“Death? She said death?”
I nodded.
Irby chuckled. “Well, technically she’s correct. A little melodramatic but correct. I hear you can get your ass killed pretty easily on the other side of that door.”
We’d been talking for about a half hour, I’d guess. That morning as I left for work there was a note tucked under my wiper blade: “Foster’s. 8:00. Irby” it read.
The note surprised me. I figured Irby was only a 4 Corners Café phenomenon. In my mind I doubted he even existed beyond its doors. Foster’s Big Horn was a convenient meeting place. The bar was only two alleyways away from my living room. Wait. Irby knows where I live? The thought was unsettling, but what could I do about it? Still I wondered why the proposed meeting was here in Rio Vista and not the café.
“’Cause we’ve got things to talk about in private,” was his reply to the question. He was staring intently at a gigantic mounted moose head as he talked. Foster’s boasts one of the world’s largest private collections of animal trophies, most bagged by the late Bill Foster, a Great White Hunter long gone from this world.
“So what’s it all about, and what does it have to do with me?”
“You know, my friend, you didn’t choose the café. It chose you. Just like it chose me and all the other poor schmucks that go in there for pie and coffee.”
Irby paused. After about thirty seconds I couldn’t stand it anymore. “So what are you saying? Why did it choose me, and what does it have to do with that freaking door?”
“I don’t know why it chose you. You’re going to have to look into your heart for that one. As for me, I was leading an aimless life out here in the delta, living on a run-down twenty-two foot sailboat in an equally run-down marina out on the loop. I was fishing too much, drinking too much. I’d abandoned my family and everyone else to brood about how much I’d fucked up my life. As for you, who the hell knows why it wants you. To be honest, I don’t give a crap.”
“Do people actually go through that door? Do they go there to die?”
"Since I’ve been going to the café, I’ve seen eight people get up from the counter, stop to take a leak, and go through that door. Two have come back.”
My jaw dropped, my mouth went dry. I waved a finger at Paul the bartender for another round.
“What did the two that came back say about it?”
“Bill Mackenzie wouldn’t talk about it except to say that he’d never been so scared in his life. He left the 4 Corners, and I never saw him again.”
The second person was a woman named Rita—oh, shit I can’t remember her last name. That’s what happens when you hit seventy; you forget things. Irby looked at the moose again.
“And…?”
“She said that on the other side she was a man. She said there was what she called a “great trauma”. Didn’t elaborate. She said when it was over she was offered a second door. She passed.
“That’s it? That’s all she said?”
“Yep.”
“Not a hell of a lot to go on. And you’re telling me that the café wants me to go through the door?”
“I don’t think the café cares that much about you. It’s like a bus stop. The door is the express line to something. I don’t know.”
“So you’ve never been through the door.”
“Me? No. I touched its handle once, but I didn’t turn it. Like everything else in my life, I’m just a chicken, afraid of my own shadow. That’s always the way it’s been.”
Irby might see that in himself, but I, for one, didn’t. I didn’t know this man, sitting there in those same faded overalls, but it seemed to me that there was more going on there then failure.
“So why did you call this meeting, Irby? You and that damn café are confusing the hell out of me.”
“I’m just here to tell you what the door is all about. You won’t get anything out of Betty Jo. She’s more interested in her new and improved set of tits than givingyou the skinny.”
“So I’m supposed to go through the door?”
“You don’t have to do anything. The door is there. Go in, go out, it don’t make no difference. It’s just that…if you have a hankering to prove yourself you might consider it. Just be forewarned that you may not come back. You may not want to come back.”
“For someone who doesn’t know anything about the door, you seem to know a lot about it.”
“Been going to the 4 Corners for years now. I listen closely. I pick up on things. That damn door is like a loaded gun put up the side of the head of a guy thinking about ending it all. It calls you, it scares you, it’s just there.”
“So that’s it then? You came here to tell me about the door and its possibilities. You claim in might change me; you claim it might be a death sentence. So Betty Jo was right. Beyond the door is death.”
“More like the promise of death, in equal amounts of life thrown in with good measure. As for yourself, what kind of life have you led? What kind of life do you have left before you? Are you happy with the way things have gone so far? Or will you go into senility thinking there was more—much more.”
Irby stood to leave and threw a twenty on the counter.
“Irby, the people that went through the door, how long were they gone?”
“Well like the café itself time doesn’t work the same way it works in this bar. Bill was gone about an hour, I’d say, but when he came back he said something about being there for a week. Rita was gone a day and a half, but on the other side she said months went by. So I’d say if you do decide to take the trip, wear comfortable shoes.”
Irby smiled. “Take care of yourself, David. See you around.”
And with that he went out the door and left.
