Sunny Side Diner

TW: substance abuse, gore

Orville Ballard sat in his usual booth at the Sunny Side Diner, nestled in a far corner. The cracked vinyl seat covers poked through his khaki pants and into the backs of his legs. He shifted, but there was no safe space on the seat cushion. The vinyl creaked with his movement. 

Sitting before him on the table was an off-white mug filled with coffee. Steam rose from the mug in soft curls that disappeared almost instantly. With weathered fingers, Orville picked up a creamer and pulled back the foil lid. He poured the contents into the cup and gave it a swirl with a scratched and chipped spoon. Orville plucked two white packets of sugar, ripped the tops off, and dumped the sugar into his coffee, finishing with another stir.

He lifted the cup to his lips and inhaled. The bitter aroma filled his nose and throat. His muscles in his head and neck relaxed. Orville took a long sip that burned the tip of his tongue before it swept down his throat and into his stomach. 

A satisfied “ahh” escaped his lips. 

The time was well after two in the morning. There were very few other patrons in the diner, which was open twenty-four hours. A group of rowdy kids, likely drunk, were on the other side of the diner, eating pancakes and plates of bacon while shouting over each other, recounting stories of the night. 

An older man sat at the counter, eating a sandwich and reading the previous day’s newspaper. Orville saw the older man frequently but did not know his name. 

The other patron was a young woman, still wearing her uniform from the diner. Her shift ended at two in the morning each day, and afterward, she’d eat a free meal, usually lingering over a coffee or iced tea. Premature lines circled her eyes and mouth, and heavy shadows dragged at the bottom of her eyes. Her long hair was braided, as usual, though many strands were slipping from the knots. Orville always felt terrible for the young woman. He wondered what circumstances led her to be a night shift waitress at an all-night diner, with a look like she never had time to sleep.

He supposed that whatever brought her to this place in time was hardly different than his wn circumstances - drinking coffee in the middle of the night at a subpar diner. 

Orville took another sip of coffee. The temperature was no longer scalding on his tongue. The table of drunk kids erupted in laughter at some anecdote. The fry cook and the old man at the counter both shifted their gazes towards the kids.

The bell over the door rang, catching the attention of the patrons. Orville glanced up. A young woman entered the diner. Her curly blonde hair was piled on top of her head in a knot, and her long, Bohemian dress smothered her thin body in material and fringe. She glanced around the diner, spotted Orville, and smiled. She strode across the diner and slipped into the booth, sliding over the cracked vinyl. 

“Hey, Orvy,” she said, lacing her fingers together and leaning forward over the table. Orville cringed inwardly at the nickname and took another sip of coffee. 

“Letty,” Orville mumbled in reply. He could smell marijuana and incense drifting from Letty’s clothes and hair. 

“I knew I’d find you here,” Letty said. As she spoke, she twisted a metal bangle around her wrist. 

“What do you want, Letty?” 

Letty jutted out her lower lip in a pout. “You’re so mean to me,” she whined. Orville stared at her, unblinking. “I need more oxy.” 

Orville shook his head. “No.” 

“Come on, Orvy,” she whined, reaching her hands across the table. Her knuckles bumped his coffee mug, sloshing some of the coffee onto the table. Orville wrinkled his nose. “You know how my leg bothers me.” 

Orville shook his head. 

“Please?” He shook his head once more. A dark look flashed across her face. “It’s your fault I’m like this,” she mumbled, averting her eyes from him. 

That wasn’t entirely true. When Orville met Letty, she was already a heavy cocaine user and was quickly drifting into heroin. Orville pulled her away by convincing her to stick to pot and maybe the occasional opioid. A very stubborn refusal met his suggestion that she get clean. 

“I could just go back to heroin, you know,” she added, lifting her eyes to the ceiling. The guilt trip. She usually saved it for later. “Ty has a hook-up.” 

Ty. The new boyfriend. Orville had met him once when they both had come to the diner looking for drugs. He was a top-notch douchebag if Orville had ever met one. It didn’t help that Orville felt responsible for Letty’s well-being. She was fifteen years younger than him, and they had dated for several years before her drug problem became too much for Orville to deal with. 

He knew how hypocritical that sounded. 

