I was in the lunchroom that time forgot. Nothing that’d been manufactured, maybe even touched, in the last fifty years. But it was better than being outside. Not that it was cold in here, but it was dim and there were places to sit. Four booths on the sides and five stools at the counter. At the far end of the room was a bank of windows with nothing under them, not even tile. It was like there’d once when a museum exhibit there or something, but it’d been taken away a long time ago and no one had bothered to put anything else there but dust.
I took a stool. It was under a ceiling fan, which was barely moving, but it was moving. The gentle waft of air down onto me made me feel more alive than it had any right to.
“Is anybody here?” I called out, feeling a little like I would get back an echo.
An old man came in through the curtain that must’ve had a kitchen behind it. He wore overalls, a green shirt, and a cook’s apron. No hairnet, but he didn’t have enough hair to rank one.
“What can I do you for?”
“Water,” I whispered.
He could see the sweat that’d soaked through my clothes and the red that the sun had tattooed on my skin. “I was just about to suggest that.”
He went to the refrigerator, took a tall glass out of it, and then filled that from the tap. When he came back, I grabbed it from him and held it to my lips until I’d taken in all twelve ounces.
I wiped my mouth. “Some more?”
He took the glass back from me. “Sure, son… but you are going to buy something, yup? Not that you aren’t welcome to some cool water and a glass to drink it in, but there’s a reason I’m here and not a water fountain, uh-huh.”
I refrained from making a comment on him having other customers to serve. It wasn’t that I was feeling nicer than usual. It was just that I didn’t have the energy.
“Give me a Coke.”
He got one from the refrigerator. I usually don’t go for sugar water, but it was ice-cold and that I needed much more than lukewarm water in a cool glass.
Seeing me savor my gulps, saying “ah!” and everything, he left me to it. Wandering over to the screen door I’d come in and checking the parking lot.
“Hey, mister, I don’t see your car.”
“Don’t have one,” I answered between sips. I wanted to tell him to get me another glass of water for when I finished with the Coke, but it seemed impolite.
“You mean you wh-alked?” he asked, all agog. He had a speech impediment that came out on the word ‘walked’ and made me think the blood pounding in my ears had done permanent damage over the last few miles.
“Not far. Just eight miles or so.”
“In this heat?”
“Figured I could either walk in it or lie down in it. Lying down didn’t seem much better.”
“Fella, if I was you, I would naut have done that.”
“Didn’t have much choice.” I took a long sip from the bottle. Glanced at him. He was leaning against a booth, settling in for a story, and I knew some rapport between us would probably get me some of the charity I sorely needed.
I gave him the rundown. How we’d been driving out of Barker, my girlfriend and I. How we’d gotten into an argument. How I’d put my foot down, figuring that if I put up with her bullshit then, I’d be putting up with it forever. She’d pulled over and told me to get out. I’d refused. In hindsight, there was where I should’ve gave up some ground, but I’d figured I had the facts on my side. She couldn’t kick me out of the car and leave me in the middle of nowhere. Only she’d taken out a gun and that’s what she did.
A lot of times over the next few hours, I’d thought I should’ve stayed in the car and dared her to shoot me. Other times, I figured I’d been right—if she was crazy enough to dump me, literally, in the middle of a desert, then she would’ve shot me just as easily. So here I was, fried to a crisp and enjoying a Coke far more than anyone over the age of twelve should.
“So what do you plan on doing now?” the cook asked. He went back behind the counter and got me a fresh glass from the fridge, filled it with fresh water. No being asked.
“Keep going, I guess.”
“You’re not going back to town?”
“If there was something for me there, I wouldn’t have been in the car.”
“Tried hitching?”
I was feeling good enough now to attempt a smile. “It’s gotten so there aren’t even that many cars leaving the place. What about you?”
“Me?”
“You got a car?”
“Sure. It’s not like I live here.”
Could’ve fooled me. “What time are you off?”
“Oh, I figure by nine or so that everyone who could show up has pulled off the road and found themselves a motel.”
“Mind giving me a lift?”
“Yeah, but that won’t be for nine, ten hours.”
“Gives me time to digest what I buy. And it beats walking. Hey, wait, where do you live?”
He told me. It was the town I’d come from, me and the girl. I wouldn’t have minded hitching my way back there, if a car had stopped for me, but to walk all this way just to turn back… It felt bad. Not that anything felt good at the moment.
“Well, it’ll do if a new car doesn’t fall from the sky with the keys in the ignition.”
“Son, if one does, you’re welcome to it. Eight miles! Lord all-might-ee!”
“In the meantime, I’ll take a hamburger, side of fries, and another Coke.”
He headed for the curtain to the kitchen. “Not the most creative order I’d ever got.”
“I’ve got time to think up something more interesting for dinner.”
I sat down in the cracked vinyl of the booth that was on the side of the place not facing the sun. I took all the money I had in the world out and laid it on the table. Eighteen dollars and seventy cents.
The cook came back with my food. He set it on the table and looked at my finances.
“Help yourself,” I told him.
He took what was owed me and left me alone. I ate looking at the fan, watching it go round and round. I could’ve looked out the windows, but I’d had enough of that. Even if it hadn’t had enough of me.
With my food gone, I took the tray back and used the bathroom—thankfully, the old man used some of his ample leisure time to keep the place clean. The old man told me I was welcome to get myself water. I thanked him, put my cents in the tip jar, and took a glass of water back to my booth. I sipped it slowly, parceling out the time until I would have to go and fill my glass again, conserving my energy like there was anything to do with it. I daydreamed to keep my mind off how I had nothing to do but keep my throat wet.
I felt a little queasy, a little fucked up—not even bored, but stagnant, or flat. Yeah, that was the word. Flat like soda left out in the sun. Like I would be here, sweating and breathing out carbon dioxide for all time. Good for nothing else. Doing nothing else. With nowhere else to go. Only here was unimportant enough for something as useless as me.
A car pulled to a noisy stop outside. It brought me back to reality. Maybe nothing else would’ve, not in a hundred years, but probably that was just self-pity talking. I told myself I’d been a few minutes away from filling my glass with water. Maybe seeing if I could sneak some ice.
I looked out the window and saw a sleek red convertible right out of a car magazine. There were two women in it. I got a good long look at them as they got out of the car and walked for the lunchroom.
They both wore black cheongsams and that was seemingly all they wore, except for their heels. The dresses didn’t join at the sides. Lace sewed together the fronts and backs; they were like one long length of cloth, draped to either side of the collar and falling down from their shoulders, leaving them arms and legs bare, and those side slits showing so much that you couldn’t feel you were missing out on their cleavage and hips being covered.
The women themselves were lovely enough to hardly need some eye-catching dresses to show off. They were wasian—somewhere between white and Asian, like they were from where Russia bordered Mongolia and east met west. Hair too black and eyes too narrow to pass as Caucasian, but the creamy skin tone could not be more European.
One seemed older than the other, though they were both youthful enough to be sister. The older one was more robust in her curves: thicker thighs, wider hips, more womanly, but too well-preserved to really seem older. The younger one was more slender, sylphlike, girlish really. Her features a shade more delicate, her movements not as assured. The daughter or the niece or the baby sister. But they were certainly related. Their faces could’ve been mirror images of each other.
They came to the screen door and opened it, but just stood there, looking at the counter and waiting for some life to present itself.