drabble . 018 -- beginnings
All he wanted was a cup of coffee.
It was 4 AM when he shrugged into the faded hoodie he kept in his bag, shuffled through his wallet--his other wallet, scratched vinyl and velcro and seven faded dollar bills, no credit cards or picture ID--and set to walking. The three blocks to the diner were spent in a meditative inner silence, the way it always happened when it was too exhausting to think; it was just his shoes on the pavement, one or two unlucky souls headed out of town, the ground-pulsing beat and loud laughter turning at an intersection and rumbling down a side street. The bell that jingled as he walked in brought an internal cringe that never quite made it to the surface.
It was a typical diner, just one of the hundreds that popped up almost overnight when he was a child. In the face of the last depression, the people had needed something that filled them on their slave wages; in a typical show of American ingenuity and delusion, that need joined forces with the desperate desire to return to the optimistic promised land of the 1950s, where nobody had anything to worry about.
It worked well enough. The country eventually picked itself up by its bootstraps and nobody'd ever had the heart to tell it that the 1950s never worked like that.
All the seats were empty and he wasn’t sure why he was expecting it to be any different. The boat factory on the riverfront, just a quick jaunt down the street, probably provided most of the clientele, and night shift wasn’t over for another hour. 5 AM. He had an hour to nurse a coffee and a headache and the deep desire to walk out of town and never be heard from again.
“Sit anywhere you like, I’ll be with you in just a sec.”
The voice took him by surprise, which in itself was more surprising than the voice; he wasn’t sure these days if his body ever stopped pumping adrenaline, if his eyes ever stopped scanning. He was staggered that he could even miss a detail, let alone a person. It was the exhaustion, he reasoned, and the headache. She stood by the cash register, hands fumbling with the screw top on a salt shaker she’d been filling, tired eyes looking at him with expectation but too polite to demand a response. With a sheepish smile, she seemed to forget that her hair was gathered up in an auburn mess on top of her head as she tried to run her fingers through it. All she managed to do was shake more flyaway ringlets into her face and look embarrassed.
There was something about her that struck him in a way that didn't strike him at all, the way she seemed more a fixture than an employee--like she'd come packed with the prefab boards and ragworn countertops and the jukebox in the corner that crooned out a country ballad. She blended like a puzzle piece with her blue dress uniform that didn’t fit right on her small frame, with her friendly features and that spattering of freckles and the hint of a sunburn on her cheeks.
She flashed him a large smile, all teeth and wide lips, before slipping back into the kitchen--and out again as she realized she’d taken the salt shaker with her, then back in. It left him with a choice; there was psychology at work here. He could slide into a back booth, the furthest away from the counter, and he’d be left alone save for refills until he got sick of coffee or the people flooding in at 5 AM. Or he could take a counter stool, the one closest to the register, which would open him up to all the chatter she’d surely been saving up over all that empty downtime.
He was too tired for it. His head hurt too much. All he wanted was a cup of coffee. Maybe breakfast--not breakfast, no. 4 AM diner breakfasts stopped when he was eight. 4 AM diner breakfasts stopped when his father stopped taking him on aimless trips, plans on going to New York that ended as soon as they got the check and they were ready to go back home. Over the years, he’d looked forward to the diner more than the promises of New York. But that had stopped. Diners stopped.
He was still standing when she came back out of the kitchen, having not made a decision in her absence, his hands clenched in his hoodie’s pockets and head clenched around thoughts and memories and thoughts--
“Are you alright?”
No. “I’m fine.” It was automatic. “I think I just need some--”
“Coffee?” There was that smile again, teeth and cheer and friendliness, and a warm chuckle bubbled from her throat. By the time he realized he’d been caught off guard, she was already gone, moved on, moved behind the counter and grabbed a mug. “It’s 4:15. Everyone needs coffee right about now. I’m glad I put a fresh pot on a little early.”
The coffee was poured quickly, deftly, a repetition of a motion performed a thousand times before. She made no move for the cream and sugar packets, pushing the saucer in his direction--an invitation. “Why don’t you come out of the doorway? You look lonely.”
She was already ten clever steps ahead of him, mirth in her clever green eyes and that clever grin and he wondered again, just briefly, how he could’ve missed her on that first glance.
