by Various
I called to our sole patron, “You want another glass?”
The man, though his face was weathered by time and life, looked up with a smile.
“Sure thing. And maybe a little more ice this time?”
“You got it,” I replied and continued past the walk-up counter. Behind the last booth, a cozy drink station was tucked away, barely out of view.
I must’ve been watching the floor more than where I was going, because I didn’t see Martin coming my way until we nearly collided.
“Watch it,” he barked.
“Oh calm down. I’m here to give you your break.”
“Finally,” he sighed.
When I looked down and eyed the six or so cubes that bobbled around near the surface of the glass of water that he was holding, I dreaded saying anything. Martin wasn’t the friendliest guy in town. There was always an air about him, like he was perpetually bothered by the presence of whoever was around. It was hard to put a finger on it, but I got the distinct feeling that Collins wasn’t the kind of town for him. Whether or not he was a jerk, I couldn’t deny that he was meant to have a bigger life than whatever existed where we were.
“He wanted more ice,” I blurted out.
Martin just rolled his eyes, looking so exasperated that I thought for a moment he might sigh himself right into the ground.
“It’s your problem now, right?” He said and shoved the cup into my hand. “His order’s already in. I’m going out back.”
When he was a few feet away, I mumbled under my breath, “Sure thing, sunshine.”
After making up a whole new glass, I carried it back over to the man and set it down in front of him.
“Your food’s in the works, friend.”
He looked up over the rim of his empty glass with piercing, light brown eyes that were similar to my own and nodded.
“Hey, I forgot to mention it to that little punk you have running around here, but can you have the cook make those hash browns crispy?”
I wasn’t at all surprised that Martin left the guy with a bad impression. He did so with the roughly ninety-nine percent of Collins’ population that didn’t share his penchant for being a total dick. Still, that didn’t make it any easier for me when I had to follow behind him at work, appeasing the masses. One time, he managed to get six old guys worked up at once. Considering there were only about ten seats taken in the whole restaurant at the time, I couldn’t decide if I was pissed or impressed. By the time everyone was satisfied and no longer yelling, my sentiments leaned heavily toward the former. The one thing that did surprise me from time to time was the fact that Martin even treated members of the biker club the same way, no matter how hard they thought they were. Even the older fellow sitting in front of me looked like he would happily snatch someone up by the neck, given the opportunity.
“Extra crispy,” I repeated back to him. “Comin’ right up.”
Back through the swinging door that led into the kitchen, I found Alonso already hard at work. Both the bacon and potatoes were frying on the flat-top while two pieces of white bread waited in the toaster.
“Hey bud,” I called to him. “Homeboy wants those spuds crunchy.”
“Yes, sure.” He nodded and pressed the pile of shredded potatoes into the sizzling grease with the back of a long and wide spatula. The hot surface hissed loudly as water escaped and instantly vaporized in a plume of white-hot steam that danced about Alonso’s head before swirling into oblivion. He looked over and cleared his throat again. “What happened with that guy last night?”
I wasn’t sure why he was so interested, but I wasn’t exactly eager to give him a play-by-play of everything that happened, either.
“Why do you care?”
He scraped a few loose, burnt chunks off of the griddle and into a trap that ran along the front like a greasy moat.
“I don’t,” he said. “Well, I do, but not the way that you think.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
He tapped the end of the spatula against the cooktop a few times and finally looked over to meet my eyes.
“Do you know who he was?”
“Of course,” I quipped defiantly. “His name’s David.”
“And do you know what everyone else calls him?”
I shook my head.
“Boss. They call him Boss. Do you want to know why they call him that?”
Alonso was getting to the point, I was sure, but I wasn’t so sure about whether or not it was a good one. Something about his posture as he continued made him look nervous; almost defensive.
“No, I don’t know why they call him that.”
“Because, Roxy, he’s the president of their club.”
“You mean all those biker guys that have been around lately? What’s their name again?”
He sighed and flipped all of the food over once, starting with the bacon.
“Cascade Heat, but that doesn’t matter.”
I was getting a little impatient with Alonso. Sure, David might have been involved in some unsavory activities, but I didn’t see how that had anything to do with my personal life.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem,” he said he said angrily but immediately stopped and hushed his tone when he glanced through the service window at our customer and fellow member of the biker club. “The problem is that his wife is just as influential as he is.”
Though David was long gone, the memory of distant vanilla and other sweet, floral notes somehow tickled the back of my nose again. I guess I had prepared myself to hear something like this, but there was no way that I was ready to find out that I might’ve stepped on some powerful toes. It’s not that I was looking for trouble but, as it had for much of my life already, trouble seemed to have found me once again.
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Her name is Brooke. I met both of them at the market a couple weeks ago.”
The breath caught in the back of my throat and I had to swallow it back down again. Of course, I couldn’t deny that I knew something was up the night before, but I never expected for the potential ramifications to be so huge. If David’s wife found out, there was a good chance that I would have to leave town, but then what? I didn’t have anywhere to go.
