The Café

“Gonna be a hot one, t’day.”

“Yep.”

“Hmm…”

The fly-speckled screen door was flapping lightly in the summer breeze as the last one walked in. That was Sal, an old-timer who still drove his Chevy up to the gas station-café every morning to get his regular cup of coffee and scrambled eggs. Chester and Mitch were waiting for him, already digging into their second cups of coffee and muffins they liked for their breakfast. It was warm, moving quickly to humidity as the sun crawled patiently over the horizon. There was not much else for that sun to move over in this town. Going through our little space, if you blinked, you missed it. Chester would always say that when he got the chance (every other hour if he wasn’t checked); Mitch had to make sure the pumps were working (a joke most of the time since they averaged one customer every blue moon – another favorite saying they passed around). I was just running the café, trying to keep this stupid place going for some reason related to family loyalty and the fact that I liked these bums. At least they never asked for credit; they were all set up somehow (Mitch had the job; Sal his pension; Chester some money from the military and that injury he played up when it got cold). And they were back.

“It’s gonna roast everything out there.” I wiped down the counter and looked over at the AC (some fronds of plastic were flapping around with the chill air). We needed more coffee to keep the talk going.

“Think anyone will stop by today?”

Mitch filled up on his third cup, deserved after getting in earlier than usual.

“Naah, I doubt it. Not really the time for holidays, is it?”

“Probably not.”

I was getting bored. Mitch had checked the gauges twice by then. Chester was in a different world (could see it in his eyes). Sal was still eating.

“So, another day in the hole.”

“Holeville?”

“Assholeville.”

Chester made us all laugh (town’s called Redland, like you need to know). I could feel the sweat going down my back like a witch’s cold touch, but I’m glad that we did have a joke floating around.

But I also knew that it would not last.

“This is just so typical, I think.”

All heads turned to me.

“What’s typical?” Even Sal stopped piling it in.

“This. Small town, Nowheresville. Just the dirt and the heat and the haze to distract us all for another day. What we do everyday…”

Now they were all staring at me. Sal was going to let his food get cold if he did not move. Chester looked like he wanted to tell another joke just to get away from this conversation, but he couldn’t think of one. Mitch was already behind the counter, looking for something as he froze at what I said.

“So, what you want us to do?” Mitch picked up a scoop and small hand broom (did I not notice a mess somewhere?).

“Yeah, what else are we gonna do on a day hotter than the Satan’s nut sack?” Chester was still in good form. Got a little giggle from the other two with that one.

“Not much else going on in this place. The heat don’t help much, but it’s the same any type of weather.” Sal finished the last of his eggs and coffee and stretched. “If you got any ideas, we’d like to hear it.”

The old man had a point. I stared off down the empty road and looked briefly at the thermostat that was telling us the obvious. What I thought of next was really weird, but it was all I had.

“Let’s tell stories.”

Chester choked on the dark roast and laughed. “That’s your great idea? We do that already, man.”

“Right, I mean…what stories haven’t we shared yet?” Mitch was moving toward the back of the café and bending down to scoop up something I missed (still wondered what it was).

“We haven’t talked about small town stories. Haven’t really talked about what people think of these places. You know that.”

Sal was a little quiet like that. “You mean like…what we heard on the news? All that stuff about the guy who had his kids locked up and no one even knew what he was doing with ‘em?”

The others were pretty mute. And I gotta say, I wasn’t really thinking of those types of stories, but when you got a pearl, you don’t chase after a dime (who said that?).

“All right, Sal. You started this, you get the ball rolling. You remember that story about the old man and his kids. Any others?”

I had known Sal for most of my life; my dad and mom did, too. He was like part of the furniture in that place and I thought that I knew every little tick of his brain; every little weirdness he could wrap up in a tale and share when pushed.

Not a chance.

“Okay, I got one.”

Sal’s throat rumbled as he cleared it, took a sip from the water glass I always left out, and looked at our blank faces.

“Y’know that I was an electrician. Worked on city grids down west. Well, one day we were having a bit of trouble with the power in one part of a town almost as small as this dump. I just thought it was a bird flew into a power line, or some squirrels got too interested in setting up a home in the wrong place, so I took out one of the new guys with me to set what’s what. Good training for the little prick, anyway…

“We get to the location, and I notice that it is a house up on a slight rise just on the edge of town. I even knew something about the family living there. New people always stand out in that place. No kids and I think that they had only been there a month. And I guessed that they mostly kept to themselves or worked at home, because they didn’t mix much with the locals. Anyway, we get up there, middle of the day, and I note the cars in their driveway. So, we go up, knock on the door. Nothing. Use the doorbell and I don’t hear anything (strange thing is that no one else had one yet; still a new idea). And then I notice something…”

Sal looked a little uncomfortable. He rubbed his beard and I could see that the sweat breaking out on him was not from the heat (AC was full blast).

“What was it?” Even Chester, old war vet, looked old.

“The smell. Like someone had a cookout and forgot to take things off the grill. New prick wanted to go in, and I warned him about B & E laws, but he kept waving our form in front of me and went right around the back to find another door.

