by Lois Ruby
“Hold your horses, Johnny,” Momma said calmly, poking her head into the pass-through. “I’ll send Dovi to the walk-in for more buns.”
Ordinarily I did not like the walk-in freezer. It made my head ache right behind my ears if I stayed in there too long, which I had a tendency to do when things got hectic out front. But that day I didn’t mind the walk-in because it was at least 99° in the restaurant kitchen, and 109° outside. You had to walk out the back door and across this gravelly place to get to the freezer. If you didn’t have shoes on, you ran, or else you fried the bottoms of your feet. My mother said I ought to be able to take slightly crisp feet. She saw a yogi once, a guy who wore a diaper, like, and who danced across some hot coals, but they couldn’t have been as hot as rocks baking in the Kansas summer sun.
Well, anybody with half a brain wouldn’t go barefoot from the kitchen to the walk-in, and besides, there was a law against working in the diner in bare feet. They must have thought your feet had more germs than your nose or something, which is ridiculous, because anyone who’s taken your basic eighth-grade life science, like I did last year, knows about the diseases you get from the dripping human nose.
But, as my father says, I digress.
So, I pulled six dozen buns from the freezer and pushed the walk-in door shut with my hind end, the same one I used to keep the screen door from banging in the kitchen. “Here you go, Johnny. You’re back in business.” I could hardly see him over the smoke from the burgers.
“What am I gonna do with iceberg buns? My burgers are ready to walk,” Johnny roared. He roared because the Army was so loud in the other room, and he roared because he usually roared.
“Relax,” my mother crooned, with four feet of foil between her and the dispenser. “We’ll wrap them up and put them in the oven.” She turned the oven up to 500°. “They’ll be warm in no time.” Warm? It was hot enough without the oven to fry burgers right on the counter.
Well, next we had to face the milkshake ordeal, so Momma and I started an assembly line: squirt the syrup into the bottom of the four metal cups, plop the ice cream in, pour on the milk, shove the whole mess up into the mixer, and who cared what splattered all over the counter and wall because there were always four more milkshakes to go.
The Army guys could have helped, but oh no. They sat around with their knees spread like sailors and their feet wrapped around the bottoms of the stools, or else they shoved each other around in the booths, or pounded the juke box to coax out at least twelve quarters’ worth of country, everything from Tammy to Willie singing about being on the road again, which is where we wished the Army was.
And the toilet kept flushing. “We’ll go broke on the water alone,” my mother moaned into the strawberry syrup.
I passed out milkshakes like I was dealing poker.
“Hey, this isn’t chocolate,” one guy complained. He couldn’t have been much older than I was.
“Hu-uh. We’re doing all the strawberries now.”
“But I ordered chocolate.”
“Well then, trade with somebody,” I said impatiently.
“But you haven’t done any chocolates yet,” the next guy reminded me.
“Please, mister, please, don’t play B-17,” Olivia pleaded from the juke box. I grabbed the shake away from the kid. “Who ordered a strawberry?” By now my mother had four more shakes ready. Oh, we were rolling. But we were way behind in sloshing mayonnaise on the buns, and then there were the onions and pickles to think about as Johnny piled up naked burger plates on the pass-through.
Momma dashed over to drop a few chips on each plate, and we started sliding them down the counter to the first soldier on the end.
“This is a real class joint,” said some guy smashed in the back of a booth.
“Anything for our men in uniform,” Momma said sweetly. She was the one who used to counsel draft resisters during Vietnam. Those days, everyone she touched ended up in Canada or in jail. A new flock of burgers came tumbling out with top buns toasted crisp and bottoms soggy wet, but who had time to worry?
We were on the vanilla shakes now, and both Momma and I were sticky to the elbows.
“You picked a sad time to leave me, Lucille,” wailed Kenny from the juke box.
“Lucille had a lot of common sense,” Momma muttered.
In spite of Johnny’s hamburgers, the Army wanted dessert. They cleaned us out of banana cream pie and chocolate layer cake and were settling for our famous Baby Ruths, which had been around so long that if you tried to snap one in two it would bend like a boomerang.