“Then why the hell didn’t you stop me?!”
Alonso grabbed three eggs from a foam carton over his station and cracked them onto the griddle next to the amber hash browns. When that was done, he pressed down a toaster knob with his thumb.
“You know it wasn’t my place.”
As much as I wanted to argue, he was right. Still, if David did have a wife, why would he invite me to go out with him again? Was he that reckless, or was Alonso somehow mistaken? Maybe the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding.
No way, I reasoned with myself. He must be thinking of the wrong guy.
“If he has a wife, then why did he invite me out again on Saturday?”
Alonso raised an eyebrow but stayed focused on the frying eggs, which he expertly flipped all at once.
“Where?”
“I’m not sure. It’s an address near the border with Greenfield.”
“I don’t think you should go,” he said simply and shoveled the bacon and potatoes onto a long, off-white dish. When that was done, he went back in for the trio of eggs and shook them onto the plate. For the finishing touch, he slapped some butter between the two pieces of hot toast, sliced them diagonally and wedged them onto the top side of the plate.
“Why not?”
As he walked over to hand me the food, he sighed and shook his head.
“I don’t think it’s wise.” I grabbed the plate, but he didn’t let go. Obviously, he wasn’t finished yet. “Promise me you won’t go.”
I wasn’t ready to make promises to anyone, so I yanked the plate free and started toward the dining room without a response. Alonso looked disappointed and I hated to see him that way, but I wasn’t going to let him guilt me into
a decision.
When I set down the plate in front of the customer, he smiled and rubbed his stomach through his thick, leather vest. Emblazoned across the chest was the club’s name on the top and the man’s name, Chucky, on the bottom. On a single patch between them was a silhouette of the towering trees that flanked our small town in every direction. After everything that Alonso told me, seeing the gang’s insignia made me suddenly nervous. What if all of them found out? Hell, what if David already bragged to some of his buddies?
“Everything looking okay?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Let me know if you need anything else.”
“I will.”
I started to walk away and was almost to the door when the man’s voice made my heart skip a beat.
“Hey. Hey you.”
Whether it was rational or not, I fully expected to turn around and be confronted over what I had done. There was something in his voice that, in my guilty mind, sounded accusatory already.
I placed a hand on the wall to stabilize myself, turned to face him and tried to force out the plainest-sounding response possible.
“Yes?”
He eyed me for a second. Was the guy Brooke’s family? What if he was her father? What if she was on her way down at that very moment, her eyes stained with mascara and a baseball bat gripped in her angry fist? While I was aware that my mind had a penchant for running with sometimes outrageous possibilities, it didn’t make the fear any less real.
There was no denying it. I was both scared and helplessly tempted by David’s charm. I needed to see him again, but I already knew that doing so would come with some risk. If anyone found out, well, I didn’t really want to think about what might happen. As my customer sat with his hand against the coarse beard that clung to his deep-set cheeks, I felt like I was being torn in two. It took forever for him to finally say what was on his mind.
“Can I have some ketchup?”
My eyes slowly blinked and a heavy, relieved sigh hissed through my nostrils.
“Yeah. Sure. Coming right up.” I grabbed a red glass bottle from a tray under the counter and placed it next to his cup of water. “Enjoy.”
“And could you leave the check behind, Roxy?” he said casually. I was so paranoid that, for a split-second, I forgot about the nametag that was pinned to my chest and almost lost my cool. Seemingly unaware that I was on the brink of a nervous breakdown, the man continued, “I’ve got somewhere to be and can’t wait around. I have cash.”
I reeled in my slack-jawed look as best I could and fumbled through the front pocket of my apron. Thankfully, his ticket was the only one in there. With hands that trembled slightly, I tucked the bill under the corner of the napkin dispenser and made as graceful of an exit that I could muster.
When I went back into the kitchen, I made a bee line for the massive, two compartment sink and prep area along the same wall as the walk-in cooler. On the right side, a small mountain of tomatoes glistened after just being rinsed while a large cutting board and a bulky hunk of steel with a handle waited nearby. Not wanting to talk about the issue of David anymore, I washed my hands and got to work with my head down and my sights focused.
I grabbed the first tomato and dropped it into the ‘v’ shaped guard. With one, swift shove forward, a plunger pushed the tomato through razor-sharp blades that were placed at just the right distance apart to make perfect slices every time. It took almost nine months for me to convince Mr. Short to invest in the hundred-dollar kitchen gadget, but when he finally did, it felt like Christmas.
The second tomato plopped into the slicing machine but it was only part of the way through when Alonso shuffled over and threw a small towel over his shoulder.
“You’re not going, are you?”
My hand stopped, leaving half of the tomato dangling from between the blades.
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not a good idea.”
I slammed the slicer’s handle forward and propelled the half-finished pieces through so hard that they shot out of the end and slapped up against the stainless steel backsplash, sending little flecks of tomato pulp into the air. Stray drops of it spattered my and Alonso’s shirts, but neither of us paid it any attention. I trusted the man, but after the kind of people that I went through life with, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that I was perpetually unsure of peoples’ intentions. Was he maybe a little jealous, or was there really a legitimate reason to worry?
