Ashes to Asher

 

The next morning the breakfast crowd being as small as it was, meaning Emil and Asher were alone in the diner and seated together at a table, Emil was talking a bit more personally than he normally would. In fact, Emil reflected that he probably would not usually talk about his future at all, as he didn't really feel close enough to anyone anymore to share such information. He hadn't even talked about his future with Robert, at least not beyond the plans for what to do for Robert after his passing. With that all taken care of now, Emil felt more out of sorts than he ever had before in his life.

"I'm sorry to chat your ear off about my pathetic issues," he apologized to Asher. "I've never worked in food service, but I'm sure that you have more important things to do than sit here and yawn while I rattle on."

"Did you see or hear me yawn?" Asher asked quickly. "I sure don't remember doing it. How about you let me decide what is important to me. Now, you may never have worked in food service before, but if you need a job to pay your way for a bit…."

"Oh, no, no, no," Emil cut him off with a hand held-up. "I appreciate the offer, but I don't need charity or guilt work. If I were to work anywhere in this town right now, I would see if Miss Moony needs help at the hotel. I worked a third shift front desk job back when I was in college. The thing is, Robert left me set up. Apparently, his step-father invented some sort of thing for glasses or something. I confess I was no more interested in hearing about it than Robert was talking about it. The point is, it was super special or something and the man left the patent rights to Robert, who later sold it for a lot of money, which he invested very well. I am now set for life, independently wealthy, and feeling like the widowed boy toy of a sugar daddy, even if we didn't ever have that sort of relationship. People still thought it though, which was why before coming here, I sold everything and put what I wanted to keep into storage."

"I'd forgotten about Mr. Jack's lens," Asher recalled out loud. "It was a telescope lens, and I'm told it was very helpful to science and studies of outer space."

"Well, it was certainly very helpful to Robert," Emil shrugged. "It's also being very helpful to me now. Thanks to it, I now have the money to fly across the country to do what he asked me to do for him, and I also have the money to sit around in a diner and try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. One thing is certain, though. I have to leave town tomorrow."

"Oh," Asher whispered quietly. A little louder, but a bit sadly, he said, "Well, I guess you do have your whole life ahead of you and… stuff to get on with, I suppose. Maybe someday you could find your way back here just for a visit if you wanted."

"I hadn't meant that I was ready to leave town for good," Emil said quickly. "I just have to return the rental car." He then shivered and grimaced in distaste before saying, "I would rather cut off a body part without anesthesia than drive that nightmare of a road down the mountain. It was bad enough coming up here, but going down, yeah that's even closer to the edge of forever." He was actually shaking a bit as he spoke.

"Well, now there I can maybe help you," Asher announced with a smile. "I would go myself, but I can't close the diner. You could get Ashley to drive you down to the city though, and she could get someone to follow you so you all have a ride back."

"I couldn't impose like that," Emil denied. "She's got better things to do, too," he added.

"Dude, just take mom to one of those fancy coffee shops like on the streaming shows she watches, and maybe a book store," Danny suggested from the seat beside Emil. Emil did NOT shriek like the female lead in a horror movie. Asher and Danny both made that up to pick on him. They did, seriously.

"Do you not ever go to school?" Emil wheezed as he rested his hand over his heart.

"Not in June," the sarcastic boy grinned. "Anyway, coffee shop, book store, your stuff, not necessarily in that order, and you'll have a friend for life."

"Well, that does sound like a nice outing," Emil thought out loud.

"See? Perfect girls day out," Danny piped up with an impish grin.

"You just had to ruin it, didn't you?" Emil growled. "Shouldn't you be up the canyon giving the fish their comedy show?"

"Rude," the boy pouted. "And there's no fish in that little creek."

"He's also not supposed to go up there alone, and he knows it, especially after that snake incident," Asher commented. "Besides, as I recall, you were the comedy show. Danny here was just sunburning places that shouldn't see daylight."

"Grandpa!" the boy whined as he blushed.

"Now, now, Asher," Emil started. "Didn't you and Robert skinnydip in that same pool when you were his age?"

