* * * *
“Come on, Bo. I have everything in the car. Let's get on the road to Dot."
“Just a few more minutes,” Bo replied as he began to wipe down the lawnmower he had just washed. “I want to be sure we leave everything in better condition than we found it. The landlady went out of her way in letting us out of the lease."
“You've been up since five o'clock, Bo. You've cut the grass, washed down the doublewide, cleaned the windows, straightened up the shed and washed the mower. Isn't that enough?"
“What's your rush, Betty? You don't start your new job ’til Monday. I know you couldn't be excited about moving into the new apartment or seeing your new office,” he teased. “Oh, I forgot. You're anxious to see Janbitch again."
Betty grabbed the handle of the little red mower and pushed it into the storage shed. “Kiss my ass, Bo Nading,” she joked.
“Okay,” he agreed, pulling down her slacks and bending her over the wheelbarrow.
Chapter Nineteen
There were two reasons Janine Patrick took the waitress position with Dot's Diner. Her financial reserves were small, and having lost the job as administrative assistant to Rita Holder, she needed an immediate source of income. Additionally, and equally important, she wanted to remain physically close to Rita. She was determined to either find a way to reestablish a relationship with the tiny bombshell or get revenge.
Her hours in the diner were eleven thirty a.m. to eight thirty p.m., Monday through Saturday with an hour out for a meal between three and four o'clock. During the first two weeks, she felt she was moving through a bad dream and would soon wake up. During the evening hours she dulled her senses with cheap wine, television and thoughts of torturing Rita until she fell mercifully asleep in the wee hours of the morning. She slept until ten each morning, sobered up with strong coffee and a cold shower and tried to lose herself in work.
She worked as a waitress several times in the past, so the routine was familiar. It passed the time. Bo, Betty and Rita were frequent lunchtime customers. They were friendly, but not friendly enough. Waiting on male customers gave her pleasure because of their obvious appreciation of her tall, slim body. Their lust-filled eyes and repartee validated her sense of sexual power. However, there was one who seemed completely indifferent to her charms.
Sundays were the most difficult. The diner did not open on Sundays. She did not want to watch church services on television. Both Rita and Betty refused to talk with her on the telephone. The gallon jugs of sweet red wine she purchased from the Dot Grocery became her only friends, and when empty, she refused to discard them.
On Monday of her third week at the diner, Jan caught her boss, Dottie Frank, just as she was about to leave for the day. “Who is that old guy sitting alone in the back booth?"
Dottie laughed. “As the resident gossip of Dot I can only tell you that three or four months ago he bought the old Tyler place on Schoolhouse Road. Every afternoon about four, he makes a stop at the bank and then goes to the post office where he unloads a car full of packages. A few minutes later he emerges with a canvas sack, full, I suppose, of mail. He then comes here for supper."
“He sure is tightlipped. Most of the other customers talk too much, but I can barely get this guy to tell me what he wants to order."
“I know. I've tried to get him to open up with my motherly charms,” Dottie replied, “but all I get is stony silence. I suppose I could ask at the post office and get his name, but I haven't been able to get him to tell me."
From that night forward Jan found herself thinking less and less about getting back in Rita's good graces, or of getting revenge, and more and more about the mysterious stranger who sat, night after night in the back booth of the diner. Who was he? What was he? Why did she care? What was his allure? He must be in his fifties—far too old for her to have a sexual interest in him, overweight, and yet ... Was it his gray hair that appealed to her, his constant five o'clock shadow, his disheveled casual way of dressing? Why did he not look at her the way virtually all other men always did? Was he gay?
By God, she resolved before passing out on Thursday night, tomorrow I'll make him look at me.
And that was her first thought on Friday morning when the alarm clock jangled. While showering, she found herself masturbating, fantasizing about him. That afternoon she frequently glanced out the diner window towards the bank. Right on schedule, she saw him park what appeared to be a new white Ford van in the parking lot of the bank. Forty-five minutes later he occupied the back booth of the diner.
