Paper or Plastic

by Mackey Chandler

  That final look had worried him more than all her words, enough to cause some serious introspection and made him admit he was somewhat obsessive now about risk. Her assessment was somewhat harsher. She'd recommended a full psychological disability, even though they rated his physical disability at only twenty percent.

  All that had been part of his reason for quickly deciding to live in his family's cabin when he was discharged. In the city he found himself looking for potential ambushes and searching ahead for places he could take cover. The stress was more than he would have believed possible, until he actually tried to deal with it. He only took a week to conclude that the shrink was right and what was less stressful for him would be safer for everyone else too.

  His discharge and unplanned retirement, caught Roger young enough he might eventually need to do something to support himself. The disability pay was meager by his family's standards, but he had an inheritance big enough there was no urgency to it. That had been especially fortunate, because fitting back in a work environment, with all its stress and compromises might have broken him at first.

  The ’26 Volvo pickup truck he walked to was ragged looking, but mechanically sound. The diesel engine was unusual in a private truck, but the license sticker beside the fuel filler cap announced, "BioDiesel Only." Despite that restriction a lot of non-commercial owners found ways to fill their tank with cheaper petroleum based fuel.

  Roger wasn’t worried about the higher cost of fuel, given that his several-times-a-week trips to town, had tapered off slowly to once every two or three weeks. He also didn’t want to draw attention to his truck, over a couple of dollars a gallon tax. Too close a scrutiny would reveal he had removed a great deal of the restrictor plate on the turbo and the cab had almost as much ballistic protection as he had grown accustomed to in Army vehicles.

  By the time he finished the half-hour drive into town his stomach was rumbling. The angle parking in front of the restaurant was full up and Roger realized suddenly that it was Saturday. With no job and no schedule, he sometimes lost track of the day.

  A gravel lot notched into the hillside by the restaurant was where the big trucks parked and he joined them today, setting the alarm with his key fob. The sign above the door said Keith’s, with no command to EAT, no cute pictures of coffee cups, or even any indication it was a restaurant, except by looking in the windows.

  Inside most of the booths and tables were full, but there was an empty table to the back of the room, that had a view out the window and even better let him sit with his back to the wall, with a view of both the front entry and the hall to the kitchen and restrooms. It was warmer than he kept his cabin, so he stripped off his sweater, careful to hold the edge of his shirt so the sweater didn’t drag it up to expose his weapon. The waitress hadn’t seen him in a couple weeks, but still knew to bring coffee without asking.

  He remembered her name easily from other visits: "Morning Mary, I’d like the gravy and biscuits and eggs over easy on top of them."

  "What kind of toast with that?" she asked.

  "Give it to charity," he suggested. That got a smile not because it was witty, but because it had become a formula joke between them.

  "You got it, Cowboy."

  He had no idea why but he'd been assigned that nickname on his first visit, he had neither hat nor boots, but it was permanent now.

  It was a nice view out the window. Sitra Falls was small. Outside this cluster of businesses there were a few homes and those were mostly on the same road, each side of the small downtown, not sprawled like a flatlands village. The land sloped away and the restaurant was to the uphill side of the road, putting his view out the window over the heads of the people passing on the sidewalk.

  The stores across the street were built up to the street level, but not shoulder to shoulder and through a gap between them he could see the delivery and parking areas at the basement level in back. It fell away beyond to a fair sized stream a couple hundred yards from the road. The town's namesake falls were upstream at the high edge of the town. The fast cold flow tumbled busily over coarse boulders – no lazy lowland creek with deep quiet currents.

  The opposite bank was in tall grasses until it blended into the far woods and had no sign of civilization except for a power line crossing the stream and vanishing over the nearest hill. He knew perhaps a dozen people in town by name and another dozen by sight to nod to, who he was sure were locals. Some of whom might live out in the surrounding valleys like him.