"That's… That's not the point," Asher protested as he was now the one blushing.

"Ewww, nakey grandpa…. GROSS," Danny blurted making fake gagging noises.

"I didn't look any different back then than you do now, and neither did Robbie," Asher countered. "Actually, Robbie looked pretty good… really good."

"Oh YUCK! The only thing worse than nakey Grandpa is horny Grandpa. This looks like a job for you, Auntie Em," Danny called out as he ran out the door of the diner much more noisily than he had snuck in.

"That child is a menace," Asher growled.

"That he is," Emil agreed. "But I wouldn't want to be anywhere near him if he weren't just the way he is."

"Yeah, he's a special kind of special, alright," Asher nodded. "Huh… Robbie's step-dad used to say the same thing about me."

"You don't say? Imagine that," Emil said with heavy sarcasm.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Asher confronted him.

"The boy practically worships you," Emil explained. "It shouldn't be that surprising that he imitates you, probably without even realizing it at times."

"Ashley might have said a time or two that he spends too much time with me," the older man admitted with a blush as he studied the floor of the diner closely.

"Just a time or two?" Emil asked with a perked eyebrow.

"Ok, maybe a few more… but not more than two or three… per week… for the last ten years." With each pause, his voice had gotten softer, but Emil had heard it all just fine.

"I thought Danny was older than ten," he mused aloud.

"Yeah, he's twelve, but she wanted my help with him the first two years. After that was when she started saying that she could see my influence too clearly," Asher shrugged. He didn't seem to mind that Emil laughed out loud at something he said. "You should laugh more often. You…. It's a nice sound and it's good for you. Best medicine and all that."

"Please tell me you were not about to tell me I look younger when I laugh," Emil whined, rolling his eyes.

"Heard that a lot, have you?" Asher asked with a slight tease to his voice.

"You have no idea. My genetics certainly haven't helped. I'm thirty-five years old and I still don't shave every day. I'm lucky if I do it twice in a week, and I have no chest hair at all."

"Okay, you can stop there because I don't need to feel any creepier than I already do, thank you," Asher said gently.

"Why should you feel creepy just because I don't look my age?" Emil asked innocently. "I'm the weird one, the kid that got called elfling in high school because I didn't seem to age or grow. I was always shorter and younger looking than all the other kids. I looked like I should be in junior high when I graduated from high school. Skipping a grade was not a good idea in the long run. I graduated at seventeen and had only gotten pubes about four months before that, and why did I just say that out loud?" Emil blushed with nuclear power and dropped his head onto the table in front of him to hide his face. "Why can't I keep my mouth shut around you?" he whined.

"I've always had that kind of effect on people, I guess," Asher said softly. "I call it the bartender effect. People just seem to always open up to me about their lives, even though I don't have liquor here."

"I've always been a good boy, never smoked, never did drugs, never even been to a… well actually I did used to go to a bar when I was in college. I never drank alcohol, though, I swear."

"College boy that goes to a bar and doesn't drink? I think I hear a story there," Asher said with a smile.

"Okay, part of it was due to me being underage," Emil confessed, finally lifting his head from the table. "Most of it was the fact that I was the designated driver for the guys that were old enough, though."

"Oh, that explains it," Asher smiled. "Although I can't imagine you being a bad boy, I do admit I had kind of hoped for a story with a bit more meat to it."

"Oh, you mean like the part where they really should have made sure that I knew how to drive before they grabbed me and drove off to the bar with me that first time?" Asher nearly fell off his chair laughing. "Yeah, it was a very memorable night, for me at least. They all got too drunk to remember a thing the next day. Even called to report the car stolen."

"So, there is more to the story," Asher chuckled.

"A lot more actually," Emil responded with a laugh of his own. "So, the frat boys didn't know it was my eighteenth birthday the day they saw me on a sidewalk on campus and grabbed me. They promised to buy me sodas and snacks at the bar if I agreed to go to a bar with them, so I did. I mean free food, right?"

"Wait, you were celebrating your eighteenth AFTER you were in college?"

"I had skipped a year in high school," Emil told him with a shrug.

"Sounds reasonable so far, for a brainiac super smart guy," Asher mused. "Not quite a kidnapping, but somewhat borderline. Tell me, you had book smarts, but were you the type of boy to get in the white van for the candy?"

"Oh, ha ha ha," Emil snarked, but he smiled. "Anyway, so they didn't mention me being their driver until we got to the bar and the farmer's daughter built like a linebacker who was working as a bouncer didn't want to let me in. That's when they announced that I was their designated driver. She didn't look convinced, given that I was standing there gaping like a fish out of water, but she let me in. To be fair, she was acting a little oddly, and that should have been more of a clue, but it wasn't for any of us."

"I've never quite pictured a farmer's daughter as a linebacker, but now that you mention it, I have actually met one or two," Asher said with a grimace. "What do you mean her behavior should have been a clue?"

"Well, what none of us knew was that the lady who owned the bar was throwing a party that night in honor and memory of her son's birthday. He had died on his eighteenth birthday, the same birthday I was celebrating that day."

"Wow, a lot to unpack there," Asher mused quietly.

"I know, right?" Emil smiled a little sadly. "Anyway, I walk into the bar, and the owner is standing behind the bar just loading up a tray with a pitcher of beer and some glasses when she sees me. She drops the tray, breaking all that glass, spilling beer all over the floor. She starts crying just from looking at me, and I'm feeling like I must be some kind of super ugly to cause that reaction. It turns out, I looked a whole lot like the dead son." Emil looks over at Asher and quickly continues. "Relax, I know I'm not that horrible looking now, but I was a bit less convinced back then. So, anyway, she finally settles down, serves all the frat boys their drinks, and gets me my soda. I didn't realize then that it was her son's birthday and death day, so I quietly, I thought, toasted myself for my birthday. Well, that started her waterworks all over again, especially when we found out that I was born one hour to the minute after he had been killed. My so-called friends that I had just met that day were at a table killing off the few brain cells they had with beer, while I was at a booth in the back corner talking with Mrs. Pat. The farmer's daughter turned out to be her daughter, and had taken over working the bar. Turns out that it was supposed to be a private party that night, but Daisy Mae, yes that really was her name, had let me in because she couldn't believe how much I looked like her long-lost brother either."

"Wow, that is rather intense, but I'm curious, how did you and the frat boys get back home?" Asher prompted.

"Well, at some point in our talk, I confessed to Mama Pat that I couldn't drive and how the boys had not asked about that before bringing me along," Emil explained. "Her son had died from a drinking and driving accident, so she paid for a cab to get us back to the dorms, and then she came and got me the next day, so I could have driving lessons from one of her regulars, who happened to be a policeman. That's how we found out that the car owner had reported his car stolen. My instructor radioed back to his office that he had possession of the car, and told the story of how he had it, since he had been at the bar the previous night."

"Well, that worked out well," Asher laughed again. "And you must be a great driver if you're police trained."

"As if," Emil snorted. "I was eighteen that day, I looked about fifteen, and the guy had a cannon on his hip the whole time he was teaching me. I was petrified. I did okay until we got to the part where I was supposed to parallel park. I wound up with both back wheels of the car up on the sidewalk," Emil confessed, now blushing again.

"How did that happen?" Asher choked out as he laughed harder.

"I don't know," Emil whined. "I was terrified, okay? I wasn't thinking about the car or anything except how enormous that gun was."

"Hmm, a fixation on big weapons, huh?"

"OMG, you are such a perv," Emil squealed as he blushed even more intensely and hid his face in his hands again. "It was NOT like that, I swear. I was truly scared to death of the man. But he was very nice and he told me that parallel parking would not be on the driving test, so I could just not worry about that part. He also did not wear the gun when he gave me the official driving test for my license a week later. He came with Mama Pat to my graduation four years later, when my parents refused to show up after disowning me in my second year."

