Foresight

Walter Hedder had been sitting at the coffee shop’s counter for nearly an hour. In that time, he’d drank five cups of thin - but very hot - black coffee and eaten a slice and a half of microwaved apple pie. The place was nearly empty, but the waitress hadn’t been around to see him in twenty minutes. He had the intuition that he was no longer a welcome customer, but still he stayed.

He was a dark haired man in his late thirties. He was clean shaven with tanned skin, and had a large, slightly flattened nose. Deep lines were etched into his narrow forehead, and his strong jaw had a cleft in its chin. He wore a dark gray suit, a white shirt with a modest collar and a slightly loosened gray and black striped tie. His hat sat on the counter beside his nearly empty coffee cup.

With his fork he nudged the remaining pie around its saucer before deciding he’d had enough, then he pushed the plate away and reached for the paper. He’d read all there was to read twice already, but he still had time to kill, so he went back through it. The lead article was about the President’s new policy to ensure citizens felt their privacy was being safeguarded as the country’s spy agencies collected phone and Internet data for national security reasons. “Secret police,” he said softly, beneath his breath. In a quick flash he saw another headline dated a few years in the future - “Silicon Valley CEO Charged in Dragnet Operation” - before his vision cleared and he was back in the coffee shop with today’s paper.

He laid the paper aside and looked around the room. This was the only place of its kind left in the small city’s downtown. Years ago, Walter knew, there had been several coffee shops, lunch counters and ice-cream parlors nestled amongst stores and offices, but time, the rise of the suburbs and cookie-cutter franchises had done away with all that. Those places had been gone for decades, but echoes remained. He often latched onto those echoes as he walked the city streets, allowing himself to be caught up in the past. He missed that older city. He was nostalgic for a time in which he’d never lived.

The coffee shop was painted a bright yellow. Its floor was black and white checkerboard. Large windows ran along the front of the building above a series of booths, looking out onto a street scattered with pedestrians. The booths’ benches where upholstered in red vinyl and their tables topped with a white laminate. The counter where he sat was much the same only slightly raised and lined with red-upholstered stools with low, curved backs. The coffee shop’s door was in the middle of the line of booths. In a booth on the far side of the door, sat a kid in his early twenties wearing a green hoodie embroidered with the logo for a college basketball team. Walter didn’t know which team it was, but he didn’t think it was local. The kid was hunched over in the booth staring into his phone’s glowing screen. Every few moments his thumbs would rapidly tap on the screen, then he would pause, smile or laugh, and repeat the process. At another booth - on Walter’s side of the door - sat a couple, a man and a woman each looked to be about thirty-five. They, too, were looking down at phones.

They waitress came over to him. “You doing alright?” she asked. She was young and attractive with slightly curly, dark red hair parted above her forehead and pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her skin was pale and light freckles spotted her nose and cheeks. She wore a pink and white striped uniform, barely open just enough to reveal the pale skin of her neck and upper chest, but no cleavage. “Want some more coffee, or anything?” She asked impassively enough, but Walter knew she would be happy to seem him leave. She was the only person working the afternoon shift and he knew she was hoping everyone would leave so she could close up early and meet her boyfriend at one of the bars by the river.

I wish your afternoon could be that simple, Walter thought. Doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen though. Let’s just hope after today you and I get a few more chances at lazy afternoons.

To the waitress he said, “Could I get a little decaf?”

“Sure,” she said this time letting a touch of impatience enter into her voice. She brought the orange rimmed pot over to him and poured. When the cup with half-filled Walter raised a finger and she stopped. She carried the pot back to its warmer and then walked out from behind the counter to check on the other customers.

With his right hand, Walter lifted his cup and sipped as he turned his left wrist toward himself to peek at his watch. It was impossible to know an exact time he was waiting for, but he could tell it was getting close. At the booth containing the couple the waitress was leaning in to pick up a straw paper and used napkin. A few booths back the kid was slurping coke through a straw. The scent of the coffee under his nose seemed more intense. Outside the clouds opened up allowing a patch of sun to reach the street. Very soon, Walter thought.

He rose from his stool The coffee cup still in his hand. He tightened his grip on its handle and began walking toward the exit. As he passed the couple’s booth, he saw the waitress step backward away from the table not seeing him. He approached her slowly and steadily, and reached out with his left hand to grip her shoulder. She exclaimed at the surprise touch, but it did not stop him. He pushed her down and toward the table. The man at the table yelled out and Walter saw the kid rising from his booth. Stay back, he thought, but the kid kept moving. Walter lost his grip on the waitress as she fell away from him. He glanced down to see her head narrowly miss the hard edge of the table and bounce off the padded bench as she turned to land on her back on the floor. Just then he saw the shape at the door. He quickened his step toward it and got there just as the door opened. The man was young, white, with wild, dark blonde hair launching out from his head in all directions. He wore a heavy dark green jacket with three faded stripes on the sleeve. Walter saw a muddy boot print he left on the bright red welcome mat as he stepped into the coffee shop, then he saw the hard, silver glint of the gun.

The kid hadn’t seen the gun and was still coming toward Walter. The gunman, however, didn’t know that and he began to turn toward the kid leveling the gun as he did so. “Hey!” Walter yelled. “Hey!” The gunman stopped and turned toward the sound. As soon as his face came into view, Walter flung the hot coffee and followed it quickly by bringing the cup up and into the gunman’s jaw. The gunman yelled in pain, but kept to his feet and began circling the gun around toward Walter.

At that moment the kid slammed into the gunman’s back and Walter let go of the coffee cup and lunged toward the gun, grabbing the man’s arm. The thought of rabies fluttered through his mind as he clamped his teeth down onto the back of the man’s hand causing him to once again yell out and also release his grip on the gun.

Suddenly Walter felt a pulse of pain to the back of his head and neck as the gunman’s left hand landed a blow. I hope it was enough, he thought, as the world when dark and he went down hard into the back of a counter stool.

He came to with the sound of a shot and a chorus of screams. Then he saw the body land in front of him. The three stripes loomed large before his eyes. The kid, he thought. The kid’s a hero now.  He could feel his eyes growing heavy and the world began to fade.  A hero, he thought again.  I hope he can forgive me.  

And with that he blacked out.