“Good to see you again,” she greeted him, smiling rather than keeping the sullen look on her face that most men found sensuous. “Want to look at a menu, or do you have it memorized?"
He kept his eyes glued to the empty seat across from him. “Meat loaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, green peas, house salad, sweetened ice tea,” he replied with little inflection in his voice.
“My name is Jan,” she said in what she hoped was a sexy voice. “Since I wait on you every day I would like to call you something other than mister."
He removed a paperback novel from his pocket and began to read, ignoring her.
“We have home grown white corn on the cob today. It's delicious."
He did not respond.
He will look at me, damn it, she resolved as she delivered the meal to his table—but he didn't.
A heavy rain began to fall just after the stranger entered the diner and the usual dinner crowd did not materialize. There were only two other customers in the restaurant when he neared the completion of his meal. Jan went to the restroom, removed her bra and left the buttons of her uniform unfastened all the way to her waist.
“How about some apple pie for desert?” she said, bending literally over his plate.
The front of her uniform opened as she intended. His eyes locked, expressionless, on the proffered area of her anatomy. He said nothing. She did not move. Seconds turned into a minute which seemed like an hour. In spite of all of her experience and sophistication, she felt her cheeks coloring.
Still allowing him an unobstructed view, she quietly hissed, “Shit, man. Do you have ice water in your veins?"
Continuing to stare at her naked flesh, he finally spoke. “You should give serious consideration to breast implants."
Old fart, she repeated over and over again to herself that night between gulps directly from the wine jug. Damn it, I did get him to look at me and talk to me. Implants, my ass. Old fart.
He did not come to the diner Saturday.
Just before the wine carried her to oblivion Saturday night, the thought crossed her mind that the stranger may be sick.
She slept until noon on Sunday. She called Rita and humbled herself to the point of begging to visit her. She pleaded that she had not yet seen Rita's new house. Rita firmly refused. She called Betty. Bo answered, and hung up when he recognized her voice.
She slumped into a chair, stared at the blank television screen and eventually drank herself back to sleep. She dreamed. The stranger was lying on the floor calling her name. He had suffered a stroke and was begging her to help him. She awoke with a start. Her head hurt. Her heart was pounding. She staggered on her way to the bathroom.
The dream seemed so real. Was he sick? Had he indeed suffered a stroke or a heart attack? She knew she was intoxicated, but she was obsessed with the possibility the stranger needed her. She took a cold shower, downed cups of strong black coffee and ate a peanut butter sandwich—the only solid food consumed all day. It was seven o'clock when she grabbed a half-full jug of wine and headed for her car.
She drove carefully, aware that she was still not sober. She knew the Schoolhouse Road was east off Highway 13 and found it with no difficulty. She passed the boarded up school building and noticed stacks of brick and lumber indicating that renovation was soon to begin. The paved road turned to gravel. She passed a dilapidated old farmhouse, saw what appeared to be a long graveled driveway. Then the road ended.
Can he possibly live in that shack? she asked herself. She turned her car around and stopped in front of the house. This time she noticed the van parked in an attached shed. She eased up the driveway and parked. She jumped when she felt a board on the front porch bend under her weight.
Jan knocked on the door and waited. She knocked again. She felt a little dizzy. She visualized him crumpled on the floor, unable to call out to her for help. Should she try to break in? She tested the handle. The door was locked. She knocked again.
He opened the door about six inches. She saw that he was wearing only boxer shorts, his belly hanging over the waistband. He did not speak.
“I was worried about you,” Jan said, realizing that she was slurring her words. “You didn't come to the diner Saturday. I dreamed you had a stroke. I came to help."
“You're drunk,” he said.
“I don't feel so good,” she admitted. Her legs didn't seem to want to hold her up much longer. “Peanut butter and wine don't mix."
He said nothing.
“May I come in?” she asked.
“I'm not dressed to receive company."
“I don't give a shit,” she responded, her voice rising and then quickly descending to a plea. “I just need to rest a minute."
“You can rest in your car."
“Old fart,” she screamed. “Go on and die. See if I care."
She tried to make a dramatic retreat, but her foot found the weak floorboard again and she fell, reflexively protecting the jug she held in her hand.
He opened the door wider, but did not come to her assistance. She could see a flickering television set in his cluttered living room.
“Old fart!” she screamed again.
“Wino,” he laughed. “If you must come in and look at me in my underwear, then I am going to look at you in yours.” Leaving the door ajar, he disappeared into the room.
“In your dreams, you old fart,” she called after him.
Awkwardly she stumbled to her feet, picked up the jug and tottered to her car. She leaned against the front fender, removed the cap from the jug and drank greedily. Replacing the cap, she looked back at the house. The front door was still open.
When she entered the room, he was staring at the TV. He did not look at her, but said, “Underwear."
She closed the door and leaned against it. The television, the overstuffed chair he was sitting in, a coffee table with a broken leg and a porch rocker were the room's only furnishings. She carefully placed the jug on the floor beside the rocker. The place was littered with newspapers, magazines, paperback books, beer bottles, empty food wrappers, envelopes and other trash.
“It's hot in here,” she said. “Air conditioner broken?"
He did not reply.
She kicked off her shoes, pushed down her slacks and pulled the tee shirt over her head. She wasn't wearing a bra, but she figured he wouldn't notice. She sat in the rocker, screwed off the jug cap and tossed it on the floor. I could have done this at home, she thought as she pressed the lip of the jug to her mouth.
The strong urge to urinate awakened her. It was no longer raining and moonlight bathed the bedroom, but it was not her bedroom. Then she saw him, sleeping with his back turned to her. She threw back the covers and saw that she was still wearing panties. She slipped her hand under the waistband. Dry, she thought. If he screwed me while I was unconscious, he used a rubber.
She stumbled in the dark looking for his bathroom, finally found it, pushed down her panties and sat on the toilet. “Damn,” she mumbled. “The old fart left the seat up.” She dried her bottom on his towel, put down the seat and finally obtained the relief she sought.
Her eyes would not focus on her watch, but she knew it was too early to get up. She considered going home, but her head was pounding. She crawled back in bed and sat beside him. He was still wearing boxer shorts. They gaped open. Her eyes were now accustomed to the dark and she looked at his penis. It was very small and all swiveled up like a dried earthworm. I can fix that, she thought with a wry grin on her lips. Old fart, its time for some action.
She slipped her hand inside the opening of his shorts and gently fondled his testicles. Nothing happened. She leaned over and kissed the head of his penis. Nothing happened. She gently drew it into her mouth, sucked lightly and massaged it with her tongue.
“If you keep sucking,” he said bitterly, “you'll get a mouth full of semen, but not an erect dick. Have fun telling your friends that I am impotent."
She looked at him. His hands were behind his head, now. He looked pitiful in the moonlight.
Later, as she spat his fluid into the commode, she thought, I did not know a man can ejaculate without an erection.
She woke up with the room brilliantly flooded with sunlight and sat bolt upright. She checked her watch. It was ten thirty. “Shit,” she exclaimed, “I'm late."
She spotted the cup of coffee he left on the bedside table and her clothes on the end of the bed. She dressed and drank rapidly, and as she rushed to the door, she saw the empty wine jug sitting beside the rocking chair.
“Wait,” he called out.
It was his voice, but it was somehow different. She turned.
“Would you be more comfortable if I avoid the diner?"
She realized the difference in his voice. The arrogance was gone. “Why in the hell would I want that?” she smiled. “You're my best tipping customer."
He returned the smile.
What a beautiful set of choppers, she thought. “Damn it,” she said aloud, her eyes twinkling. “You'd better start talking to me or I'll tell. What's your name?"