Everyone said that the food and service were terrible, and that they’d be back the next Saturday, and finally the invasion was over, less than an hour after it started. Momma and I were left to sort through the rubble. There were ketchup and mustard puddles everywhere, pickles plastered to the tables, peanuts from Baby Ruths ground into the floor, and potato chip crumbs working their way down into the cracks between the backs and seats of the booths.
Momma wiped her hands on her apron, which did no good because little rivers of ice cream were dried all the way down her arm. “We could apply for a grant as a disaster area,” she said, while Johnny slammed dishes around in the big washtubs in the kitchen. “You know, Dovi, sometimes I think we’re not suited to being restaurateurs.”
“Holy shee,” Johnny yelled. “Getta loada this.” We both dashed into the kitchen, and there was Johnny holding up a plate at arm’s distance. On the plate was a plastic and wire pink thing that looked like false teeth, only it had no teeth. I recognized it, because I saw half a dozen just like it every day in the lunchroom at my last school. Dorri even wore one.
“That’s a retainer,” I said, laughing.
“What the hey does it retain?” asked Johnny, disgusted.
“Teeth. After the orthodontist is through with them.” I was guessing that it belonged to that one kid who didn’t order strawberry. “I’ll just wrap it up in a napkin. He’ll be back for it.”
“Naw, he won’t,” Johnny said. “Uncle Sam’ll buy him another one.”
Momma was genuinely puzzled. “Why would a boy who isn’t even through getting his teeth straightened be in the Army?”
Johnny brushed her off. He never understood her depth. “Aw, the kid’s joined up to see the world.”
“This is the world, all right. Spinner, Kansas,” I hissed, “home of the world famous Pig-Out Inn.”
Any driver who was going to eat at the world famous Pig-Out Inn had usually already done so by eight o’clock at night, so we’d clean up and collapse in the back booth with a hot fudge banana split that would have fed half the orphans in Laos. That night, after the Army invasion, Momma and I were racing each other through the ice cream when our first certifiable weirdo came in.
It was nine o’clock, just at closing time. I’d already dumped the coffee grounds out of the huge pot and was wrestling it into the sink. Naturally, I protected my hands with rubber gloves. Johnny was clattering pots and pans in the kitchen, and Momma had all the day’s money spread out in the back booth. So in walks this guy we’d never seen before, and there was something about him that set Momma and me both on edge. He wasn’t a trucker; you could tell that by what he was wearing. The best way to describe him is to say he could have starred in one of those nerd movies. He had on a limp, short-sleeved yellow-and-green-and-blue-striped shirt, buttoned at the neck, and brown Goodwill-type pants. He wore his belt two or three notches too tight. Maybe that’s why his eyes bulged half out of their sockets. He should have had horn-rimmed glasses, but didn’t. What he did have was this fiendish grin, as though his face had been sliced open, or like clay with a slit for a mouth.
One glance at him, and Momma scooped all the money into her apron and slipped into the kitchen. She was back in a flash, with a broom in both her hands. “What’ll it be, sir?” she said, holding the broom like a gladiator’s shield.
“I’m … so … thirsty,” he said.
“Well, we have Coke, we
have Sprite,” Momma began prattling nervously. “Iced tea, sugar-free or sweetened, iced coffee. We’ve got lemonade, we’ve got orangeade, root beer, Dr. Pepper. Also beer. But we’re closing.”
“Just a little … something to … wet the whistle,” the man said, and Momma plunked an iced tea down in front of him. “How much?” he asked, reaching into his pocket.
“On the house,” said Momma instantly. “It’s the bottom of the pot anyway.” He smiled even wider, if possible, and started in on his tea in delicate tea party sips, while his fish eyes inspected every corner of the Pig-Out. “I like your … little piggies on … the wall,” he said.
“Dovi, go help Johnny clean up,” Momma said firmly. I caught on right away.
In the kitchen, I pulled Johnny away from the pass-through and whispered, “There’s somebody really weird out there. Momma thinks he’s going to hold us up.”
Johnny bent toward the pass-through to give the guy a good look. There was that same diabolical grin plastered on his fishy face.
“Aw, he’s harmless,” Johnny said. “I’ve seen my share of weirdos, most of ’em over in Korea, and take it from me, this one’s a puppy dog. No problem.”
“Just the same, come out in front, will you?”
