The Methuselah Gene by Jonathan Lowe Page B

the register where she kept boxes of mints, beef jerky, and pickled eggs floating in a jar of vinegar.
    I must have been looking at the eggs as if staring at cue balls basting in urine, because Edie appeared perplexed until I shook my head and asked, “How about a cup of coffee and a slice of pie?”
    â€œCherry, apple, rhubarb, or lemon?”
    I considered the possibility of visiting every tiny café in every tiny town in America during my retirement, and writing a book about it.   “Apple, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you got it,” I replied.
    Edie scribbled on her pad, then called my request back to Paul somewhere behind the swinging doors.   Suddenly the front door binged, and I turned my head to see a man my own age push his way inside.   He was alone, a few inches under six feet, and had a beer gut filling out his green flannel shirt like he had a blue ribbon watermelon hidden under there.   His dark eyes were set narrow, and seemed guilty somehow, or wary.   He acknowledged me mistakenly, it seemed.   But I nodded back anyway, like a stranger to the big city who is forced to share his first subway car with a potential nut case.
    â€œHi there, Earl,” Edie greeted him.   “How’s Karen?”
    â€œ Doin ’ just fine,” Earl announced broadly.   “How’s Paul these days?”
    â€œHowdy Earl,” a scratchy nicotine voice croaked from the kitchen.   “Can’t stay away from my pork chops, can ya ?”
    â€œNo can do,” Earl confessed loudly, then looked at me as if trying to place a face in a detective’s mugshot book.   “And who might you be?”
    â€œHe’s from Virginia,” Edie informed him.   “Richmond, Virginia.”
    â€œThat right.”   Earl’s brassy voice sounded mildly skeptical.   His thin set blueberry eyes studied me with a secret animosity I couldn’t place, as if the memory of a past cowardice with another stranger still ate at him like an ulcer.   “Looking for somebody, are ya , pal?”
    â€œNow, Earl,” Edie said, and looked over at me as though to explain a rabid dog.   “Earl’s a bit suspicious of strangers.   Always has been.   Isn’t that right, Earl?”
    Earl ignored her, dropping his level gaze to my binocular and camera cases.   “You a birder, or what?” he asked, not careful enough to keep the tin from his intonation.
    From where I sat at the window I could feel his natural, underlying bent toward confrontation, his covert inclination toward domination.   I guessed him to be competitive, but shallow.   He had sixty pounds on me at least, but I knew he’d fold in the end.   I’d seen his type before.   The sports freak who’d never played the game, only watched it on ESPN.   The ugly kid who’d never been picked, and made up for it later by seeing who he might intimidate.   Strangers were easy targets, since he’d never see them again.   But there was a sense that he’d once picked the wrong man to practice his self-therapy on, too.   Maybe that man hadn’t seemed much of a threat, either.   So I looked away, and didn’t answer.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Earl asked, as if I’d spoken.   “Eh?”
    â€œEarl,” Edie warned, her usually sweet voice stern.
    I smiled at the window, wondering what other voices he heard in his own head.   Edie gave Earl an iced tea, then brought me my coffee.   Homemade pie a la mode was coming right up, she assured me.   Earl gulped his tea, his eyes continuing to assess me, but I never met his gaze.   After a moment, he laughed, dismissing me.   Then he made small talk with Edie about Zion’s Pastor Felsen , and someone named June Applegate.
    I stared out the window as I sipped at my coffee.   It was six o’clock now.   No one else was going into the