He hesitated, then said, “Jake. Jake Everheart."
That evening, when he paid for his meal, Jan said, “I'll see you later—about nine."
“What? Why?” he stammered.
“You taste good.” She walked away, leaving him standing there with a big smile on his face.
Chapter Twenty
“I was beginning to think you weren't coming,” Jake said with obvious relief in his voice as he opened the door.
“I don't own a vacuum cleaner and it took me a while to find a neighbor who would lend me one,” Jan replied as she pushed past him into the cluttered room, half dragging the tank styled cleaner behind her. “Damn, you are one nasty man,” she joked, setting down the cleaner and depositing her handbag on the rocker.
“The empty jug, I believe, belongs to you,” he laughed.
“I'm happy to feel that you installed an air conditioner today. Where is it?"
“It's a window unit I put in the bedroom. If I keep all the other doors closed, it adequately cools the living room too."
“I guess it was too much to hope that you would pick up your trash too,” she said as she began to gather the clutter and deposit it in a trash bag she brought with her.
“Hey, don't throw away those envelopes,” he shouted.
She looked at the envelope in her hand and protested, “It's empty."
“Yeah, but I haven't removed the stamp yet. I'm a collector,” he explained, taking the envelope from her. Bending to help with the cleaning task, he said, “You're by far the prettiest cleaning lady I've ever had."
“From the looks of things, I'm the only cleaning lady you've ever had,” she laughed. “You sure do read a lot.” She began to stack magazines in one pile, newspapers in another and paperback novels in a third.
“I try to occupy my mind with something interesting to keep the ghosts away."
“Ghosts?"
“I shouldn't have said that. You'll think I'm weird."
“Hell, I already know you're weird."
“I read mostly news magazines, trade magazines and trash,” he said, separating out of the magazine pile those that were business related.
Looking over his shoulder at one of the trade magazines she asked, “What kind of business are you in?"
“You wouldn't be interested,” he said.
“Maybe not, but it's going to take the rest of the even
ing to clean up your pigsty. We have to talk about something."
“Okay, but remember, I warned you. I run a little mail-order business. I pick up odds and ends made in third world countries for a dollar each, or less, and market them for ten dollars or more."
“Sounds like a hell of a profit margin."
“It's not as large as you think. My major expense is in advertising. Direct mail and even classified ads in major magazines don't come cheap. I've recently put a home page on the Internet. I've only received a couple of orders from it, but I'm hopeful that will pick up. I average a net profit of about five dollars an item."
“Aren't you taking advantage of low wages and child labor by buying from third world countries?"
“That's what the do-gooders would have you believe. However, if we don't buy from these poor countries their wages will be even lower and more of their children will die of starvation than do now. The way I see it, I'm helping their economy, not hurting it."
“What's this?” she asked, holding up a paperback.
“Daniel Deronda,” he replied.
“I can read, dummy,” she laughed. “Most of your paperbacks look like whodunits, but isn't George Eliot a famous highfalutin’ writer of some kind?"
“George Eliot was an English woman writer during the nineteenth century. You should like her. She was a women's libber before the term was invented. To answer your question, her works are classics. In my judgement, Daniel Deronda is definitely not one of her best. I liked A Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner much better."
“How'd you get started reading classics?” she asked.
“You've been in town long enough to have heard of Tim and Sandra Dollar."
“The gotbucks couple who run the town? Of course I've heard of them. In fact, Mrs. Dollar was in the diner today showing off her baby."
“Mrs. Dollar fancies herself as something of a writer, as well as a sharp business lady. Somebody said she has written a novel, but I don't think it's been published. Anyway, she writes an occasional book review for the Dot Courier. Only, instead of new titles, she reviews the classics. She's into Charles Dickens now, but previously she reviewed George Eliot's books. I read her review of Adam Bede, bought the paperback version, read it and was hooked."
Sintown Chronicles I: Behind Closed Doors Page 41
