Irma’s relish tray. His hands were shaking, so he put them in his jacket pockets.

“I’d like you to come back,” he said. “Not to the old booth. I can’t give you that. Ashley has it, and she’s right to.”

“But there’s a corner by the fireplace, and I’ve had the Hanson boys build you a new one, oak, and I rehung the muskie over it. It’s yours every Friday at five for as long as I own the place, and no bus is ever going to sit in it. No exceptions.”

Then he took the flat thing out from under his arm and unwrapped the bar towel.

It was a brass plate, the kind you screw to a bench or a bar rail. It had been engraved, and I could see from the rail that he had paid extra for the deep cut, the kind that lasts. He held it out to her with both hands.

My mother set down her coffee. She took the plate, turned it toward the light, and read it.

She read it slowly, the way she reads everything, her lips moving a little, and then she read it again. It is the only time in my life that I have seen my mother’s chin tremble in front of other people.

The plate said: Booth Six. Elwin and Carol Hale. Every Friday, five o’clock. Always open.

Under that, in smaller letters, it said: Two waters.

I had to look at the porch floor. Cindy, on the porch swing, made a sound like a kettle.

“Who told you about the water?” my mother said.

“Cindy,” Derrick said. “Tuesday. I asked her what you’d want. She said if I ever took that second glass off the table she’d quit, and she’d go to Hanson’s Tavern and take every regular with her.”

“I would,” Cindy said, from the swing. “I’d have done it too.”

Derrick looked at his boots. Then he looked at my mother, and I think he knew exactly how much he owed her.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me today,” he said. “I’m asking you to come Friday. That’s all. And if you say no, I’ll understand, and I’ll still leave the fish.”

Nobody said anything for a long time.