Short short story:

[Call Me Wesley]

The Uneasy Summer Of 1996

I am a dweller on the throttle, or something like that, in a song I heard once somewhere. This occurred to me as I was slowing down, heading left into a parking space at Hank's Diner. That's what the sign said, anyway. Breakfast, the sun already up for two hours, and there's street dust on my clothes.

Behind the counter, there's a vision of a frail waitress. This is Kentucky, the state where Steadman found the colors and Thompson named them, but I don't want to think about that. It's hot out there, dry. I want to watch tumbleweeds crossing the glaring street. There should be tumbleweeds around here, from the looks of the place. But it's Kentucky, and there are none. I look at the waitress again.

She gives me my eggs, sunny-side up as I ordered, along with a spoonful of the religion I thought I'd lost on my drive. She's a human being and that's enough right now, on a Thursday morning in late July, when I've stopped counting the miles behind and ahead of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a green truck driving by. Not slow, but still no tumbleweeds in its wake.

The waitress smells like nions and oil, and she feels sorry. Sorry in her blue waitress uniform stained by a previous work day. But she smiles and pours me a cup of coffee. She promises the coffee was made fresh this morning. It's okay, I tell her. I don't really care much about these things. Not anymore. Not with the miles on my mind.

I take five pieces of sugar and return her smile. I let her fall a little bit in love with me, and since there's only one other quiet guy around, she and I begin to talk and listen. Her name is MaryAnne, according to her name tag, and she was born in Georgia, 26 years ago, or 26 years from now. I don't know for sure, and she leaves the question open. She has long black hair and says she's only working here for the summer. She hates the job and wants to talk about the perfume bottles she's been collecting since she was a kid. She says she still collects the nice bottles after she empties them. She keeps them on her dresser and in the bathroom in the house where she has lived for a year with her husband, Billy Joe. He's a real asshole, but strong, too, and she has a baby with him. MaryAnne got the job because Billy Joe is a friend of Hank, the owner of this place where I sit drinking coffee and talking to strangers. She tells me all this, then walks away to tend to the guy at the end of the counter. He's a fat guy in a leather jacket, and he calls her by the first half of her name and gives me a dirty look. MaryAnne smiles at me while she serves him.

She comes back and says she doesn't like living here because she believes deep in her heart that she's a wild girl. That's what her mother always said. Her mother lives in Georgia. She's divorced and never remarried, and shares a house with a younger boyfriend named Dough. A nice guy, MaryAnne says.

I want another cup of coffee, and MaryAnne brings it, counting out the pieces of sugar. I watch the sugar cubes fall into my coffee, one by one, as she tells me that she hated being pregnant and how she threw up every morning for the first three months. The sugar makes a slurping sound as the last piece falls from her fingers into my cup. She touches my hand.
MaryAnne talks about her perfumes again and how good she smells when she's off work. She wears perfume for herself, not her husband, she says. Through the window, I see another truck, this time a blue one, heading for the parking space next to my bike. I finish my coffee while MaryAnne serves the other customer and looks through the glass door to the new customer. The coffee is too sweet.

Then, she takes my cash, says she has to work until 1 p.m. She lives only ten minutes from here, in a house on the right side of the street. The house is newly painted green, the only house that color on the block.

As I'm leaving, she looks up at me.
"What do you do?" she asks.
"I'm a writer," I say, leaving the tip.
"Exciting," she says.
I start to count the miles again.



copyright 1999.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear Call Me Wesley!

I really like this short short story of yours!

It is very short, but complete. The two main characters are strongly written, and vivid.

I can see how she tempts him. It is beautifully drawn. It starts when he says he's letting her fall in love with him a little bit.....

Very very nice!

Did you read mine? The Game.....

It needs editing, badly! But the bones are good, I think.....:shrug:

[Call Me Wesley]

2. Thank you, Peggy!

I had quite some different feedback in 1999 ... I think I remember someone accusing me of 'portraying writers as arrogant'; but this was not the intent of the whole story. It's more a snippet of a possible movie scene as I see it, where maybe two worlds collide.

I have another one posted here, Embers, and I'm going to read yours. I'm wuite new to the writer's group here. ;)

Thank you again! :hug: :loveya: