Accounting for Time
It was seven o’clock… on the dot. I never had to look at the clock behind the counter. I always knew. The old man told me. The old man was Hank Miller. Hank was one of the longtime local characters in town. He was someone everyone saw, but no one ever actually knew. Hank was a CPA who operated out of a small storefront office on the main drag, across the street from the café where I worked in college and now own. He was a man of his time. He was a man out of time. Old Hank hadn’t changed anything since the moon landing. He wore the same crew cut, the same black trousers and black wingtips, the same short sleeved white button-down shirt and the same skinny black tie. Every day for fifty years. I doubt he ever changed the prescription of the vintage horn-rimmed glasses he wore. The overall effect was that of an extra from Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff . ...