The Kings Of Cool

56

May Gray.

Local name for the “marine layer” of cloud and fog that drapes over the coast this time of year like a thin blanket, scaring the hell out of tourists who’ve plunked down big bucks to spend a week in sunny California and then find out that it isn’t.

You look up at the sky at, say, nine AM, it’s a steaming bowl of soup and you don’t believe you’re going to see the sun that day. Ye of little faith-by noon the carcinogenic rays are cutting through the fog like laser beams straight to your skin, by one it’s the place you saw in Yahoo Images, by three you’re in the drugstore looking for aloe lotion.

Ben has a different theory about May Gray.

A different name.

He calls it “transitional time.”

“After the night before,” Ben tells O on the subject, “people aren’t ready for the harsh light of day first thing in the morning. In its benevolence, Southern California softens it for them. It’s transitional time.”

You get up in the morning and it’s nice and soft and gray.

Like your brain.

You ease into the day.

It’s like truth-better to come into it gradually.

Ben gently lowers himself into his usual seat at the Coyote-his back hurts like crazy from Boland’s shoe-and she comes over with the coffee and the evil eye.

“I waited for you last night,” she says. “You never showed up.”

Yeah, Ben already knows this. It always amazes him how people have to tell you things that you obviously already know. (You never showed up. You’re late. You have an attitude.)

“Something happened,” Ben says.

“Something or somebody?”

Jesus Christ, Ben thinks, she’s already jealous? That’s getting a head start on things. And by the way, isn’t there another guy?

“Some thing. ”

“It better have been important.”

“It was.”

Someone showed me my mortality.

She softens a little. “The usual?”

“No, just coffee.”

He feels too sick and tired to eat.

Kari pours his coffee, and the next thing he knows Old Guys Rule shows up and sits down across from him.