“I’m cleaning up the kitchen. I’ll be here till the sun comes up if I don’t get to it.”
“Well, I’m not leaving Momma alone out there, even if you are a big coward.”
“Women—hysterical broads,” Johnny muttered.
Well, after about half an hour the man worked his way down to the bottom of the glass, which wasn’t easy to do, smiling the whole time, and then he spooned out a few clinging grains of sugar. Finally, with Momma and me both watching him like a hawk, he said, “Bye-bye, folks. I’ll … stop by … next time I’m … passing this way.”
Momma and I let out a big sigh of relief when he left, tearing off down the highway on a motor scooter with a funny little sidecar attached to it.
“He’s gone, Johnny,” we called into the kitchen. “You can come out of hiding.”
Johnny went right on scrubbing the grill with a greasy cloth tied over a brick. But he managed to mutter loud enough for us to hear him over the scrape-scraping. “Big deal. A Mafia guy, I can see it. A hood on a Kawasaki, sure. But some poor grinning de-fective comes in and they crack into a hundred pieces. Women.”
I was furious with Johnny. What ever happened to the pioneer men, protecting their women on the prairie? That’s always happening in movies, but in real life? Forget it. I stomped through the swinging doors, glowering at Johnny as I packed up his leftover lettuce and his leftover tomatoes and had to squeeze them into the jungle of his refrigerator. “Hey, what’s this?” I pulled out a cool, brown leather thing that sure looked a lot like a wallet.
“Gimme that!” Johnny grabbed it out of my hand and worked it into his back pocket.
“What’s your wallet doing in the refrigerator?”
Johnny stammered and snorted.
“Johnny!”
“You think I was going to let that weirdo rip off my wallet? I may be stupid, but I ain’t no fool!”
FOUR
There was a guy we called C.W. (pronounced “Cee Dubyah”) who drove this classy Peterbilt big rig and hauled anhydrous ammonia from St. Louis to Denver. He was huge, and he wore denim overalls like Paul Bunyan, or that guy Big John on the chili can. Cee Dubyah would come into the Pig-Out Inn for lunch a couple of times a week, or if he’d had a late start out of St. Louis he’d stop in for two pieces of coconut cream pie and a box of No-Doz to get him through the night. Every so often he’d take one of the cottages for the night and be gone before sunrise.
Then one day, here comes Cee Dubyah with a kid following behind, both of them walking just the same swaggery way as if they’d just climbed down from prize Arabian stallions.
“This here’s Tag,” Cee Dubyah announced.
“Hi, Tag,” I said, looking the kid over carefully. He was a small, nine-ish version of Cee Dubyah in high-water blue jeans that had the back pockets torn clear off and a U-necked undershirt. He was pretty muscular for a small kid. Maybe he helped Cee Dubyah load trucks, or worked out at the Y. He had freckles all over his face and arms and shoulders, and a rag pile of matted brown hair. Well, it had to be sweaty bouncing down the highway in the Peterbilt—hard on a guy’s hair. And he wore a small cross on a chain around his neck.
“Whaddya want, Tag?” Cee Dubyah asked.
“Nuthin.” Tag had a deep, raspy voice, like maybe his throat was dry from the truck. He hopped up on a counter stool and crossed one ankle over his other knee, just the way Cee Dubyah did.
“Six hours on the road, and you’re not even getting a bite?” Cee Dubyah said. “You must have a lot of fat to live off of.” The kid was skinny as a noodle. Cee Dubyah studied the menu, though he must have known it by heart. It never changed from week to week, and neither did he.
“What are you eating?” Tag asked.
“Spaghetti. It’s the only thing fit to eat here.”
“That’s what I’m having,” Tag said. “Spaghetti.”
“Well, don’t be so quick. They’ve got decent hamburgers,” Cee Dubyah said, his face buried in the menu.
“Then that’s what I’ll have. Spaghetti and a hamburger. Hey, Cee Dubyah, have we got enough money?”
“Oh sure, kid. In fact, we’re gonna take us a room tonight right here at the Klondike.”
Tag looked around. I got the feeling he wasn’t too impressed. But the VACANCY sign outside was flashing yellow streaks on our wall, and the hamburger was sizzling away on the grill, and Tag was sucking foam off the top of his root beer, and I guess he decided it would be okay to stay. “Clean sheets?” he asked.
