The Methuselah Gene by Jonathan Lowe Page A

Senator.
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    When the bird clock on the wall behind me chirped five times on the hour, I began to wonder who, if anyone, would show up for dinner.   If Walter really existed, did he know what I looked like?   I had to assume that he did.   I glanced down at my buttoned dress shirt and cotton Dockers, my brown socks and Hush Puppy ripoffs .   Should I be wearing a brimmed cap?   Should I dress in Levi’s and western shirt, with boots?   Or maybe a fly fishing cap, with lots of little handmade lures stuck in the wide brim?   And dark sunglasses, waders?
    My order came out to me, and as Edie placed it in front of me, I realized why the name of the place was the Slow Poke Cafe.   “You ever get busy?” I asked.
    She bobbed her head, made a surprised face.   “Well, sure, you just wait and see.   Early bird gets the worm round here, since there’s jus’ Paul and me.   Come lunchtime we do the most business, though, with to-go orders.”
    â€œRush hour?”   I chuckled at the idea.   “So the name keeps folks from complaining?”
    â€œYou got it, hon.   And some of the old timers?   They’d linger round ‘til two or three o’clock, if they could.   Have ta shoo’em out, make room.   We don’t do as well evenings, like I said.   Jus’ get some regulars who got no wife cookin ’ for ‘em.   Like you, maybe?”
    She was looking at my bare ring finger.   I said, “If the food’s as good as it looks, I may be back, even from Richmond.”
    â€œVirginia?   Got an uncle there.   Bill Polk, in Newport News.”
    I nodded, then forked a tender bite of steak into my mouth.   It was more delicious than I’d hoped.   “ Ummmm .”
    â€œThe secret’s in the gravy,” Edie confided.   “You jus ’ need to find you a woman there in Richmond, make a wife of one knows how to cook.”
    I smiled as I chewed, took a swig of Coke from the bottle, then said, “Maybe you’re right.   But then most of the women I’ve met who know how to cook are already cooking for their own families.”
    Edie opened her mouth, about to share her wisdom on relationships, but she seemed to decide it would be lost on me because she shut her mouth instead, made a polite smile, and left me to enjoy my dinner.   I looked out the front window toward the post office across the street.   An old man entered over there, wearing shiny overalls held up with suspenders.   The overalls were slick with muck.   I imagined the old guy had just finished slopping his hogs, and now wanted to check on what those swine known as his creditors were demanding today, after discarding whatever hogwash his junk mail touted.   With my limited view of the postal boxes, I was positioned to see everyone who came and went over there, but I didn’t bother to lift my binoculars or ready my camera yet.   It was more likely to see Edie or Wally checking Box 16 than that old timer.
    Fifteen minutes later a middle aged dark-haired woman arrived with her teenage son.   They drove up in a Jeep, and the kid ran in, holding his mother’s keys, to check a box higher than I knew 16 to be.   Five minutes later a bearded yokel in his mid-fifties pulled into the spot vacated by the Jeep.   He drove the same blue Chevy pickup I’d seen in the bay at Wally’s Shell station.   As he entered, his burnt orange Bulldog sighted me from the truck’s bed twenty yards away.   The thing looked like its last bath had been in acid.   It barked, hoarsely.   I noted the Iowa plate below the dented fender, and then went back to my own plate.   I finished off the steak and then sopped up the remains of my gravy with a final flaky biscuit that was so tasty I doubted Betty Crocker herself had ever made better.
    â€œAnother Coke there?” Edie called to me from