The Inn

by D. R. Mather

  “So this stranger, he sits back down after the episode with Billy and says, “I think I’ll have a cheeseburger””

  “NO PROBLEM MISTER”, I respond, in a calm form of panic! I look at Emma and she looks like she just pissed her pants. Emma sits back down, but she’s moved to the far right of the stools now. She keeps trying to glance at him without looking like she’s glancing. I put in the order to the cook out back, then I turn to the man and ask if he would like some onion rings or fries to go with that. He just moves his head left to right.

  “I guess he doesn’t want anything with it,” I say to the cook. Now I’m really curious, I ask him if he’s passing through.

  “Sort of,” he tells me. Then he starts asking about Mr. Grant.

  “Oh him,” I say. He’s a thief and as far as I’m concerned a murderer as well. He stole my dad’s garage business when he talked dad into becoming partners with him. Dad lost everything because of Grant; personally, I think it’s what put my father in his grave. Mr. Grant is like that, he stole half this town by one means or another.

  Now Emma tries to get into the conversation and adds, “The guys a fucking pig.”

  I apologize to him on behalf of Emma and tell the man that Emma was raised in a zoo with Baboons. The joke goes un-noticed.

  So I had to ask…

  “Why”?

  “The stranger tells me he has business with him. I don’t like the sound of that. We don’t need anyone teaming up with Mr. Grant. But I never said that out loud. However, the stranger looks over his cup and says to me, “Don’t worry, there won’t be any teaming up.””

  I almost passed out. Emma misses a lot of things; she missed that one as well.

  When his burger is ready, I bring it over and hand him the ketchup. Habit, you know.

  “No thanks,” he says, “this will do just fine.”

  “He begins eating and I suddenly realize something. For the past five minutes, Emma and I have just been staring at him, neither one of use uttering a single word. I instantly turn to her and start adding to a conversation that we haven’t even had. Something about some design doodad I had little to no interest in at all. It was actually rather funny to watch. Both of us are talking to each other, answering and making comments about something neither of us even know anything about. We are both just mentally locked on this guy to our left, yet we’re trying so hard to show (with very bad results, mind you), what little interest we have towards him. Finally, Emma can’t take the tension anymore.

  “Cindy, I have to go now,” she says, standing up. “Are you coming to the dance next week?”

  “I tell her I’ll have to think about it, and off she goes, heading to the door. Moving rather quickly I should add. Not quick enough though! The man reaches out and takes her hand.

  “It was very nice to meet you Emma.”

  “Yea…yeah, you too.”

  “He squeezes her hand firmly and Emma blushes. Can you imagine that, Emma blushing? I swear that woman has slept with half the men in this town and that’s one thing I’ve never seen her do. And there it was again – I don’t recall ever calling Emma by her name while this man was here. It’s as if this man was here every night for the past five years and knew all the players.

  “Some time goes by and he’s had a second coffee already. He suddenly turns his head to the right and looks at me. I feel myself melting in his eyes. He asks me a question; I have to ask him to repeat it because I’m not sure I’ve even heard it.”

  “What time do you get off your shift?”

  I have no idea why I even answered, but I did.

  “2 am,” I say. He tells me he’ll wait outside after he’s finished in here.

  The man gets up around 1.30 am and hands me $20.00 for the burger and coffee. “Keep the change.”

  “Thank you, sir” is all I can muster myself. And out he goes, into the night air.

  Thank you Sir? I think to myself, Nice Cindy, really smooth. I may not need a man now in my life, but I hope to have one someday. If I choke like that, it’ll never happen!

  “What was I thinking by telling him when I got off shift? Should I have the cook walk me to my car after I get out? No, for some strange reason I think it won’t be necessary. I don’t have a clue as to why I would think this, I’ve been taught to protect myself from this very sort of thing. I can’t help myself though; I stare at the door so I can see if he’s waiting out there. Time to clean up Billy’s mess I think. Over at the booth I can see some of the parking lot because of the lights outside. There’s a car off to the right but I can’t make it out from where I am, there’s just way too much glair on the windows.

  At 1:50 am, Ronda comes in from the front doors.

  “Ronda, did you see anyone in the parking lot?” I ask as I walk over to her.

  “I think I saw a car over near the back side, why?”

  “Amm…never mind, are you about ready to take on the booze crowd?”

  “Sugar, is anyone ever ready for the booze crowd?” We both get a chuckle from that.

  “Things are racing through my head at break-neck speed. Should I? Shouldn’t I? Should I just call the cops? I finally settle with going out to meet him. He doesn’t seem, you know, crazy or evil or nothing. And who could blame anyone for the way Billy acted? The man saw a problem, fixed it, and no one got hurt, end of story.

  “At 2:10 a.m. I walk out the front door. There he is, standing at the driver’s side door of the most amazing 1969 Mustang I’ve ever seen. My dad owned a garage. I know cars. Its midnight black with the full moon glistening off of it. It has a full hood scoop, a large one too. There are louvers on the rear windows as well as the back side glass. It even has side pipes and an awesome set of mag wheels. Those tires must be over a foot wide! The car was just beautiful!