I nodded.
Irby chuckled. “Well, technically she’s correct. A little melodramatic but correct. I hear you can get your ass killed pretty easily on the other side of that door.”
We’d been talking for about a half hour, I’d guess. That morning as I left for work there was a note tucked under my wiper blade: “Foster’s. 8:00. Irby” it read.
The note surprised me. I figured Irby was only a 4 Corners Café phenomenon. In my mind I doubted he even existed beyond its doors. Foster’s Big Horn was a convenient meeting place. The bar was only two alleyways away from my living room. Wait. Irby knows where I live? The thought was unsettling, but what could I do about it? Still I wondered why the proposed meeting was here in Rio Vista and not the café.
“’Cause we’ve got things to talk about in private,” was his reply to the question. He was staring intently at a gigantic mounted moose head as he talked. Foster’s boasts one of the world’s largest private collections of animal trophies, most bagged by the late Bill Foster, a Great White Hunter long gone from this world.
“So what’s it all about, and what does it have to do with me?”
“You know, my friend, you didn’t choose the café. It chose you. Just like it chose me and all the other poor schmucks that go in there for pie and coffee.”
Irby paused. After about thirty seconds I couldn’t stand it anymore. “So what are you saying? Why did it choose me, and what does it have to do with that freaking door?”
“I don’t know why it chose you. You’re going to have to look into your heart for that one. As for me, I was leading an aimless life out here in the delta, living on a run-down twenty-two foot sailboat in an equally run-down marina out on the loop. I was fishing too much, drinking too much. I’d abandoned my family and everyone else to brood about how much I’d fucked up my life. As for you, who the hell knows why it wants you. To be honest, I don’t give a crap.”
“Do people actually go through that door? Do they go there to die?”
"Since I’ve been going to the café, I’ve seen eight people get up from the counter, stop to take a leak, and go through that door. Two have come back.”
My jaw dropped, my mouth went dry. I waved a finger at Paul the bartender for another round.
“What did the two that came back say about it?”
“Bill Mackenzie wouldn’t talk about it except to say that he’d never been so scared in his life. He left the 4 Corners, and I never saw him again.”
The second person was a woman named Rita—oh, shit I can’t remember her last name. That’s what happens when you hit seventy; you forget things. Irby looked at the moose again.
“And…?”
“She said that on the other side she was a man. She said there was what she called a “great trauma”. Didn’t elaborate. She said when it was over she was offered a second door. She passed.
“That’s it? That’s all she said?”
“Yep.”
“Not a hell of a lot to go on. And you’re telling me that the café wants me to go through the door?”
“I don’t think the café cares that much about you. It’s like a bus stop. The door is the express line to something. I don’t know.”
“So you’ve never been through the door.”
“Me? No. I touched its handle once, but I didn’t turn it. Like everything else in my life, I’m just a chicken, afraid of my own shadow. That’s always the way it’s been.”
Irby might see that in himself, but I, for one, didn’t. I didn’t know this man, sitting there in those same faded overalls, but it seemed to me that there was more going on there then failure.
“So why did you call this meeting, Irby? You and that damn café are confusing the hell out of me.”
“I’m just here to tell you what the door is all about. You won’t get anything out of Betty Jo. She’s more interested in her new and improved set of tits than givingyou the skinny.”
“So I’m supposed to go through the door?”
“You don’t have to do anything. The door is there. Go in, go out, it don’t make no difference. It’s just that…if you have a hankering to prove yourself you might consider it. Just be forewarned that you may not come back. You may not want to come back.”
“For someone who doesn’t know anything about the door, you seem to know a lot about it.”
“Been going to the 4 Corners for years now. I listen closely. I pick up on things. That damn door is like a loaded gun put up the side of the head of a guy thinking about ending it all. It calls you, it scares you, it’s just there.”
“So that’s it then? You came here to tell me about the door and its possibilities. You claim in might change me; you claim it might be a death sentence. So Betty Jo was right. Beyond the door is death.”
“More like the promise of death, in equal amounts of life thrown in with good measure. As for yourself, what kind of life have you led? What kind of life do you have left before you? Are you happy with the way things have gone so far? Or will you go into senility thinking there was more—much more.”
Irby stood to leave and threw a twenty on the counter.
“Irby, the people that went through the door, how long were they gone?”
“Well like the café itself time doesn’t work the same way it works in this bar. Bill was gone about an hour, I’d say, but when he came back he said something about being there for a week. Rita was gone a day and a half, but on the other side she said months went by. So I’d say if you do decide to take the trip, wear comfortable shoes.”
Irby smiled. “Take care of yourself, David. See you around.”
And with that he went out the door and left.
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