A COFFEE SHOP PHILOSOPHY

It's the dead of winter in Buttermilk Park, Pa., and the February freeze of the Candlemas on the night's second outing tops the sixth consecutive night of the waning moon; a slick, silvery crescent tin cup painted against the backdrop of an otherwise dead evening. A slight gush of wind whips hard the crinkled leaves against the cobblestone streets of the town's lone business district, closed except for the sprinkling of neon that drape the silver caboose of the Rosewood Diner, the premier establishment and only ongoing visage of perpetual vainglory left in the city, save for the rickety stairs underneath the wobbly floorboards covered by a speckled white tile that effectively mask its proprietor's homage to mystical and enchanting alchemy. I am alone in my study. Rows and rows of dusty old books rile my senses - calling me, like a mother calling her lost child, a single, solemn shrill alone in the night air, anguished and pained against the ensuing silence. Mystical texts can be like that. They are a magickal vibration so few are aware of in this hectic, lonesome technological age. Only the company of The Large Bathers, eager and plump in their nakedness as they stare at the oblique coyote nestled comfortably inside the cool spring water, kissed by the rumpled foliage of a harsh winter and loved by the coming of the Goddess of the Beltane with her seedless spring, are here to me company.

I love paintings, as any man of class and sophistication should.

By the flickering flames that lick my seven sisters - slimy, smooth, and contented - the candelabras with purple beeswax adorn my retina to the attainment of the Book of Shadows resting quietly on the desk in front of me - my father's desk, the one he left me when I fled the companionship of his inner city sanctum for the great real estate deals in the major cities in the South. Today it is he who lives in an affluent neighborhood somewhere in that very region, though I must confess I don't know where. We haven't spoken very much since my brother died. Out of token esteem I initially accepted this 'heirloom' as a sign of forgiveness. I don't know just who was forgiving whom. Staring at the wooden structure now, seeing it caress the licorice lamp to its left, I can tell what a fine acquisition it truly has become.

But I shall not waste my breath with the dichotomy of my secret chamber in the attic, of the Altar of Earth on its polished hardwood floors or of the esoteric beauty of the marble end tables by the bosom of my black leather sofa, which hums to the tune of the grandfather clock next to an ancient coffin of some obscure pharaoh of the promised land whose name suddenly escapes me. Suffice it the say, the room was cheery enough for my work. The rusted white pen danced in my hand as if in prayer to a Higher Calling. I was inspired; spell after spell draped the pentacle sealed parchment for pages and pages, spells from the famed gris-gris bag of the Hoodoo practitioners of Louisiana to the Christian-like Witchcraft of Norse mythology. It was an eclectic gathering of magickal phenomenon.

If only the townspeople knew what I, their mayor, was up to...

But there is work to be done now. Some prickly poppy from the medicine plants of the Great Basin revitalize me suddenly, and quickly I become focused on the subject matter at hand. Psychically, I must now find the clues that will ultimately lead me on the trail in the quest of capturing Patty Rancid's murderer.