  Across the road a young woman was walking up toward Keith’s, through a gap between the buildings. He hadn’t seen where she had emerged, whether from one of the basements, or from a vehicle parked down behind them. She looked odd, thin and dressed too lightly for the day. He could get by with a sweater today, but it was cool enough he might pull his hood up and wish for gloves if he had to stand outside for long. Women usually felt the chill quicker in his experience.

  Oddly, when she got to the street she walked straight across without looking either way. So clueless it scared him to see. In Sitra Falls you might get away with that a few times, given the lack of traffic on Main Street, but even here most people old enough not to be led across the street by the hand, knew you had to look for cars. He’d seen a British tourist once look the wrong way, expecting the near lane traffic to come from his right and almost get run over. She hadn’t looked either way – just stepped out with all the innocent disregard of a deer.

  He looked closely. She didn’t look drunk or drugged, to explain her carelessness, nor did she hurry as if she were distracted by something of great importance. She was aimed for Keith’s front door.

  She fumbled awkwardly with the latch when she came in and stopped looking around inside the door, uncertain. That didn’t surprise Rog. A lot of places wanted to seat you themselves, but Mary, busy serving, waved at the rest of the room and told the woman, "Anywhere you want, honey."

  The only place left was a single small table to match his at the back wall, between his table and the kitchen entry. She walked through the other diners tentatively, looking all around until she was close to the empty table.

  He was the only one in the place looking at her. Everyone else was busy with their food, or conversation with companions.

  She indicated the empty table with a gesture and looked a question at him like she was seeking confirmation it was OK to take it.

  On impulse he said, "Sit there or join me," he indicated the other chair with a sweep of his hand. "I wouldn’t mind the company and my table has a nice view."

  For the first time since he had seen her she smiled and moved quickly to accept. Then she did something strange again, she picked up the chair carefully, double handed by the back and moved it away from the table. It gave him the strangest feeling because it jogged his memory. He had seen children six or seven years old handle a chair the same way – being careful not to drag it on the floor. Adults yanked chairs back one-handed or hefted them by the backboard. Then she sat on the edge making no effort to scoot back in.

  As a sort of test, he sat up straighter and pulled himself closer to the table. Sure enough, she pursed her lips and after an almost imperceptible hesitation did the same. Whatever made her seem out of place and so tentative, it wasn’t a matter of being simple, she was smart and observant enough to mimic behavior. I'll have to show her how to cross the street, he thought to himself.

  "Thank you, I am a traveler and I wasn’t sure what the custom was here." Her voice was oddly nasal. Almost like someone that had a hearing problem and couldn’t hear their own speech well. But it had an odd accent also, European, Balkans maybe, he decided.

  "Oh, Americans rarely share a table, but I’ve been in Europe and the Middle East and am comfortable with sharing. Where are you from? Let me guess – Germany?"

  She smiled a strained saccharine smile and agreed, "Yes, how smart of you."

  Wow, she was possibly the worst liar he had ever met. She had grabbed at his guess like a drowning m
an would grab a thrown line.

  Mary returned with his breakfast in one hand and the coffee pot in the other. She looked at the strange young woman at his table and hesitated for a moment with her mouth half open. She looked like she wanted to ask – What the hell is this game? But decided it wasn’t any of her business and slid his plate in front of him. She topped off his coffee; set the pot on the last empty table beside them and pulled an order pad out of her apron pocket.

  "What would you like, honey?"

  She had not looked at the menu card, propped between the napkin holder and the catsup. She just pointed at Roger’s breakfast and said, "The same please."

  "And what kind of toast?" Mary asked.

  His new companion screwed up her face and examined his plate uncertainly: "What part is the toast?"

  "Oh, Cowboy here donates his to the world’s hungry," she deadpanned.

  "A worthy attitude; the same for me too," she instructed.

  Mary raised one eyebrow to Roger and quipped, "My, only a few minutes and you’ve gained a disciple," before she retreated to the kitchen. Roger just smiled after her.

