Bud Conklin WC 268

Bud Conklin

So I was sitting at my usual table at the Coffee Bean sipping my normal brew, when this guy wearing a strange black polyester wig sat down at the next table facing me.

He kept staring at me. I got busy playing with a coffee drip on my table with my left index finger.

The man was ruining my solitude!

“Excuse me?” I said, trying to get him to look away.

“Don’t you recognize me?” he asked, pulling his chair closer.

“No!” I said and backed away.

He was obviously wearing a disguise: curly black wig, fake nose attached to horn-rimmed glasses with no lenses, grotesquely padded shoulders...

“You really don’t?” He moved closer.

I gathered my things. This weirdo was freaking me out.

“Bud Conklin? Rainer High? Sophomore year?”

I remembered the name Bud Conklin.

“You don’t look like the guy I knew in school.”

“So you do remember me?”

“Why are you wearing a disguise?”

“I didn’t think you’d talk to me,” he said, adding, “I was so in love with you. And now here we are again, fifteen years later.”

I didn’t remember much about him, but this strange behavior made me not want to know him now. Who wears a disguise and asks if someone recognizes them? Duh.

“Well, I have to go,” I said and stood up.

“We’re just getting reacquainted, Lois.”

Without another word, I left the Coffee Bean as fast as my feet would carry me. I guess I’ll have to find another coffee place.

A side note: my name is Cassie, not Lois.