by C. L. Donley
“I didn’t know I was going to a fuckin’ sit-in tonight. You’re one hell of a date.”
“Is that what this is??” I grinned.
Jo sighed one of her sighs.
“Fine. But let’s get this shit to go. Please.”
9
Chapter 9
If there had been music playing when Adam and Jo entered the small diner, it would’ve stopped abruptly. Probably with a record scratch.
Jo didn’t look around, and no one looked at Jo. And that was almost worse. No one was curious. At all. They just ate and ate, about a dozen people scattered in booths or at the counter, like they’d all had a conversation before she and Adam entered. Jo kept her eye at the back of Adam’s red and black gingham shirt until the menu was in sight above the counter.
“Adam,” the guy behind the counter greeted him. He was tall and lanky and right on the cusp of moving from teenager to adult. He’d waited on Jo once or twice the few times she came over for work, but Jo didn’t expect any recognition back. People didn’t really move in or out of Bethesda.
“Jesse.”
“How’s Gus and them?”
“You haven’t seen ‘em?”
“Corey once or twice. Said work’s pickin’ up,” the boy said.
“For now. Lookin’ for somethin’?”
“Maybe. Dan’s got me workin’ like a slave.”
“Thought you were the manager?” Adam smirked.
“I am.”
“Can’t tell you it’s any different workin’ for us, but when you’re ready to make some real money, let me know.”
If Adam thought Jesse’s choice of words was strange at all he didn’t let it show. Jo was busy trying to make herself invisible. She’d never been more uncomfortable in her life.
“Know what you want?” Adam glanced over at her.
“I’ll have whatever you have,” Jo meekly replied.
“Then I’ll have the liver and onions.” Adam tested her.
“You think I can’t fuck up some liver and onions?”
“JoAnn. Order,” Adam used the full name variant of his stern address. She took it to mean that he really meant business. She smiled.
“Just get me a burger.”
“Cheese?” the young man asked.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“Toppings?”
“Sure.”
“No. What kind of toppings,” he clarified.
“Everything.”
“Jo…” Adam groaned.
“I want everything!” she quietly exclaimed, trying to convince him. “Lettuce, onions, pickles, mayo ketchup, mustard…”
“Jesus,” Adam muttered. The two exchanged a look like Jo was insane. But it seemed to loosen Jesse up.
“I waited on her before,” he directed at Adam and not Jo.
“I remember,” Jo offered.
“Your mom runs that flower shop,” the young man said without looking up from the register. He seemed like he didn’t talk to many girls and needed the practice.
“On Main, that’s right.”
“Gimme the same thing, with extra jalapenos,” Adam rattled off, while Jo ventured a look around. She caught a few little kids, a boy and girl, craning their necks at a booth in the back to look at her. She didn’t even think about waving. They each just played a few seconds of innocent curiosity chicken before the children won out and Jo was forced to look away.
“Is that all for you?”
“That’s it,” Adam replied. He paid for the food and they moved to the vacant edge of the counter and kept to themselves. He took a toothpick out of the dispenser with a ‘told you so’ air, but he wasn’t as confident to say it out loud. The simmering tension around them won out. Jesse worked the large industrial griddle with seasoned grace and their order was done within minutes.
“Thanks, Jesse,” Adam sent behind him and Jo on the way out, temporarily breaking their chat.
Jesse didn’t answer back. That should’ve been her first clue, but Jo was more happy to just make it out of there without incident.
Adam held the door open for Jo as they made it back to the truck. She waited until she was safely in its confines to take a long-held breath. She looked over at Adam who was just grinnin’ away with his toothpick doing a little dance inside his mouth.
“I hope you don’t think you just proved something in there,” Jo said to him as she faced the windshield.
“You’re walkin’ on the wild side now, ain’tcha Jo,” he proudly grinned.
“Don’t ever take me back there again, Adam.”
“Don’t ever take me back there again, Adam. Where should I take you next time?” he asked. He was always finding hidden permission in her words. She didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing.
“Just drive.”
Adam started up the truck and off they went. He handed her the bag and instantly she was trying to get a crinkle-cut fry into her mouth without burning it.
“JoJo, if you wanted fries, you shoulda ordered ‘em.”
“You’re not gonna eat all these,” she argued, taking one more as he pulled off. They were only a little down the road before he was asking for his burger.
“How can you focus on eating while driving?” Jo asked.
“That’s how I usually eat.”
Jo took out one of the piping hot burgers wrapped in white paper and covered in grease. One thing about Bethesda, at least their food was still 50 years behind the times too. The first burger was marked “N” with fat Sharpie marker.
“What’d you order?”
“Same thing you did. Mine had jalapenos.”
Maybe the “N” one was hers, Jo reasoned. For… “no jalapenos.” She unwrapped it a bit, and neither smelled nor saw the presence of peppers. She always liked the idea of spice, but could never handle the execution. Jo chanced a bite anyway and couldn’t hide her enthusiasm for the buttery crust on the edge of the bun and the burger patty itself.
“Jo!” Adam said impatiently.
“Alright, alright, calm down.”
She pulled out the other sandwich that had yet another designation, one that was no clearer.