  Now that she was close Roger was struck with how plain this woman looked. It wasn’t just that she had no makeup. That was not uncommon around here. She didn’t have a single piece of jewelry either. No ring, no necklace, no locket or pin. Not even the sort of token costume jewelry that little girls wear.

  Roger was surprised to realize he could not remember the last time he had seen a woman without pierced ears and it was almost as hard to find a man without at least a single piercing. Certainly no veteran Roger knew. He had both sides done, although the simple gold hoops he wore today were very conservative.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t have posts in at the moment either. When she looked out the window he saw her ear lobes were bare and unmolested. Her hair was fairly long for her age. The sort of straight plain hair most women abandoned as girlish, soon after they are out of high school. She looked healthy enough. Her nails were clean and well trimmed, but no polish.

  There was something about her attire too, something very hard to define. But they were dull colors, the pants a sort of plum with pockets like cargo packets, but more on the front of the leg than the side. They would work very well sitting in a narrow armed chair, like an airliner seat. But could everything she needed fit in those pockets with no purse? That seemed unlikely for a tourist.

  The top was a sort of heavy blouse or light jacket and it split up the front, but for the life of him Roger couldn’t see any zipper or Velcro on the edges. It looked more like a zip-seal bag. What really struck him was it was an unattractive olive green that didn’t go with the plum trousers at all. He wasn’t sure it would go with anything. Either she was colorblind or severely fashion-impaired. He had a sudden urge to see how she was shod, but he'd be so obvious leaning over to look he'd make a spectacle of himself.

  She pulled a sugar packet out of the wire basket and looked carefully at both sides. She rolled it between her fingers like she was trying to determine what was inside and finally gave it a little shake between thumb and index finger and returned it. You'd think she had never seen one before in her life.

  Mary returned with a mug of black coffee and a set of utensils for the lady.

  She has that look of people that are used to being waited on, Roger thought. The well to do don’t deliberately ignore the help, it’s just they're not present in any social sense with those at the table. Middle-class people often made some gesture of acknowledgement, or thank them for each little service and some poor are visibly uncomfortable being served at all.

  "Are you really a cowboy?" the lady asked, suspiciously.

  "No, I don’t know why Mary decided to call me that. She just seems to assign everybody a nickname when she meets them. She called you Honey, so I’d bet she’ll use that for you from now on, unless you tell her your real name. I’m actually Roger. What is your name?"

  "Martee," is what Roger heard. Not Marty but ‘Mar – Tee’, with the emphasis on the end and drawn out almost like a bird call.

  Mary came back with Martee’s platter and she quickly took the fork and dug in. Roger had this odd suspicion she had been observing him eat, as if she was afraid she was going to embarrass herself. It was hardly as if they were at a state dinner and she didn’t know how to use a fish fork.

  She used the salt and pepper shaker as he had, putting a small patch of each on two spots and trying each carefully. The salt made her visibly shudder, but with the pepper she got a thoughtful look and put more on the eggs.

  Roger watched her take a small forkful with egg yolk, biscuit and sausage gravy all in one bite. She closed her eyes and chewed slowly, an intense look on her face. Roger had seen people display that sort of rapture at fresh broiled lobster dunked in hot butter, or even double chocolate cake with a rich butter fudge frosting. He had never seen such a reaction to Keith’s gravy and biscuits.

  Now it was true he didn’t often see ladies order gravy and biscuits. Keith made his own biscuits and the local clientele ran to cattlemen and lumberjacks, so they were not the hard little hockey pucks you got at a chain restaurant over by the Interstate. They each tended more to a double handful and enough sausage gravy you didn’t have to worry about any glare off the bare plate. One was probably equal to a half dozen city biscuits.

  About halfway through the first biscuit she started to slow down. She pulled the second egg over and made sure she finished it, like a kid would eat all the frosting off a piece of cake. Then she held her lips puckered, but blew her cheeks out in a universal sign of being stuffed.