Despite Alonso’s pleas and every rational voice in my head that agreed with him, the animal need for David’s touch trumped all reason. I intended to be at the address he gave me on Saturday night, whether it was the right decision or not. I couldn’t help myself. I was already addicted to the growling groans that he made when his cock was buried deep and the way that his hands shamelessly claimed every inch of my body for his own.
“Promise me that you won’t go.”
“Okay,” I lied. “I won’t.”
“You’re sure?”
I hastily grabbed another tomato from the sink and went to work on its stem with a tiny paring knife.
“Look, I’ve got a ton of shit to do before I can go home and my head is killing me.”
Alonso sighed and replied, “Okay. I’m just looking out for you, you know.”
My shoulders deflated a little. When he wanted to make me feel like shit, he sure knew how to turn it on. It wasn’t going to change my decision; it just made going through with it much more difficult.
“I know you are, Alonso.”
“Then don’t go.”
“I won’t.”
He leaned over the side of the table and broke into my field of vision, forcing us to meet eyes when he asked, “You promise?”
I tried to swallow down a knot in the back of my throat that felt like the size of a walnut and faked a smile.
“I promise.”
Chapter 4
The cool air of twilight whipped through my hair as I crested a modest hill on my bicycle and started to coast down the road to the address that David left for me. Even though a speckling of tiny houses popped up from time to time, the towering trees that flanked both sides of the road made most of the small cabins invisible until I was right on top of them.
Strapped to the basket on the front of my old beach cruiser, the small light that I’d attached with zip ties bounced and rattled around, casting a rather dicey orb of orange a few feet in front of me. It wasn’t very good as a headlight, but that wasn’t really the point anyway. I just didn’t want to get run over. In towns as small as ours, where half the cops are related and everyone watched each other grow up, drunk drivers were more commonly encountered than deer. Nobody wanted to be the one to lock up the school’s star quarterback or the mayor. Unfortunately for me, I was worlds away from being able to afford a car of my own.
Tiny bits of asphalt that had been pried loose from the road crackled under the fat tires of my bike. There wasn’t much light left, but I was sure that the address wasn’t too much further, so I stood up and started to pump my legs a little faster.
With the blood flowing through my veins and the cool wind that assaulted my rosy face, it was all too easy to go back to the night that I took David home with me. Maybe I was imagining things, but the air tasted the same in the back of my throat as it did while I out cried for him, our naked bodies locked against my living room wall. There was more to it, but pin-pointing a single factor for my sudden melancholy was impossible, so I just pushed on and did my best to not let it affect me.
Growing up, self-control was never my strong suit. It wasn’t when I became an adult, either. Not even five minutes later, I started to think about David again. I wondered about the things that he might have planned for me. Would he touch me the way that he did before, or would our drunken encounter leave nothing but awkward silence between us?
I leaned slowly to each side and bent around a set of subtle curves in the road when a splash of light caught my eyes. About a quarte
r mile down the road, the yellow glow of floodlights cut through the darkness like a knife. Without thinking, I started to pedal faster. I was pretty close to the address that David gave me.
The whole way, I had been under the impression that we would be alone, but when the first glimmer of polished chrome reflected the bouncing light strapped to my bike, my stomach started to knot up. By the time that the rows of motorcycles and the few people that lingered on the shoulder came into view, I was outright nervous. I wasn’t prepared to deal with all of these people face-to-face, especially after what I did with the man they called “Boss”.
I rolled to a slow stop, dug my right heel into the ground and pulled a folded piece of yellow paper from my pocket. Much to my dismay, it listed the same address that I was looking at.
“There’s no way,” I mumbled and checked it again. Aside from the fact that the exact same numbers were painted on a mailbox at the edge of the property, there were no other houses in sight. I had reached my destination alright, but it wasn’t even close to what I thought it would be. I looked to my left and right slowly and asked aloud, “Now what?”
David’s pull was magnetic and I chose to believe that it was just the metal in my bicycle that drew me closer to the party, not the burning desire in my soul that I couldn’t control. I parked the thing up against a tall pole and continued on with no excuses left. I needed to see him again, even if it was just to find out the truth.
Behind a chain-link fence about three feet high, a small, square house was the first thing to greet visitors. Its exterior was a sun-washed shade that was distantly reminiscent of blue, but I couldn’t be sure. Next to every window, a set of similarly bleached shudders were attached. On each side of the house, a massive clearing opened up to the backyard. I was almost there when someone grabbed my attention.
“Hey,” an older man with a bandana tied over his head called to me. “Hey Roxy.”
I went off course and broke into the circle of six or seven men that he was standing with. Almost all of them looked familiar in the same, hazy way: they had been through Hungry Pete’s at some point or another. My mind just had a hard time picking them out.
