A Dinner With Cain

 

The diner reminded me of Nighthawks or that Frank Sinatra album, you know the one, it's got the blue filter over it. It didn't remind me in an aesthetic or visual way but more the feeling of the place. Like the smell of cigarette ash that stains the air permanently or the shroud of loneliness that drapes over it. My eyes just don't have the blue filter.

The place was deserted, as you'd expect at three in the morning. A tired waitress was working the tables and like the cigarette smell, those bags under her eyes were never going away. She could have been in her mid-forties and the wrinkled leather that was her skin could have been due to years of direct sun, smoking and neglect. On the other hand she could have been in her sixties and just looked like shit after working in here most her life. I heard foreign voices from the kitchen as I made my way towards the back of the diner. At the last booth, right by the window, sat a impeccably dressed, well groomed man. Perhaps for a twist of humorous irony, he held a walking cane.

The man was Cain, son of Adam, first human to be born and of course, the first murderer. Cursed in a befitting way too, marked with eternal life, confined by immortality, trapped in a living purgatory. Still, after countless years wandering the earth, he looked rather pleasant if a bit weary. Like a secretory who can still wear her smile and look presentable to the customer but harbours sad, lonely thoughts deep down. Mascara to cover the tears and all that.

I sat down into the cheap vinyl seats across from the killer. Why is it the first thing I associate with the guy? I'd hardly like to be remembered for things I did thirty years ago, never mind six thousand years. I pulled out my carbonised Ronson and flicked it open to light the dangling cigarette from my mouth. God, do you remember when you could smoke indoors? Now everyone scuttles outside like cockroaches to have a smoke. Some places should know that a guy likes to have a smoke with meal or coffee. I offered him one, he declined.

"Good, they'll kill 'ya" I felt pretty stupid uttering it out loud, it was just a reflex, not a provocation.

He smiled.

The next few hours were a blur, that hazy effect on your memory after a long, intense and above all, enjoyable conversation with somebody. I hate the phrase but time was flying past. We discussed everything I could have possibly thought about and then some more. He spoke about his curse, how he has tried and tried to top himself over the years, though each time he does so, he awakens in a new location. Some seem pretty downright cruel, like at the bottom of the ocean or a top a mountain. God really seemed to have it in for him and I began feeling sympathy for him. He talked about how he at first, rebelled and lived relatively consequence free, how he tried repenting and seeking forgiveness and how eventually, he learned acceptance. He spoke often about his brother but admitted his memory of him was long gone, a scant solace perhaps.

He told me about the people he had met over the years, from the great artists, politicians, scientists to the most evil. The full spectrum. He said he struggled to remember much, his memory the same as anybody else. People forget their own name by about seventy, never mind seven thousand odd years for Christ sake. That seemed to be particularly cruel torture to me, stuck in an infinite loop through the years, the indestructible physical vessel hosting a new mind full of memories every so often. He confessed that I myself would be forgotten about in a nearly insultingly short amount of time.

Soon the sun was making its daily trek across the sky and light filtered in through the dusty blinds. The ashtray was full and the amount of coffee drunk could have awoken the dead. My eyes became heavy under the weight of sleep, propped up by the mountains of coffee indigested. Cain looked fresh and well rested, sipping from his stained glass of apple juice, maintaining eye contact and looking interested, or at least acting interested. I wonder how often he does this, sit down with a stranger and pour out his life story. Thousands of years’ worth of stories compressed and compacted into a few wee short hours over coffee.

The early morning blue collars begin to arrive in the diner, completing their daily pilgrimage. Propped up on the table with my right hand, I frantically try to think of more questions, things I would regret not asking, queries I wish were answered but the fog that fills your mind from a lack of sleep was nearly clouding over my thought process completely. Shit. A silence was creeping into the space where conversation once flowed.

Almost telepathically, Cain told me it was time for him to leave. He thanked me for the dinner and started to make his way to the door a little reluctantly. I no longer thought of him in the way society automatically condemns a murderer, with vile and instant disgust. I felt sympathy for the man. Felt sorry and pity I’ve never mustered up or any other human being. Perhaps ever stranger, I could not help but respect the first killer.

KRS