“I did not run after him too quickly. I knew that he was doing something stupid that could get us in trouble. And that was a fortunate thing, because after less than a minute, he ran back around to the front, greener than frog soup. He dropped the clipboard and collapsed on their front porch. ‘They’re cooked! They’re cooked!’ is all he kept saying and I called the office. Turns out, they had been messing with some of the power lines and…they got cooked. The photos in the paper were pretty nasty and I thank the Lord above that I wasn’t too curious about what the prick saw. He ended up quitting and I got a new route with a partner who came later and did not ask a lot of questions.”

Sal took a deep breath and emptied the glass.

“Jesus…you smelled…”

“Right. They tell you that the human body is just meat, anyway. Like roasting pork…”

Chester should have left it alone, but he knew that smell. Always told us about fighting overseas. Not too graphic, but still…

“Okay, first one down.”

Mitch put the scoop down. “You need another one?”

“We all got one. Sal told his. Who else got a story?”

Chester stared at the old man for a long while. I knew he had something to say.

“Well, if you want to hear it…” He was looking down at the counter and the remains of the breakfast. His hands got tense on the plate, as if he wanted to toss it. But he looked up and started to talk to the wall.

“I was sent over to fight about ten years back when we were all so gung-ho about country and wanted to hit somebody back. Anyway, I was on the first mission. Basically, clear out areas with enemy personnel and making sure that there were no booby traps or bombs anywhere. Like I told you, it was my job to be in the advance team before the big boys came in – new guy, shit job – and then we were done.”

Chester started to feel his leg and no one said a word as he sat down and spun around on the stool and faced us. His eyes were getting red.

“Yeah, we were good. We were really good. But they were better. And one day, we learned that the hard way. We were doing a job with an area that was full of families that had to be moved out and then repatriated to some other desert town with more dirt and heat than anything else. Most of those families were ready to get out of there. No one really resisted. Except for one…”

Chester looked around in his pockets for his Benson and Hedges. I was not going to stop him over some stupid by-law. He lit up, and breathed through the blue air.

“It was a mother and her boy. Just the two of them. I guess the father was long gone or was…taken out. By us or by the ones we were fighting, no one knew. No one really cared to ask. Our job wasn’t to ask questions. We were the cleaners that made things safe. Still remember the boy’s face. Still remember the mom not looking directly at us.”

The cigarette was turning to ash in his hand.

“They said it was a toy. A little doll of some kind that was left in a crawlspace. Not a thing you would notice unless you were going to drop to your hands and knees and look at every crack and hole in the place. I was in that room for so long that I have it all mapped out in my head even today. Maybe that’s why I went back.”

One long draw on the cigarette and Chester stared back at the counter.

“That’s why I went back. You get to feeling like something is missing, something just does not click. And I guess I was right because I woke up from a blast in a hospital with a nurse sorting out pills and a note on my table citing me for ‘bravery beyond exception’ from some major I never met. Also had metal in my leg that they could not fish out right away and a limp that never quits.”

He crushed the cigarette into the grease of his eggs and muffin.

“So, that’s mine. Who’s next?”

No one wanted to say a word. That was why Mitch had to open his mouth.

“You all know mine.”

I was confused, as were Chester and Sal. We knew Mitch for years and probably had most of his story in our heads. But I didn’t get it.

“We know..?”

“My dad.” He pulled the broom out from behind the main door to the place, regarding it for a moment before starting in with his story. “Came home one night drunk out of his head. Mom had the gun ready this time. Fill the blanks in, folks.”

“Yeah, we know about that one, son, but…”

Mitch waved his hand at Sal. “You got one part of the story. Not the whole thing. Not the reason why that was the night she took him out. It was because of me.”

He stood facing all of us, hands on his hips, like he was about to order us about or something.

“He would get drunk and wail on her, me, my sister – God bless – and that particular night was their wedding anniversary.”

We must have made a real audience of idiots that night. All we read about in the news and heard from the police was that he was drunk and tried to take down his wife. She had passed several years ago, as did the daughter, so we did not want to pile things onto the kid’s already overflowing plate.

“Jesus, Mitch…”

He looked at me and grinned through a sour laugh. “Yeah, Jesus, God, and all the saints in Vatican City. Ain’t one of them involved in my story.”

We all laughed a little at that. The sun was coming closer to that point where I’d have to start pulling down shades so it would not reflect too hard and blind us in here.

“So, we all got a story.” Sal sat back and grinned.

“Yeah, I guess we do.” Chester scratched his beard and grinned at all of us.

“Well, not all of us.” Mitch joined them on the last seat by the door.

They were all looking at me.

Well, it was my fault, right? I got the ball rolling and said that I wanted to hear something that I had never heard before from them or me. Something that would get us all away from the boredom and routine of this place. But I had nothing.

“Well? You gotta share?”

I really felt stuck.

Maybe I needed something to happen.

And, just as the sun was about to glare, it did.

A car was heard off in the distance.

We all noticed it.

From what we could hear, it was gunning really hard to get to where it was going. And as I looked out a window that needed to be covered, I saw that it was a pretty nice open top jeep, better than any vehicle I had ever serviced, cleaned or gassed up for anyone at that stop.

It pulled up to the pumps, causing the rarely heard bell to ring in the station.

There was only one guy there, a young kid with his baseball cap on (wrong team for the area), out-of-state plates (very bad), and a very aggressive lean on the horn (nice touch).

Maybe I would have a story after all…

I walked past the three and went out into the heat.