"Well, that was really nice of them," Asher said softly, as he reached out and rubbed Emil's shoulder comfortingly. "Especially for someone who is gay."

"Oh, it had nothing to do with that," Emil corrected. "I got disowned because I had not gone into pre-law like they had planned for me. See, about the time I chose my major, I was already Mama Pat's live in caregiver. It was Alzheimer's. When she came to my graduation, she thought she was at her son's. I was with her one more year after that before she passed," Emil said as he wiped a tear from his face. "Her daughter died from cancer a year after that, and I was her caregiver as well. Mama Pat's grandson, who is just two years older than me, owns and runs the bar now. We talk a few times a year, mostly around the holidays, but there's no real connection there like I had with Mama Pat or Daisy Mae."

"I'm sorry I made you relive all of that," Asher said softly, as he kept rubbing Emil's shoulder.

"It's okay. I survived it all," Emil shrugged. "I wouldn't change any of it if I could. I wouldn't be the person I am if I did. Anyway, after that, I got a male patient who had come into the bar off and on over the years I spent with Mama Pat and Daisy Mae. He had a lot of health issues; diabetes, heart condition, liver trouble from too much over the counter meds, not too much alcohol. At first, I was more of a companion, and only had to help him remember to take his official meds and give him the insulin shots because he hated the needles. I was also for lack of a better term, the houseboy. I cooked, cleaned, did the laundry, and was the chauffeur. He was borderline abusive, but I stuck it out, because I knew no one else would and he needed someone. I had been with him two years when we learned that he took so many pain meds because he also had a brain tumor which was too advanced by the time they found it. He had no family except a greedy sister, who didn't even wait for his body to be released to the funeral home before she swooped in with a rental truck and cleaned out Mel's house. She even took some things of mine, but I wasn't about to get in her way."

"I hope you don't mind me saying, but it sounds like you've had a pretty crappy life, even if there were some uplifting moments," Asher said quietly. "Would it be alright if I gave you a hug?" Emil just nodded and accepted the embrace.

"I have been ordered by his imperial highness, my son, to come to the diner immediately if not sooner, but I was instructed to walk in with my eyes closed just in case. Would anyone like to explain?" Ashley called out as she stepped into the diner with a hand covering her face.

"Put your hand down and get over here, before I ground you like I'm going to do to your little spawn," Asher told her.

"Hey, he gets this horrible sense of humor from you, Uncle Ash," Ashley defended. "Don't blame me."

"I refuse comment," Asher pouted defensively. "Now shut up and get over here. Emil's got a proposition for you."

"Really? If that's the case, I kind of think he's propositioning the wrong Ash," the woman smirked as she sat down across the table from Emil.

"ASHLEY!" Emil sputtered as he glared at her. "And you…." He turned the glare to Asher. "You didn't have to word it like that and give her the wrong idea."

"Well, just for the record, what is the right idea?" Ashley asked.

"I'm scared to drive down the mountain," Emil confessed with a blush. "Asher and Danny suggested that maybe you could take me to the city to return my rental car. We could do a bit of shopping, maybe hit a coffee shop and a bookstore or two?"

"You had me at shopping, but you clinched the deal with the bookstore," Ashley gushed excitedly. "When do we leave? The sooner the better I would think so we have the most time in the city."

"Oh, well, I guess you're right," Emil agreed. "Some of the shopping might take a little while, if that's alright with you."

"Not a problem," Ashley smiled. "Don't let the librarian title fool you. I can still shop till you drop."

"You might have met your match here, Ashley," Emil grinned. "I'm a power shopper from way back."

"Challenge accepted," Ashley grinned. "Tell the little prince that he has to eat a vegetable with his lunch, Uncle Ash, and no, French fries do not count."

"I'll make sure his burger has lettuce on it," Asher snorted. "You two get going. I don't want you to have to drive back up the mountain in the dark."

"I've driven the mountain in the dark plenty of times," Ashley protested. She turned and saw how pale Emil had just gone, then added, "Yeah, fair point taken. I'll get us home safe, Uncle Ash, I swear."