Of Ships and Slowly Sinking

Just a little nothing piece that I wrote for a Fiction Workshop class.

 

The three gentlemen that sat within the Baywood Bed and Breakfast Inn cafe had known each other for decades – more likely over half a century. They had attended the same schools from elementary to college (DeVry University in San Francisco) and had sat next to each other in church every Sunday morning. Their mothers had been apart of the same sewing circle, and their fathers had gone golfing together at least twice a week. They were no more than one month apart, each having a birthday within July, but they never were really aware of who was youngest, who was oldest, and who had the misfortune of being stuck in between.

Vern was sixty-three and had been for almost a week. He wore brown corduroy slacks and a green polo with short, white sleeves. A plaid golfers hat rested on the table beside his near-empty coffee cup, which he couldn't, for the life of him, remember leaving the house with. It was one of those mysteries that kept him guessing, like his "disappear-when-you-need-them-reappear-when-you-don't" bifocals. And he wouldn't need them so damn badly if the newspaper made their crossword puzzles larger.

Billy Williams ("Billiam" as his mother had lovingly nicknamed him) was sixty-two – sixty-three in a matter of days. He was a moocher, pure and simple. He had married young to a very rich girl from Boston and had lived off of her money ever since. He wore an old, faded pair of jeans, his belt tightened to the very last notch in vain, and a wrinkled, blue button-up shirt only half tucked in. Born premature and with a weak heart, he had not been able to walk until age six. Perhaps this was why he became a practical joker – to lighten his illness, which he still struggled with. Perhaps it was the look on the teacher's face whenever his lizard found its way into her desk, to his complete surprise, of course. Whatever the reason, he was still to blame for the fact that poor Vern was sitting there and wondering where the hell his hat could have possibly come from. Obviously, he had forgotten that Billy had "borrowed" it the week before. The fact that the man was always losing his glasses was merely a coincidence. Had Billy been the source of this beautiful opportunity to make the man slowly slip into madness, he would have thought of more imaginative places to "lose" the specticals then on top of Vern's head.

Jack would be sixty-three in a week. More specifically, six days, fifteen hours, thirty-two minutes, and forty seven seconds. That would make him forty-two years, three months, and eleven days older than the waitress he was currently eying. "Melanie" was what her nametag said, but he thought she looked more like a "Laura." Whatever her name, she had subsequently turned down every single one of his marriage proposals within the last half hour. He wasn't too broken up, however, having been rejected by "Lindzie" who looked like a "Carol" yesterday and "Beth" who looked like an "Amy" the day before. And with his pressed, pinstripe suit he was sure that he would find another lucky lady anyhow. Afterall, the day was still young, and he did not think himself all that unattractive.

For over ten years, these three had met at the Baywood Bed and Breakfast Inn of Morrow Bay, and none of them knew why. Vern had a small chain of flower shops on the southern coast of California and could hardly take a few days away without severely affecting his business – his wife being the main problem, as she had to run the shops while he was gone. With Billy's heart condition, the trip was barely worth it at all. He couldn't be outside for very long, he couldn't be on his feet for very long, and he most certainly couldn't go five minutes without having some poor waitress smothering him with pity and slipping him winks and extra sweets. Jack was probably the only one who actually had a reason to be there. He was the only one of the three that had never married – not because he hadn't found a lady (Lord knows he had found plenty) but because he hadn't found a wife. And what better place to find a pretty, young thing that would love him not only for his wit, charm, and good looks, but his obscene amount of money as well (one word: "stocks").

"Can I get you boys anything else before the kitchen closes?" Melanie asked sweetly. Her skirt rode up her thighs as she leaned down slightly. Jack thought for a moment that the article in question was most certainly a dress code violation. Then again, Jack was most certainly not the dress code police and decided that he would let it go – just this once.

"You don't happen to have anymore of those wonderful biscuits, now, do you, darling?" Billy asked quietly, his brown eyes looking up at her with all the puppy dogness he could muster as his lips quivered into a small smile.

"Of course! And we have plenty of butter and jam, and, you know, I think I saw some ice cream back there in the freezer." She continued to talk over her shoulder even as she made her way back into the kitchen, and Billy's smile turned into a smirk.

"Billy, one of these days you're going to meet a woman that you can't manipulate, and then where will you be?" Jack said matter-of-factly, crossing his arms and shaking his head.
"My dear man, you are mistaken," Billy replied, an overly exaggerated politeness lacing his tone. "You see, I met that woman over forty years ago when I asked her to marry me." Vern chuckled, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "And furthermore, you are just jealous that I have been picking up all of your women these past few days."

"It's true, Jack," Vern agreed with a nod. "You're never going to meet someone with poor, defenseless 'Billiam' around. I suggest you throw him in the bay. He can't swim."
"Of course I can swim!" Billy argued indignantly. "You've just never seen me. Why, I once swam from the shore of San Francisco to Alcatraz Island and back!"

"If I'm not mistaken, dearest 'Billiam,' I believe it was Vern who accomplished that astounding feat," Jack pointed out, waggling a finger in front of Billy's face.
"How would he know? He can barely remember what he just had for breakfast. You expect him to remember something like that?"

"I remember it was very cold," Vern reminisced dreamily about his younger, fitter days. "The water was some forty-odd degrees and-"

As Vern continued to ramble, Billy rolled his eyes. Leaning back and looking to the kitchen door, he wondered when his biscuits and ice cream would be coming.