“What’s ‘NL’ mean?”
“What?”
“Your sandwich, it says ‘NL’,” she innocently said.
Adam had a distressed look as he sighed a sigh of inconvenience. She was surprised how quickly he managed to find a place to whip his huge truck around with a 3 point turn across the empty two-lane highway. She held onto the bag of food as the truck lurched at his command.
“What’s wrong?” Jo asked, his demeanor still casual enough that she didn’t panic.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You forget something?”
“God dammit!”
Jo jolted. Okay, now she was panicking.
“Adam, what the fuck…”
He had his elbow bent and propped up against the window and a thumb rubbing his brow, slowly shaking his head, thinking. The eagle perched atop his swastika poked through the dual layers of his rolled-up sleeves.
Then it came to her.
‘NL’ meant nigger-lover. The nigger-lover’s burger. Jo was eating the nigger’s burger. Jo wondered what Jesse meant by the strategy of making it fucking delicious.
“Don’t take another bite of that,” Adam said when she raised it to her lips.
“What, you think he did something to it?”
“I know he did.”
“We were watching him the whole time.”
“The whole time, Jo?”
Jo thought back at her time leaning against the counter. She was astounded how little memory she had of watching Jesse cook her burger. She just saw Adam’s broad shoulders leaning in wait against the counter, Adam tucking a piece of hair behind his ear. Adam’s eyes not as blue as they usually are, as though turned off. Or sleeping. Plenty of time to let a silent string of spit make the journey from Jesse’s mouth to Jo’s “everything” burger, likely in full view of
the conspicuously silent patrons.
“What’s the matter with him? I thought he was your friend,” she wondered.
“I barely know that little shit.”
It didn’t take them long to roll back up to the cafe, and Jo’s body prepared itself for fight or flight, it’s decision still not entirely clear. Only a few patrons had left in the time it took them to return, this time right up to the entrance, so close that Jo could’ve jumped inside from the hood. Several guys instantly leaped up and headed for the door when they saw Adam’s truck careening through the parking lot. An indication to Jo that he wasn’t just being paranoid. Instead of emptying out of the cafe, they just stood on the other side of the door, having locked it.
“Come on,” Adam directed Jo.
“What? Why?”
“Because he’s gonna get our order right this time.”
“I shoulda just stayed in the car.”
“Listen to me, Jo. Stayin’ in the car is not a fuckin’ strategy.”
“And this is??”
Adam walked over to Jo’s side and opened her door. The last thing she wanted to do was whatever they were about to do, but she knew he wouldn’t leave her alone until she got out. She found herself again eyeing his red and black gingham as she followed closely behind him.
“We’re closed,” a muffled voice came through the glass.
“The hell you are. Open up.”
“Fuck you, traitor.”
Adam banged on the glass with one meaty arm. The reverberation of the glass had them all standing at attention.
“Hey! You gonna be payin’ for that broken glass, Kerr!”
“Stand back,” he said to Jo. He ripped off his red and black shirt revealing a plain white tee. His swastika was nearly in full view and seemed to be waving like a flag in the wind.
Jo knew what he was about to do. The average person treated the breaking of glass like an incomparable loss. The way it shatters has almost a traumatic association in people’s minds. But it wasn’t either. And Adam knew that better than most. Probably ran the closest company to call to come out and fix it. Even Jo knew it wouldn’t be more than a grand to replace.
Adam wrapped the shirt around his forearm and elbow and the glass gave way around it. This is really fucking impulsive was all Jo could think as she watched everyone backing away while he reached inside the door frame for the lock like a burglar. The open door swept some of the glass away and he held the door open for Jo to again enter. She didn’t want to. She was surrounded by crackers on every side, and she just wanted to go home.
The glass crunched beneath her feet as she made a futile attempt to avoid it on her way back to the counter. Jesse was still behind it, except he wasn’t focused on Jo, he had his eyes on an angry Adam behind her. Jesse looked scared, but he was doing his best to stare Adam down.
“Who put you up to it?”
“Nobody.”
“Last chance, Jesse.”
“That was for Cheyenne,” Jesse put on a brave voice.
“Oh Jesus,” was all Adam said in response.
Cheyenne was a barely legal girl he’d dated when he first moved to Bethesda. She’d been a virgin, according to her. But the way the town reacted, it must’ve been true. Seemed a lot of young men had been waiting to take a crack at her before he got there.
“I’m callin’ the cops,” Jesse threatened.
“Call those sons a’ bitches. And fire up that griddle while you’re at it, because we’re in a hurry.”
“I told you, we’re clo—”
Before Jesse could finish his statement, Adam was charging toward the other side of the counter like a father about to whoop his kid in a shopping mall. Jesse cowered in fear.
“Somebody get this motherfucker!” he yelled, but nobody moved. The handful of guys watching the spectacle seemed to back off with a certainty that made Jo wonder what they knew about Adam that she didn’t. They seamlessly became distant spectators in Jesse’s encroaching pain.
“Turn this goddamn griddle on, Jesse!”
“I’m not makin’ you shit!”