  “He walks around to the passenger door and opens it, never saying a word to me. I walk up to him, stare at his eyes for five seconds or so, and then get in. He walks around the front of the car and gets in on his side, then starts it up. The rumble is tremendous! I don’t ask how much it has, but you can bet it is one major power plant. He takes off from the parking lot and I think I’m going to get sucked right through the front seat and into the back.”

  “WOW”, I say, “try to keep me in one piece will ya?” He never looks at me, he just drives. I wasn’t going to tell him that it was a major thrill.

  “He never asks where I live. He just simply drives me there, like he’s done it every day. I get out of his car and walk to my door. He follows me into the apartment and I allow him to enter in front of me. He looks around to the left and right, then turns back to me. We waste no time. I take his hand and walk him to the bedroom.

  “He takes me, and I let him. I may never make love again. No one could match him. He took me to heights I never knew existed in me. Places in my mind I’d never been. For hours it went on. I think we released enough body heat to warm a small part of deep space. When we were finished, he got off the bed, went over to my chair and sat naked in it. It was dark in the room, but there was a sudden flash of light from his lighter. He sat there in the dark, never saying a word, just smoking his cigarette. I, in turn, just sat in the bed with my back against the headboard and stared in his direction. I got brave enough to ask him if he ever considered that I might not allow smoking in my apartment. From out of the dark I heard one word.

  “No.”

  “He has to put the ashes in his hand because I don’t have an ashtray. After that one word, he sits in silence for the entire time. As dawn approaches, he gets up and goes out into the kitchen. I’m guessing to get rid of his cigarette. He comes back in after a few minutes and dresses. I do the same.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “I don’t have time I’m afraid, but thank you for the offer.”

  “We don’t speak again until he walks to the door. He looks me in the eyes and says it was wonderful to meet me and he thanks me. He turns away from me and says he has to make things
right with Mr. Grant.”

  “May I at least ask your name?”

  He stops, spins on his heels, smiles a great smile and says, “Kevin.”

  “As he was walks to his car, he spins around once again and comes back over to me.

  “You have the gift of man,” he says. He puts his hand on my belly and then continues, “The fate of mankind rests with you now. I have work to do.” Kevin returns to his car, gets in and drives off to town.

  “As he drives away, my hand goes to my belly without me even noticing. The dawn is rising; the sky begins to lighten; a new dawn for men. But first, we have the hell that comes for us all. He brings it with him. He has a mission. He was sent for our salvation. I pity the wicked. For a brief instant I see his work. Hell walks at his heels. Mankind is never going to be the same.

  “I walk back into my apartment, and sitting on the kitchen table is an envelope with writing on it. ‘FOR YOUR SCHOOLING’ is printed on the front. I open it up and see the money. What’s a girl to do? I count it. In front of me lies $40,000.00 dollars. I sit and I cry. That’s what a girl can do.”

  ***

  Billy got home soon after the encounter, quietly walked into the bedroom and undressed. His wife was lying in their bed, so he slipped beneath the covers. He just lay there in the dark and stared at nothing but the ceiling; tears were slowly rolling down his cheeks. His wife turned to look at him and then sat up on one elbow. She wasn’t sure what to make of this because Billy wasn’t like this. She couldn’t think of one single time that she’d seen him cry.

  “Billy, what’s wrong?”

  He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then he rolled to face her. He lightly took her chin into his hand and pulled her a bit closer.

  “Michelle, I’m sorry, for everything,” he said. “Things are going to be different from now on.” He kissed her gently and lay back down. She was confused and would have to think this over. She fell back to sleep without a word spoken back to Billy.

  To this day, as far as anyone knows, Billy has never had another drop to drink. He soon figured out that all the people he thought were friends, were the ones who helped him into the hell that made up his life. After he stopped drinking, only a few stuck around. The rest simply moved on to the next drinking buddy on the list. Billy didn’t miss them.

  He just got promoted to Foreman at the shop, now he has his eye on something in upper management. Everyone truly hopes he gets it.

  ***

  Emma woke up the next morning and decided enough was enough. She took out her old sketch book and began to draw some designs. Maybe Emma would get what she wanted. After that evening, maybe anything could be possible.

  ***

  Mr. Grant was as arrogant an asshole as you’d ever meet. There was filth and there was the king of filth. Grant may have fit into the latter of the two. His sole purpose in life was to make money in any way he could. He didn’t seem to have a functioning soul that anyone could find. He just took everything he could; from whomever he could take it. There was nothing that could better describe him, so it was best to leave it at that. We all know a ‘Mr. Grant’ in life.

  Grant walked down the path early in the morning to get his paper, when a man in a trench coat approached him. He didn’t introduce himself but only said, “Mr. Grant?”

  Grant turned to him and already looked pissed because his morning routine was about to be disturbed. The man simply reached out and touched Grant’s right shoulder.

  “I think you’ve done enough...” He said.

