on you when it did.
“S’cuse me.” Chet pushed back his chair and stood up. “Need to get something from my car.”
“What did you leave?” Tom asked.
“Just some medicine. Don’t let no one take my seat.” He pulled his denim jacket off the back of his chair and shrugged into it as he walked past the lunch counter and pushed aside the glass door next to the cash register.
Garrett mentioned an awful murder that had occurred a few days ago in the big city a couple of hundred miles away, the one that had made all the newspapers. Pretty soon everyone was talking about it: how it had been committed, who had been arrested, whether they really had done the deed, so forth and so on. Bill glanced over his shoulder; out the window, he saw that the trunk lid of Chet’s Cadillac had been raised. He watched Chet slam it shut; he turned and began walking back to the diner.
“Funny place to keep medicine,” he murmured.
“Huh?” Tom cupped an ear. “What’s that you say?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Chet came back into the diner, took his seat again. The rest of the guys were still discussing the murder, but he didn’t seem to have anything to add; he simply picked up a menu and opened it to the breakfast page. Bill noted that he didn’t take off his jacket.
A couple of minutes later, the kitchen door banged open again, and there was Joanne. The flycam prowled overhead, filming her every move, as she imperiously studied the dining room. Act II, Scene II: Joanne returns from break. Cue incidental music, audience applause.
“Hey, Joanne!” Garrett raised a hand. “Could we have a little service here, please?”
She heaved an expansive sigh (the audience chuckles expectantly), then pulled pen and order pad from her apron. “Can’t a girl get a break ’round here?” she said (the audience laughs a little louder) as she came over, the flycam obediently following her.
For the first time, Bill noticed how much makeup she was wearing: pancake on the cheeks, rouge around the eyes, red lipstick across the mouth. She was trying to erase her last ten years, at least for the benefit of the camera.
“Seems to me that’s all you’ve been taking lately,” Chet replied, not looking up from his menu. “We’ve been waiting over an hour now.”
Joanne dropped her mouth open in histrionic surprise (
Chet continued to study the menu. “Joanne,” he said quietly, “I’ve been coming here to eat before you were born. I bounced your little fanny on my knee when you were a child, and told Ray Senior that he should give you a job when you got out of school…”
“And if it wasn’t for you, I could have been working for NASA by now!” (Whistles, foot-stomping applause.).
Chet ignored her. “Every time I’ve come here, I’ve put a dollar in your tip glass, even when you’ve done no more than pour me a cup of coffee. So after all these years, I think I deserve a little common courtesy, don’t you think?”
Joanne’s face turned scarlet beneath the make-up. This wasn’t part of the script. “Well, I don’t… I don’t think I have to… I don’t have to…”
“Joanne,” Bill said softly, “just take our orders, please. We’re hungry, and we want to eat.”
“And turn off that silly thing,” Chet added. “I’d like a little privacy, if it’s not too much to ask.”
Reminded that the camera was on her (the audience coughs, moves restlessly) Joanne sought to recover her poise. “We-l-l-l-l-l, if it’s privacy you… I mean, if you don’t… I mean… if you don’t mind, I’d just as soon…”
“Sorry,” Chet said, then he reached up and grabbed the flycam.
The drone resisted as his fingers wrapped around its mike boom, its lenses snapping back and forth. Its motor whined as the rotors went to a higher speed, and for a moment it almost seemed alive as it fought against Chet’s grasp, then he yanked it down to the table.
Tom’s coffee went into his lap and Garrett nearly overturned his chair as they yelled and lurched out of the way. “No! Hey!” Joanne reached for the flycam as Chet turned it over. “Stop! What are you…?”
Chet pushed her aside with one hand, then twisted the drone over on its back. The rotor blades cleaved through a plastic salt shaker and swept the pepper cellar halfway across the room before they snagged against the napkin dispenser.
Bill instinctively pulled his coffee mug out of the way. “Chet, what the hell…!”
Then Chet pulled out from beneath his jacket the tire iron he had fetched from his car trunk and brought it down on the flycam. The first blow shattered the camera lens and broke the mike boom, and the second shattered its plastic carapace and ruined a compact mass of microchips, solenoids, and actuators. The third and forth blows were unnecessary; the flycam was already an irreparable mess.
Then he dropped the tire iron on the table and sat down. There was a long silence as everyone in the diner stared at him. Then…
Long, spontaneous applause from the live studio audience.
As Joanne stared at the wreckage on the table, Chet picked up his menu and opened it again. “Okay,” he said, letting out his breath, “I’ll take two scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries, wheat toast, and tomato juice. Please.”
Tears glimmered in the corners of Joanne’s eyes. “I don’t… I don’t believe you just… that was my…”
“Show’s canceled, Joanne.” Ray Junior, standing at the lunch counter behind them, spoke quietly. “Will you just take the man’s order?”
Joanne’s hands shook a little as she raised her pad and dutifully wrote down Chet’s order. Then she went around the table and copied down everyone else’s. Tom asked for blueberry pancakes, link sausage, rye toast; Garrett requested a western omelette, no fries or toast, and a large glass of milk.
Bill had lost his appetite; he only asked for a refill of his coffee.
Joanne snuffled a bit as she thanked no one in particular, then she turned away and marched on stiff legs back into the kitchen. No one said anything when Ray Junior came out a moment later with a brush and a plastic garbage sack. He avoided everyone’s gaze as he silently whisked away the debris, then he vanished through the swinging doors.
“Well…” Tom began.
“Well,” echoed Garrett.
Chet said nothing, slipped the tire iron beneath his chair, and picked up his coffee.
“Joanne’s a good kid,” Garrett added.
“That she is. That she is.”
“Leave her a good tip, guys. She deserves it.”
“Yeah, she certainly earns her money.”
“Hard-working lady.”
“Damn straight. That she is.”
More silence. Across the room, someone put a quarter in a jukebox. An old Johnny Cash song entered the diner. The door opened, allowing inside a cool autumn breeze; a heavyset driver sat down at the counter, took off his cap, and picked up the lunch menu. A sixteen-wheeler blew its air horn as it rumbled out of the lot, heading for parts unknown.
“So… Braves blew it again, didn’t they?”
“Yep. That they did.” Bill cleared his throat. “Now it’s football season.”
THE ICHNEUMON AND THE DORMEUSE by Terry Dowling