“Is that what I fuckin’ asked you?” he barked, taking hold of Jesse by the collar. He jostled him abruptly and Jesse reached for the controls with a newfound clarity. Adam gruffly let go of him and sent him flying until the wall slowed him down.
“C’mere, Jo,” Adam said. Jo followed him around the counter where the mechanized setup seemed to give away the diner’s deepest darkest secrets.
“You want cheese?”
“…yes.”
“Lettuce and tomato?”
“Yeah.”
“Pickles? Onions?”
“Everything, Adam,” Jo meekly informed him, feeling as though she would die right there. Racist or none, she was raised to think of others first. And right now, this room full of “others” was causing her compulsions to rise to the surface. They say they were being a bother was an understatement. She fought the urge to wrinkle her face in apology. Adam, however, was on a runaway boxcar on the “Zero Fucks” Express.
“You picked one hell of a hill to die on, Jesse, I tell you what,” Adam said, rummaging around the makeshift kitchen until he found what he was looking for, a stack of bright red meat separated thinly by waves of waxy paper. He put two on the angry griddle. The buns were in the same place, next to a huge bowl of melted butter. The condiments were all neatly bunched together in containers.
“Hand me those onions,” he said, grabbing a spatula from it’s hanging place on the handle spanning the extra-long grill station. Jesse just stood motionless against the wall as though time had stopped.
“I don’t like grilled onions on my burger,” Jo said.
“You’re crazy,” he said, pulling a simple black scrunchy off his wrist. He tied his shoulder-length hair back into a low ponytail with it. The hair in front wasn’t quite long enough to comply and a shiny golden piece dangled just out of reach of his eyes.
Oh lord.
He was utterly gorgeous. So hot it was ridiculous. Enough to make Jo forget herself and study his profile while he was hard at work, grilling onions. She quickly caught herself and then made the mistake of looking around to see if anyone had seen.
There were angry faces, including Jesse’s, whose face softened only slightly when his gaze met Jo’s. He didn’t seem apologetic, Jo surmised, but she could also tell that he didn’t like that he had to look her in the eye after being mean to her. For some reason, it had to be done. It was about her, and it wasn’t at the same time.
“You had to break the fuckin’ door, Kerr?” an anonymous voice muttered.
“Found some black pussy and now he’s fuckin’ Obama,” said another.
“It’s a goddamn embarrassment’s, what it is.”
“What the fuck,” the first guy added, followed by a few laughs.
Joe would’ve felt discouraged overhearing the comments at her back, but she did note that while their mouths were moving their feet were not, and everyone was speaking at the level of a lady’s whisper. They must have known that the likelihood Adam could hear their precise words over the hiss of the grill was slim to none.
With Adam by her side, Jo was infused with an unexpected boldness that she welcomed. She knew they wouldn’t touch her, and that if she were alone they would have. Out of shame, curiosity, and spite. An evil cocktail. But with Adam here, they wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Some seemed embarrassed when Jo looked in their direction, their gazes bounced away.
After a good while, she couldn’t believe how everyone was staying put. As if they just wanted this part of their lives to pass without touching them. Whatever was the equivalent of heroic for them, no one was doing it. Her awkwardness of the situation was starting to wane, while theirs stayed in place. She started to understand the kind of people who just did whatever they wanted. Because the reality was, the vast majority of the people around them weren’t going to do shit but let them.
“Make mine a double,” she said.
&nb
sp; “That’s the fuckin’ spirit, JoAnn,” Adam said, pointing his spatula at her face. She couldn’t help but smile and laugh as he put two more patties on, obviously inspired to make his a double too. She could never make this a habit. Even now she couldn’t look at anyone but Adam and the unspoken sentiments of the small crowd lapped at her flesh like the fires of hell.
“Make us somethin’ to drink,” he said.
“Uh…” Jo replied shakily. She spun around, heading towards the drink machine like she was in a relay race. “What do you want?”
“Just fill up a big ass cup full of soda.”
“What kind?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Jo made the soda, found some paper to wrap the burgers in and another to-go bag. She watched as he placed the hot burgers wrapped in paper into the big bag. She’d never been so hungry in her life. He handed it to her and made an “after you” gesture. Adam pulled a twenty out of his pocket on the way out and threw it at Jesse’s feet.
“Tell Dan I’ll send someone out to replace this glass you broke.”
“Me??”
“You. Monday.”
“Monday? What are we supposed to do ‘til then?”
“Figure that one out yourself, tough guy. Watch yourself, Jo,” Adam stopped her as she maneuvered around the glass near the front door. Needlessly he held the door open for her yet again, now nothing but a dangerous metal frame lined with frosted points of cutting shards.
“Oh, and that job offer still stands, faggot. In case Dan has you sendin’ out resumes after tonight.”
* * *
“Now this is a fuckin’ burger.”
“Adam, I think you missed your calling.”
“What the hell kinda soda did you get?”
“You don’t recognize cherry cola?”
“It’s fuckin’ refreshing.”
“Don’t drink all of it!”
Jo giggled as Adam nearly punctured a lung inhaling the carbonated contents of the 48-ounce cup covered in water droplets.
“You put too much ice in it,” he said after puncturing the atmosphere with a belch.