  Grant’s eyes became vacant and he dropped to the ground. The man in the trench coat walked away and Mr. Grant was no more.

  The evening newspaper had a story on the tragic death of Mr. Grant. It seemed he had a massive coronary while walking to get his newspaper that morning.

  Chapter Two

  As he began to open his eyes, he felt the dream fade away. It was a beautiful mansion, dark stone with a silhouette of people standing around it. There were no faces, only silhouettes. The word destiny floated just out of sight in his mind, then it too was gone.

  He tried to open his eyes but as with most of us, they resisted. A few rapid blinks later and he’d reached for a cigarette, assuming his normal routine of many years. He lay in bed and thought while he had his first smoke of the evening.

  “The agreement was nice but I could have made it a little nicer. Maybe I could have thrown in something about shaving; I hate shaving. The ‘voice’ could have made my facial hair just stop growing.”

  There were a few other small things he could have made in this agreement, things that could have made life easier.

  As he continued to smoke he considered the chances of insanity. Could it be possible that he went over the deep end? Would he even know if he had? The voice, it was so real, so overwhelming. Besides, after the agreement was struck, didn’t everything in it become reality?

  He still remembered the first time he had heard the ‘voice’ in his head. The voice had talked as if it were a person standing directly in front of him; there had been no skips in the sentences like you would have if you were just thinking of things in your mind. None of that ‘drifting off mid-thought to a completely new thought. No, these had been clear sentences. The voice had said he was going to be given the chance to be a redeemer if he wished. The choice would be up to him though. He began to ask what he needed to do, and how he would be able to do it. The voice had instructed him clearly.

  “If I do all of this for you, what do I get in return?”

  The voice had said that he would never want for anything again, but this would come with a set of rules. For an entire hour, the rules had been laid out and the deals and bargains had been agreed upon. He had finished off the ‘head’ meeting by saying, “It looks like you have yourself a savior.”

  And so his new life began. Away went the bottles that he spent so much time swimming into the bottom of. That was part of the agreement. He got to keep the cigarettes, which was another part of the agreement. He would learn how and when to expect the newest instructions, and he would know things that he shouldn’t know, like Cindy for instance. He knew where to find her and why he had to go to her. Cindy would play an important role, though she didn’t know it.

  As he finally finished his smoke, he thought again about how he had no use for alarm clocks. He seemed to be able to wake up at the same time every evening – seven o’clock on the dot. Getting up, he walked across the room and into the bathroom. As he stared at himself in the mirror, he smiled a tiny smile.

  “Kevin, how the hell did you end up here?”

  He knew the answer well. It was ‘the voice’. As Kevin began shaving he felt the fear inside him.

  “So much blood on my hands; what if I’m wrong about the voice? What about those I dispatch: do they really deserve it, or am I just an insane serial murderer? Well, if the voice isn’t real, then the whole thing is only a dream because there’s a lot more happening than just the dispatching of evil men. There are a lot of other things that keep showing up all the time as well. Like my wallet and my backpack; how about the fact that no-one ever complains about me smoking in ‘no smoking’ rooms, or a hundred other little things?”

  His meals were easy enough. If he couldn’t go out to get food, all he had to do was open his large backpack and a meal awaited him. A miracle in itself? No, this wasn’t about miracles, this was about the salvation of mankind. There was only what needed to be, in order to keep him functioning; it was a part of the agreement as well as the rest. He got what he wanted as long as it didn’t go against the rules of his mission. He couldn’t become a criminal or prey on people, he couldn’t take money from the people he dispatched or sent for redemption, and he was allowed NO alcohol at all. His wallet was absolutely amazing; open it up and the amount he needed for any transaction would appear in front of him. Not a penny more or less.

  If he wanted money to go and play pinball for a day, the wallet would be empty. If he saw a beggar
and knew he was for real, the wallet could have twenty dollars in it, maybe even a hundred dollars. Sometimes it would have nothing. Yet Kevin couldn’t just stand on a street corner and start handing out money to everyone. The wallet would be empty before he even tried once. Apparently the wallet knew something it wasn’t telling Kevin.

  Everything was done according to the agreement. If it wasn’t within the realm of the agreement, he couldn’t do it. His final reward would come after his work was done. That’s what the ‘voice’ said anyway. However, Kevin wondered, when was it ‘done’?

  Kevin wandered around the hotel room, waiting for the names he needed for his evening mission. He knew the time they would come: 8 p.m. sharp. A smell of mint in the air, and it hit him dead in the center of his brain.

  ‘I smoke too much,’ Kevin thought and then snickered,’ but hell, it’s a part of the agreement; I can smoke all I want without any adverse effects. That was a good one on my part, I have to admit.’

  Eight o’clock; the voice came; he had his names and the locations. It was time he was off. He left the hotel room and found the night was warm and the air dry. He had places to go.

  ***

  Congressman Paul Rhodes was smiling again. The deal with Mr. Grant should work out great.

  ‘With Grant on my side, I’ll take it all; to hell with those peons who vote!’ he thought.