Acculite
June 14, 2009
"Why, yes."
He had leaned in a little, saying this, and now stood erect again, eyes forward and a little nervous. I was in line at a Starbucks inside of a Barnes & Noble, feeling pleasantly loose and swimmy having just undergone an hour's deep tissue massage at a parlor a few blocks away. I wasn't even sure he was talking to me, and as I could only see one side of his face, I assumed that he was wearing one of those little blue tooth earpieces and was chatting away to someone on the phone. I looked at him briefly, smiled in a relaxed and casual way, then resumed studying the various cakes and pastries behind the glass as the woman ahead of me completed her order.
"Why, yes," he said again, his unattractive blue eyes darting my way and his lips parting in a testy smile. He was wearing khaki pants, cheap black dress shoes and a white button down shirt. I smiled again and looked at him.
"I'm sorry, are you talking to me?" I tried.
"Yes," he said plainly, again fixing his blue eyes on me and adopting a look of distraction on his pallid, squat face.
"I didn't actually catch what you were saying," I hazarded, keeping some attention on the woman in front me, now paying for her order, and tallying up my own order in my head.
"Acculite," he responded, averting his gaze and showing just the tip of one crooked tooth in that frightened grin of his, "I'm an Acculite."
"Acculite?" I checked, to which he gave a terse little nod of confirmation. "What is that exactly?"
"I give money, plenty of money, to various charities. I dedicate my life to charity, any charity, a lot of different ones really."
"Interesting," I said slowly. "Religious charities or just any charity?"
"Religious charities too, I suppose," he squirmed a little and flashed his small blue eyes at me again, "but any charity really. You know, I haven't really got my finger on religion, not yet, anyway."
"That's fair."
"Oh I like plenty of them, beautiful is what they are," he looked quickly over his left shoulder, almost as if scared of being overheard, "Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, they're all very beautiful, I just haven't really pinned it down, I guess."
I held two fingers towards him faintly in a pause a moment sign, and placed an order for a slice of chocolate cheesecake and a medium mocha with an extra shot of espresso. After I'd placed my order, he continued.
"Battered women. I donate some two thousand dollars monthly, you know. And battered men too," he smiled skittishly and glanced about again, "you'd be surprised how many battered men there are."
"You don't say." I was paying the barrista for my order and the two books I was buying, a collection of Murakami short stories and a Hemmingway novel, published post humously.
"Oh yes, I donate nearly six thousand a month to battered men, or the programs that is, that work with battered men. It's not so much physical, you know -"
"More like harassment I guess?", I cut him off, "verbal assault, that kind of thing?"
"Exactly," he said, locking his eyes on mine in a sudden show of confidence. His face looked somehow bored around his excited eyes. The barrista thanked me for my order and told me it would be ready in just a minute, then looked at the man next to me with eyes bright and eyebrows up. The man I'd been talking with looked suddenly around him, a touch of alarm in his face like he hadn't realized he was expected to order something, then hurriedly gestured towards the gentleman behind him with a wave of his hand. When his eyes caught mine for the last time, the blood had moved to his once starchy white cheeks, burning there with some unknown embarrassment. He ducked beneath the ropes that defined the queue with a brisk, middle aged clumsiness, and recovering himself on the other side, strode briskly away towards the front door.
Tags for this piece: books story nonfiction denver strange strangers coffee