James Steimle - The Kukulkan Manuscript

Kinnard nodded. “And this Beartrend-”

“Bertrand.”

“-thinks he found a Nabataean temple site?”

Porter shifted in the chair. “Not…exactly…but what he describes, the pictures he presented…it looks Nabataean to me.”

Kinnard’s tense eyebrows relaxed.

In other words, Porter didn’t have anything at all. Just another organized example in speculation. Porter was a master at this sort of thing, but plenty of people disagreed with him as a common practice.

“I think you’ll agree with me, once you read-or hear-my paper.”

“I’m sure,” Kinnard said without interest. Porter was in a difficult situation, and they both knew it. He looked at the Near East books on his desk. “Do you intend to continue your study of the Nabataeans for your dissertation? It will definitely give you something to argue.”

Porter stuttered a moment, then said, “I was…hoping for-for some advice.”

Leaning forward and putting his elbows on his desk, Kinnard looked Porter right in the eyes. “You know, some universities don’t even accept students anymore without some idea of their intended thesis. Stratford just hasn’t jumped onto the wagon yet. Do you realize the predicament you’re in?”

“I am well-reminded,” Porter replied without feeling. He knew he was stuck, and it was obvious. But Kinnard could see that the student planned to go out fighting. May twenty-first was still a full two months away.

“I don’t think I can help you, Mr. Porter.” Kinnard said, leaning back and putting his hands in the air. “I’d love to, but I don’t have any ideas for you.” He let his hands fall to his lap and sighed. “You really should have come to me sooner.”

Porter nodded to the window, squinting his eyes. He stood and put his hands on his thin hips. His lips twisted as he thought. “Then I’ll come up with something on the Nabataeans.”

The problem was, Nabataean finds were relatively few and didn’t say all that much. Besides, Dr. Glueck and a few others had already said it all. How Porter could come up with a new Nabataean idea in the next few weeks, then write, present, and argue a paper about it by the end of the semester seemed impossible. They both knew it. Porter was in real trouble.

“Call me tomorrow,” Kinnard said, glancing from his desk to his student, to his desk again, then back to his student. His face showed no emotion. The gravity of the game demanded seriousness. Kinnard’s brown skin hardened, and his muscular jaw flexed. He had to think this out. Turning his eyes and hands to the papers on his desk, he said in a low tone, “Pray for magic, and maybe we’ll come up with some.”

Porter nodded without a sound, without a smile, without a single sparkle in his eyes. He closed the door behind him.

March 25

11:27 a.m. PST

“What do you think you’re do’n here!?!” the old man bellowed. He was lean and tall, but had a hunched back and a mustache that drooped to his chin. All his thinning hair had gone gray. He once said he’d been a huge boxer before old age had settled in, which was why he kept the nick-name, Bruno, and his bar-bouncer attitude.

Porter froze halfway in the glass door frame. “Just came for more fries.”

“And all my hot chocolate, right?” Bruno wore a white T-shirt, stained yellow by years of grease and the colored bulbs in the place.

“I’ll drink cup after cup ‘til you take away the ‘free refills’ promise in your menu.”

Bruno smiled and continued wiping down tables while Porter, wrapped in the restaurant’s scent of juicy chicken, took his seat. “So what’ll it be?”

“Same ol’.”

Porter chose his table by the door. He always did. Bruno said it was for a quick escape, and regularly thought up reasons which might necessitate such a flight. Porter said he might need to make a quick get-away due to the food served in Bruno’s cafe. Bruno blamed Porter’s choice of food or his uneducated taste buds. Sometimes Porter would actually come and eat a meal like normal people: biscuits and gravy in the morning, a hamburger around lunch time, or some fish or a French dip for dinner. But generally, Porter ordered a cup of hot chocolate, a plate of French fries, and a side of ranch dressing. He’d dip the fries in the dressing and order the advertised free refills of the hot chocolate a minimum of five times before leaving. And he did this at any hour of the day.

Bruno’s cafe was open between five in the morning and one in the evening. He appeared to work the entire shift, without vacations. That was a lie, but when people asked Bruno where he’d been the day before, he’d say the same thing, “In the back! Too busy for you!” Everyone knew he was probably resting at home like normal people. But no one knew where Bruno lived.

And Bruno never seemed to sleep. “Old folks don’t need sleep!” he’d say. “You young’ns sleep and play all day-don’t think there’s anything else to life! Completely forgot we’ve come to this earth to work by the sweat of our brow!”

His customers always wore smiles, and Bruno never lost his energy.

“No books?” The old man said to Porter in his usual voice full of sand and vigor. “What are you in for?”

Though others might argue that a cafe is not conducive to study, Porter found it a pleasant place to do all sorts of research. He often brought in a text, called for the regular, and sat for a couple of hours with his head bent over the pages. He would contort his face and rub his forehead, but Bruno had long ago stopped offering him aspirin.

“Meeting with Dr. Kinnard today,” Porter explained.

Bruno’s body jerked as if in surprise. “About time you got him back here! You’d think he didn’t like my cooking.”

Bruno never forgot a name or a face, so everyone loved the cafe-or all the regulars did anyway. Each had been impressed by the place’s friendly atmosphere. If anyone walked in a second time, Bruno would shout out their name and offer them something special. It was like each of Bruno’s customers belonged to a family they’d forgotten about.

The cafe was warm and usually smelled of fried foods and baked pies. Bruno loved pies. People of all sorts came into the cafe, but mostly those affiliated with the university up the street. Custodians, professors, other faculty, and students came in at odd hours-one often trying to catch another, while avoiding someone else at the same time. Bruno liked the adventure in his shack. He’d seen 241 break-ups, over 300 arguments between students and professors who’d given the former an undesired grade, and the beginnings of over 500 romantic relationships. He’d listened to cops and their cases, without their knowledge, of course. He was familiar with many of Stratford’s problems long before the students found out-like the time when graduation seating was reduced due to construction at the university and poor planning on the part of certain people who should’ve been fired. Bruno knew all the gossip, long before anyone else, and had become the silent key to the success of university journalists.

Porter was eating when Kinnard entered the cafe, but his stomach churned with uneasiness.

“Good morning,” Porter smiled as Kinnard sat down. “Try the fries, they’re wonderful.”

Kinnard slid into the booth by the window, setting his attache case protectively between himself and the wall. He didn’t look at the food on the table. His eyes moved around the cafe, stopping on Bruno, who quickly looked away to clear a few more tables.

Porter didn’t notice, or rather he did, but chose to plunge another French fry into the sea of ranch dressing and not think about Kinnard’s curious nervousness.

Kinnard barely fit on the seat, or though it seemed. He leaned forward, slouched, and rested his muscular chest against the edge of the table. “I might have something for you, Porter…if you’re interested.”