Orville sighed. “You don’t need to turn to heroin. Why don’t you go to the doctor to find out why your leg hurts all the time?” Letty waved a hand at him. 

“They’ll just drug test me, and I’ll get in trouble. Or they’ll say nothing is wrong with me,” Letty said. Orville lifted an eyebrow. 

“And take away your justification for using?” he asked. She rolled her eyes and turned her body towards the edge of the booth. 

“You can never just be chill,” she mumbled, hoisting herself to her feet. As if to emphasize her complaints, she limped towards the door, dragging one leg as she moved. Of course, Orville had seen her limp on the other leg in the past. 

Orville pulled his eyes from Letty’s retreating figure and took another sip of his coffee. It had rapidly become lukewarm and unpleasant. Diner coffee was only good when scalding hot. He waved over the waitress, who refilled his cup with a pot of coffee that could have been made the previous night, for all he knew. The bells over the door jingled as Letty stepped outside. 

He plucked a creamer from the little bowl on the table and ripped back the lid. As he turned the little cup over his coffee mug, a horrible screech cut through his ears. Orville dropped the creamer and the white liquid spilled across the table. The sound of a crash followed the screeching, and in a moment, everyone in the diner was on their feet. 

The waitress on duty was the first person to the front door, with Orville and the drunk kids close behind. The waitress flung open the door of the diner, so hard the glass rattled in the pane when it struck the exterior of the building. They flooded out into the parking lot. 

“Letty…” Orville pushed past the gathered diner patrons and rushed to the accident. A pickup truck appeared to have struck Letty, swerved, and ran into another vehicle parked in the diner parking lot. One of the drunk kids cried out in horror and ran to his car, which was now crushed, almost like an accordion. 

“Noo! That car was brand new,” he cried, running his hands over the body as if he could smooth out the damage. 

Orville turned his attention back to Letty, who was lying on the ground, unmoving. He lurched forward, his heart jumping up into his throat. Orville dropped to the ground beside Letty, just as the truck’s engine shut off. He gathered the girl up in his arms, despite the warnings from the fry cook behind him. 

Letty was still in his arms, her breathing shallow in her chest. Orville shook her, trying to wake her, but her eyes remained closed. A trickle of blood seeped from between her lips and down her chin. 

“Letty!” Orville shouted, willing her to wake up. 

“Step back, son.” 

Orville looked up, an angry rebuke in his throat, when he saw the old man who’d been sitting at the counter. The man knelt down beside Orville and pulled the young woman from Orville’s arms.

“I was a doctor for over forty years, son,” the man said, his eyes focused on Letty. His fingers fluttered about her neck and jawline, searching for her pulse. His other hand gripped her wrist, his fingers pressed to the thin, underside skin.

A thought crossed Orville’s mind, wondering why a retired doctor was eating at a diner in the middle of the night. 

“Steve!” 

A woman shrieked, cutting through the nervous silence that had settled among the diner customers. Orville swiveled his head, searching for the source of the shriek. The off-duty waitress rushed forward, her apron wadded in her hands in tight balls. She circled around the truck and ripped open the driver’s side door. 

Curious and restless, Orville rose to his feet and watched as the waitress pulled a man from the driver’s seat of the truck. The man, clearly intoxicated, stumbled out onto the pavement and slumped into the woman’s arms. The distant sound of sirens filled the air. 

“She’s gone,” the old man said from Orville’s feet. Orville blinked and looked down at Letty’s frail body, now lying prone on the pavement. While the waitress screamed at ‘Steve,’ the driver of the truck, Orville sank to his knees and gathered Letty’s body up in his arms. She was still warm, which seemed strange to him. Perhaps it was normal. 

The darkness of the parking lot was soon banished by flashing red and blue lights. Several police cruisers, an ambulance, and a fire truck all halted in front of the diner, blocking parts of the road and the entrance to the parking lot. 

The waitress continued to berate Steve. Through the haze in his mind, Orville heard phrases like “mother fucker,” and “how could you?” He was soon surrounded by police officers while two EMTs crouched down on either side of Letty. Before gently pushing him away from her body, Orville plucked a chip of red car paint from her breastbone, embedded where the truck had struck her.