He was always hiding his van around town because he had too many
parking tickets, and, if he found a good hiding spot, he would sit on
the counter wearing his purple Captain Gus’ Cheese Steak shirt and
feed me philosophy while I mopped. I always tried to feed him, but he
never ate. Just drank coffee light and sweet and smoked menthols.
One day the phone rang at 5:30 a.m. as I was opening the café. I
picked up, expecting the boss. “Afrit?” It was Boyer’s gravelly voice.
“They finally got me. Can you come?”
I hung a hand written sign on the door saying we would be open late.
Boyer was as much a part of the café as the walls. Who else would he
call?
For 3 months we kept a list of reasons we could never date. My side
had 48 reasons. His had 8.
Once Boyer took me for an ice cream cone. He was so shocked at the
price I tried to pay.
If you go looking for a definition of Afrit you will find out they are
the second strongest conventional class of demon, and are described as
being spirits of fire and possessing fiery hooves. Bartimaeus refers
to them in Ptolemy’s Gate as "over-rated.”
An over-rated demon making lists of reasons why not to fall in love.
Boyer left me with a final riddle before I moved 3,000 miles away. He
said “The world is all that is the case. Figure it out.”
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