“Does this look like the kind of place where they’d give you somebody else’s sheets?” Cee Dubyah replied.
“We having breakfast too?”
“Right here on that stool you’re sitting on. Dovi’s putting a reserved sign on it, right, girl?”
“Then tomorrow we hit the road again?” Tag asked with a weak smile. He had these tiny white shark’s teeth that looked like they’d snap off in a corn-on-the-cob.
“Well, we’ll talk about that in the morning,” Cee Dubyah said. It sure sounded as if he wanted to avoid the subject, so I helped him along by sliding a couple of steaming plates of spaghetti down the counter to the two of them.
I never saw a kid eat so fast. I swear, he looked like a horse eating hay, with that spaghetti hanging out of his mouth. He had a circle of orange around his lips which he tried to wipe off with the back of his hand, but it didn’t do any good. Then he snarfed down the hamburger, saving the last two bites to sop up what was left of the spaghetti sauce. Cee Dubyah ordered him a wedge of pie; but two bites into it I could tell he had no use for coconut cream. Cee Dubyah ate from Tag’s plate, one delicate bite at a time—as though he were just taking a little bitty taste—while Tag solemnly worked his way through a hot fudge sundae. Watching this kid pack away all that food reminded me of a Saturday morning cartoon I once saw where this giraffe was swallowing his breakfast, and you could see every ball of food jumping down inside his neck. There was Tag, skinny as a noodle, as I said, but his gut was starting to plump up and hang over his belt like a junior-sized beer belly.
Cee Dubyah and Tag didn’t talk much while they ate, but there seemed to be an easy silence between them. When one wanted the salt, a wave of the hand was all it took to tell the other to pass it. They were like two men who’d been traveling together forever.
I’m a nosy person, there’s no question about it. I’m always getting into trouble sticking my nose in other people’s business, and I ask too many questions, and I never have the sense to know when the questions are too personal. So I was dying to know what the story was on Cee Dubyah and Tag.
“Is this your son, Cee Dubyah?” I asked. Good lead-in, right? A question like that could go anywhere.
“Thought I introduced you. Dovi
Whatsername, meet my boy Taggert Layton.”
Tag stuck his sundae spoon into the ice cream like a flag and offered his hand across the counter. His fingernails were bitten down to the quick and had little ridges of dirt on the chewed-off edges. Definitely not model hands. “Pleased to meetcha,” he said. That little kid had a powerhouse shake that left me feeling like a flopping fish.
“Listen, get your ma out here. Me and Tag are gonna need a room for the night.”
“Momma! A live one wants to rent a cottage,” I shouted into the kitchen. Out came my mother, wiping dishwater off her hands down the side of her jeans.
“Hi, Cee Dubyah. You want your usual one?”
“Is it open for tonight?”
“Is it open?” We all had a good laugh. Every single one of the nine cabins was open. Three of them hadn’t been rented at all since last fall, not once. Momma went back into the kitchen and returned with a key on a wooden block: Red Cottage 4, it said. Of course, all the cottages were gray stone. What do you expect—that we looked like Disneyland or something? But they were called Red, Blue, Yellow, and so forth because each cottage had a little set of shutters, and the shutters were painted all those rainbow colors. At night you couldn’t tell what color they were, though, so the cottages each had a number, too.
Cee Dubyah paid in advance, as usual, then paid for their dinner, leaving a hefty tip.
“Hey, Cee Dubyah, this is a mistake,” I said, staring at the five-dollar tip he left me for a crummy $5.67 dinner bill.
“Naw, keep it.” He seemed a little embarrassed. “You’ve been real helpful to me all the times I come in here,” he said. Geez, I’d have to give him royal diplomat service forever, with a tip like that!
Cee Dubyah patted his belly contentedly, and Tag did the same; then Cee Dubyah went over to the cash register for a toothpick, and again Tag did the same; then Cee Dubyah ordered a six-pack of beer to take with him, and that put Tag out of his league, but Cee Dubyah bought him a six-pack of Life Savers (mixed fruit, the worst kind) and they took off for Red Cottage 4.
