“Coffee. Cream, no sugar. And a piece of that apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.” The wobbly counter stool needed oiling, and the screws tightening. The stranger’s worn body hunched and curved, straight lines long gone, adapted to the stool as he had amended himself to life’s imbalances.
+++++“That it?” The counter jockey’s hollow peepers showed he really didn’t care, and at three a.m., the words fit.
+++++Nodding silently, the stranger reared his head above his stooped shoulders revealing a face of pain partially covered by JFK Ray-Bans. The dark shades hid his perpetual three a.m. mask and a battered left eye. The counter jock stared through the stranger’s pied facial veneer and the plate glass window behind it and on into the dimly lit parking lot. He didn’t care if the stranger wore sunglasses and a red, yellow, and blue joker’s cap with brass bells, he just wanted the whole damn order. The silent nod secured the order and sent the counter jock to the kitchen.
+++++Watching the frail old man limp toward the pie rack, the stranger lifted a pack of menthol cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tap the edge of the pack on the lip of the scarred wooden counter until a filter cigarette peeked out. Slipping the filter into the corner of his mouth, lightly touching his cut upper lip, and he flicked his Zippo. Drawing deeply on the menthol cigarette, he leaned back on the squeaking stool and exhaled, sending bluish-gray smoke toward the ceiling fan above him. As the smoke dissipated, he refocused his vision on the Zippo. An out-of-place pleasant memory squirreled its way into the diner. The Zippo had been a gift from his first boss on the loading docks.
+++++“Here ya go, kid. This Zippo’s seen me through Nam. Ya take it. I’m thinkin’ y’gonna fight yer own Nam . . . right here on these streets.” With that, he dropped the Zippo into the hand of the boy leaning toward manhood, compassionately, but without softness. Taking the silver lighter, popping it a couple of times, he thanked his boss, and slipped it into his jeans pocket. The boss had been right. In a three a.m. diner on a lonely truck route, the stranger, now a man, was in the middle of his personal Vietnam.
+++++The vanilla ice cream was sweet and cold. The warm apple pie had a bit too much cinnamon, but the cold ice cream evened things out. Sipping the coffee, the stranger stared into the partially exposed mirror on the other side of the counter. His reflection had been cut into two Picasso wedges. His torso and right shoulder thrust toward the coffee urn. Between the shoulder of his gray sport coat and black shirt, his white silk necktie sliced the wedge down the middle. The other section reflected the JFK Ray-Bans and shaven, tanned cheeks accented by the battered left eye and the newly acquired swollen lip. Although disjointed, the images remained strangely singular. Removing his sunglasses, he took a napkin from the counter and wiped his left eye.
+++++“Goddamn! Holy shit! Get a load of that dude’s face!” The punk and his skank had come in and sat down a few stools from the stranger. The yapper was a wannabe thug, maybe nineteen or twenty. His pimply face and greasy hair said it all. Next to him, a girl, sharing his lack of looks, leaned forward so she could get a better look at the stranger. Maybe, on a sunny day, after a load of beer, they’d be a cut above street trash.
+++++“Hey, dude, what the hell happened to ya? Ran into some bitch’s husband? Ha, ha!”
+++++“Ricky, don’t say nuthin’ to ‘em. He don’t look like he wants to be bothered.”
+++++“Fuck it, baby! I ain’t botherin’ Pops. I’m jest askin’, right Pops? What the fuck happened to yer face?”
+++++For a quick minute, the stranger looked at the punk and his skinny skank. Quiet. As he had nodded silently toward the counter jock, he again nodded, this time toward the couple. Instead of responding with the same level of harshness as the punk had, the stranger chose a more conciliatory path.
+++++“Out of the dark, a man often finds himself alone, empty handed. Only nature’s gifts and his own grit will lead him to the light.” Nodding a second time, he then turned and slipped his sunglasses back on and sipped his coffee. It tasted good.
+++++“Outta of what fuckin’ dark? Dark what, asshole? Ya one drunk muther.”
+++++The words had failed. He had tried. The punk only understood one language, a language the stranger understood better than most.
+++++The stranger put the last bite of pie in his mouth and let the warm apple slices rest on his tongue. Then another sip of coffee and the pie was finished.
+++++“Hey, asshole, I asked ya what the fuck ya talkin’ about? Ya tryin’ to play me for a fool?” With that the punk got up and walked toward his destiny. He dragged the skank with him. “Stand the fuck up! C’mon Pops, say it again!”
+++++Old Peepers rushed around the counter and tried to step in between the two, yelling for the couple to move on or he’d call the police. Without saying anything to the old man, the punk pushed him against a dining table, causing a loud crash of dirty plates, chairs, and condiments. The crash echoed through the empty diner.
+++++As the punk started to take one more step toward the stranger, his work boot collided with the stranger’s strong sweeping right boot. As he tumbled forward, the stranger caught him, jamming his right palm on the back of the punk’s head, slamming his face into the countertop next to my empty pie plate. When the punk hit the floor, he started heaving and spitting.
+++++“Hey, mister, why’dya hurt Ricky? He was jest messin’ with ya a little. He didn’t mean nuthin.” As she knelt next to the punk, the stranger gazed down at the two and put his left, black python boot on her back and pushed her over into the punk’s vomit.
+++++Peepers got up and was standing next to the stranger.
+++++“What I owe you?” asked the stranger.
+++++“Nuthin’,” he said, “I’m takin’ everything outta of the kid’s money. Ya just get the hell out of here before anyone else comes in. It’s almost time for the night shift across the road to get off.”
+++++Nodding again and touching the corner of his sunglasses with his right index finger, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of bills, and tossed a ten on the counter, “Book it.”
+++++“Where ya goin’?”
+++++“It’s almost dawn. Think I’ll just head that way, toward the sun.”
+++++“Don’t get lost.”
+++++“Been there.”

[Image Credit : Photo by Sean Thomas on Unsplash ]

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Glen Bush

Glen Bush is a retired teacher who now lives in the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. Since retiring, he has been writing crime noir short stories and urban fiction. While teaching, he published over thirty academic literary articles and book reviews. In addition to his crime fiction, Bush is also working on a novel that blends crime noir and urban issues.

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