The Siam Cafe and Grocery Incident

Late evenings at the community mental health center meant darkened halls due to poor lighting, and a skeleton crew to handle after-hours’ clients and emergencies. The center was located in a low-rent district, which was fast becoming the gathering place for many refugees who were now beginning to blend into the neighborhood.

Kathryn, a counselor at the center, enjoyed browsing in the Siam Cafe and Grocery across the street, with its imported goods and exotic canned food, side by side with the latest American paperback best-sellers. The mixture of Asian and American products reminded her of the time she lived on the west coast. It had been a time of healing, of rest and recuperation before going back home to High Plains to face a struggle with family role expectations and imposed values.

She had spent the past few years there working through internal conflicts and unfinished business with her family members. In between these times she mined for the diamonds of humanity that were surely to be found in High Plains, but were so hard for her to see. In her work at the mental health center she had finally begun to get a sense of the strength and endurance of the community of her birth, especially of its women. Their humor and courage was indomitable. In a land that was not very kind to anyone, women found it even less kind. It was a semi-arid area that offered little shelter or water, with neither meadows nor mountains in which to rest or seek solitude. A fishbowl, spotlighted by the sun 360 days of the year, on the fringe of the Bible belt, High Plains City offered a woman a place as a wife, a daughter, a mother, a hooker or a honkey-tonk, but only now was begrudgingly beginning to make way for a woman as a person, a professional, a poet. The bulk of the population consisted of cowboys, fundamentalists, railroaders and military. Within that milieu Kathryn found some gems among her vast family, her co-workers and, most richly, in some of her clients.

“Only twenty minutes until my next client, I’d better go now to get cigarettes,” she urged herself, not wanting to go outside. Although Kathryn grew up about eight blocks from the center and usually felt comfortable there, occasionally she would feel conspicuous and out-of-place in the town and in the neighborhood. Sometimes she would let the glances and stares of the vagrants that hung around the grocery store unnerve her and she would feel fear. That was always a surprise to her. Generally, she had little fear of the sick and the derelict. There were times that she felt that, with a little push, she might become sick or derelict herself.

As she stepped outside, a gust of sand filled wind caught the door and nearly ripped it off its hinges. It was an ominous evening. The sky was dark orange and the wind would pause and attack without warning, like a cat playing with a mouse. The sand drifted in the air, almost imperceptibly, and veiled the buildings and lamplights, muffling the sights and sounds of the street. Kathryn had a re-occurring fear as a child, that one day everything and everyone she knew would disappear. This night that fear returned.

There was no one in the Siam Cafe and Grocery when she entered, and only a few lights in the store were turned on. With every surge of wind they would flicker and dim, threatening to go out at any minute. “They must be upstairs,” thought Kathryn, doubtfully, as she wandered over to the magazine and bookrack. Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer caught her eye and she began to thumb through it. The light of a pickup pulling up in the driveway distracted her momentarily and she shivered at the sound of the wind’s siren song through the cracked windowpanes.

The man walked through the doorway and came directly to the magazine rack and stopped about two inches from Kathryn. “This is too close,” she asserted to herself. “There is five feet of space here and he doesn’t have to stand this close.” Kathryn was determined to not be intimidated by his invasion of her space and she stood her ground. She recovered her internal balance and concentrated once again on the book in her hands. The man said nothing and continued to stand close by. He was medium height and build, bearded, with a ruddy and weathered complexion. He wore a billed cap labeled ‘Pott’s Machine Shop, Denton, Texas’.

“Not from around here,” deduced Kathryn, “but not a regular drifter either. He could be anyone’s next door neighbor.” She felt her circulation cease and suddenly chill, as if her blood had been freeze-dried. The fear engulfed her again.

At that moment the man moved closer and said, “You’re here all alone, aren’t you afraid? You shouldn’t be here alone, someone could hurt you, you know.” He moved menacingly closer and continued, “Someone like me could really hurt you or, could really be nice to you. What’s it going to be, lady?”

As he made an effort to grab her she quickly stepped to the side and started to speak. In that instant the store door opened and an unkempt figure entered, her long hair in disarray.

“My God!” exclaimed Kathryn to herself, “It’s Mabel Gable!”

Mabel was one of the chronic clients that came to the clinic each week to receive her prolixin shot. This medication kept her just manageable enough to stay in the community. She wasn’t one of Kathryn’s clients but all the councilors knew her and knew she was harmless to others.

“God sent you, God sent you,” mumbled Mabel to the world and made her way swift and straight to the man. “God sent you, you got clothes for the Church?” She cackled, showing her three remaining teeth, stained and dripping with snuff. She grabbed the man’s arm with one hand and began to rub his shoulder with the other, saying, “God sent you.”

Startled, the man backed off and Mabel turned to Kathryn. “God sent you,” she repeated.

“And God surely sent you,” replied Kathryn, much relieved.

The man inched back, little by little, as Mabel continued to tell Kathryn about God and the Church. She grabbed Kathryn’s hand and kissed it and said, “You nice, you pretty.”

“You’re very nice and a very beautiful sight to me.” said Kathryn, with a nervous laugh. As Mabel turned her back on the man, he slid away and was out of the store like a shot!

“You buy me a Dr. Pepper?” asked Mabel.

“Mabel, right now I’d probably buy you anything you asked for,” said Kathryn and took a soda from the machine. A small Thai woman came down the stairs and Kathryn paid her for the soda and some cigarettes.

“Mabel, do you need a ride home?” she asked.

“They come, someone come soon,” replied Mabel.

Kathryn knew Mabel’s family kept pretty close track of her, so she said goodbye and hurried back to her office. She knew her client would be waiting by now and she wanted to call a detective she knew to report this incident. She had been threatened and she would make a report.

An hour later, after the last client left and the records room had been locked, Kathryn was standing by the receptionist’s desk. Bobbie, the receptionist, was responding to an incoming call, “No, her therapist isn’t here and the nurse is gone, too. I can’t give you that information. Hold on, please.” Bobbie turned to Kathryn, “They’ve picked up Mabel. They received a complaint that she attacked someone and they found her wandering down Seventh Street. They need her date of birth, her address and phone number.”

“They what?” shouted Kathryn. “That’s ridiculous! Hang on, I’ll take the call.”

Kathryn arrived home at 11:30 p.m. after spending a good two hours at the jail, arranging for Mabel’s release. The complaint against Mabel had been received by the desk sergeant at 8:10 p.m., about twenty minutes after Kathryn’s report, which was supposed to have been routed to Detective Mitchell immediately. It was still on the desk and had not yet been routed to him when she arrived at the police station. No one had taken it seriously.

The man complaining about Mabel had given a fictitious name and address, it was discovered, and there was no way to trace him.

“It’s amazing, just amazing,” reflected Kathryn as she kicked off her shoes and sat down in her favorite chair to process the events of the evening. “After possibly saving my life, Mabel spends two hours alone and scared in jail and the potentially harmful person is out there somewhere, with nothing in his path to impede him.”

The winds died down to a soft murmur, humming a midnight lullaby. “A vignette,” whispered Kathryn, as latent tears stung her eyes, “even still, a vignette of life on the high plains.”