He took a seat at the counter.
It was 4 AM when he shrugged into the faded hoodie he kept in his bag, shuffled through his wallet--his other wallet, scratched vinyl and velcro and seven faded dollar bills, no credit cards or picture ID--and set to walking. The three blocks to the diner were spent in a meditative inner silence, the way it always happened when it was too exhausting to think; it was just his shoes on the pavement, one or two unlucky souls headed out of town, the ground-pulsing beat and loud laughter turning at an intersection and rumbling down a side street. The bell that jingled as he walked in brought an internal cringe that never quite made it to the surface.
It was a typical diner, just one of the hundreds that popped up almost overnight when he was a child. In the face of the last depression, the people had needed something that filled them on their slave wages; in a typical show of American ingenuity and delusion, that need joined forces with the desperate desire to return to the optimistic promised land of the 1950s, where nobody had anything to worry about.
It worked well enough. The country eventually picked itself up by its bootstraps and nobody'd ever had the heart to tell it that the 1950s never worked like that.
All the seats were empty and he wasn’t sure why he was expecting it to be any different. The boat factory on the riverfront, just a quick jaunt down the street, probably provided most of the clientele, and night shift wasn’t over for another hour. 5 AM. He had an hour to nurse a coffee and a headache and the deep desire to walk out of town and never be heard from again.
“Sit anywhere you like, I’ll be with you in just a sec.”
The voice took him by surprise, which in itself was more surprising than the voice; he wasn’t sure these days if his body ever stopped pumping adrenaline, if his eyes ever stopped scanning. He was staggered that he could even miss a detail, let alone a person. It was the exhaustion, he reasoned, and the headache. She stood by the cash register, hands fumbling with the screw top on a salt shaker she’d been filling, tired eyes looking at him with expectation but too polite to demand a response. With a sheepish smile, she seemed to forget that her hair was gathered up in an auburn mess on top of her head as she tried to run her fingers through it. All she managed to do was shake more flyaway ringlets into her face and look embarrassed.
There was something about her that struck him in a way that didn't strike him at all, the way she seemed more a fixture than an employee--like she'd come packed with the prefab boards and ragworn countertops and the jukebox in the corner that crooned out a country ballad. She blended like a puzzle piece with her blue dress uniform that didn’t fit right on her small frame, with her friendly features and that spattering of freckles and the hint of a sunburn on her cheeks.
She flashed him a large smile, all teeth and wide lips, before slipping back into the kitchen--and out again as she realized she’d taken the salt shaker with her, then back in. It left him with a choice; there was psychology at work here. He could slide into a back booth, the furthest away from the counter, and he’d be left alone save for refills until he got sick of coffee or the people flooding in at 5 AM. Or he could take a counter stool, the one closest to the register, which would open him up to all the chatter she’d surely been saving up over all that empty downtime.
He was too tired for it. His head hurt too much. All he wanted was a cup of coffee. Maybe breakfast--not breakfast, no. 4 AM diner breakfasts stopped when he was eight. 4 AM diner breakfasts stopped when his father stopped taking him on aimless trips, plans on going to New York that ended as soon as they got the check and they were ready to go back home. Over the years, he’d looked forward to the diner more than the promises of New York. But that had stopped. Diners stopped.
He was still standing when she came back out of the kitchen, having not made a decision in her absence, his hands clenched in his hoodie’s pockets and head clenched around thoughts and memories and thoughts--
“Are you alright?”
No. “I’m fine.” It was automatic. “I think I just need some--”
“Coffee?” There was that smile again, teeth and cheer and friendliness, and a warm chuckle bubbled from her throat. By the time he realized he’d been caught off guard, she was already gone, moved on, moved behind the counter and grabbed a mug. “It’s 4:15. Everyone needs coffee right about now. I’m glad I put a fresh pot on a little early.”
The coffee was poured quickly, deftly, a repetition of a motion performed a thousand times before. She made no move for the cream and sugar packets, pushing the saucer in his direction--an invitation. “Why don’t you come out of the doorway? You look lonely.”
She was already ten clever steps ahead of him, mirth in her clever green eyes and that clever grin and he wondered again, just briefly, how he could’ve missed her on that first glance.
He took a seat at the counter.