  "You can get that in a carry away box, if you have someplace to heat it later. Are you staying here in town?" As far as Roger knew there was only Mrs. Olson, who ran a sort of rooming house in town. She put no sign out and it was probably an illegal business, but she was a widow and the local law tended to mind their own business when nobody was complaining. The next place he knew of to stay was a cheap motel, almost fifty miles away by the Interstate highway.

  "I just got here," Martee explained. "Where would you suggest I stay?" she asked.

  Mary, passed by busy and slapped two checks face down on the table. She'd drawn a happy face and thank-you on the back of both of them.

  Roger explained about Mrs. Olson.

  "She has a couple gentlemen roomers already. I’m not sure if she has a room that would give a young lady the privacy she needs. There might be some conflict if she doesn’t have a separate bathroom for you and she would be concerned how it looked, because the people here are typical for a small town, very nice, but very conservative and anything that is a source of gossip spreads around town faster than light."

  She obviously didn’t understand, but she pulled the same trick his uncle John had tried so often when he was losing his hearing, she nodded like she understood, but with an empty grin like a fool. It was written all over her face that she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Why she was so shy to ask he didn’t understand, so he nudged her to ask saying, "Know what I mean?"

  "Maybe no, this place is strange to me and my English is not so good yet, but I’ll do fine after I have been around longer and get experience," she assured him.

  That was quite a speech but he didn’t buy it.

  "I could tell you didn’t understand what I said," Roger explained patiently. "Not that you don’t know the words, but you didn’t know what I meant about gossip, or how small town people are different. I’m not even sure you understood why a middle aged lady would worry about having mixed renters under one roof. If you just ask a few questions I won’t think you are stupid or make fun of you. I’m honestly trying to help you."

  "It is different than Germany," she allowed. "Let me think. I’ll try to make some good questions that will really help me."

  "Fine," he said, "and when I believe the part about Germany - Frösche klettern von unseren Ohren."

  She did the silly grin and agreed again.

&n
bsp; He shook his head slightly amazed. "No, you see darlin’? You can’t fake it. You didn’t understand that just now either."

  "No, but I saved it. I’ll go back as I learn and listen to everything again. In time I’ll understand it all."

  "You're recording everything we say?" he asked. Not surprised she would do that, but surprised she’d say so as if it were nothing.

  "I’ve offended you haven’t I?" she asked worried. "Was I rude?"

  "Recording a conversation can be complex legally, but legalities aside a lot of people will be offended if you don’t ask them beforehand if they mind a conversation being recorded. I can tell you just don’t know what local folks expect and it isn’t just the English. I just told you in German, that frogs would climb out of our ears, when I believed you about being from Germany. You didn’t twitch when I switched to German or said - Oh good, you speak German, or even say – That’s a very strange thing to say."

  If you don’t want to tell me where you are really from, or what your story is fine. It’s been interesting to have breakfast with you and I’ll say goodbye and wish you luck, but if you can’t be any more convincing with the rest of the people you meet in town you might as well put your tin foil beanie back on and beam yourself back up to the Mother Ship."

  Martee looked shocked, thoughtful, terrified, resigned, stubborn and finally resentful. She ran through more hard mood swings in thirty seconds than a lot of people experience in a year. Roger was fascinated by the unexpected slideshow of emotions on her face.

  She pulled a PDA out of her pocket. It was odd: wide but very thin. Very expensive, he decided at a glance, because it looked handmade, instead of mass produced. It had a custom or military look, with a bare metal case with sharp corners and nothing to protect the screen. There was no logo on it and the buttons were square and klutzy.

  There was a stub he thought was an antenna, but she grasped it and pulled and it turned out to be a stylus. Even upside down the symbols were obviously not English, but they were not anything with which he was familiar. Not Arabic, maybe some Indian language.