Not that I’m complaining. Hair’s been good to me. My father-in-law worked in here with me for years.”
“Did your father-in-law ever hear stories about strange disappearances in the area?”
George stopped for a moment and thought.
“That’s an odd question.” He paused for a few moments to think.
“Mentioned something about disappearances in the thirties. During the depression. Lot of folks moved through the area. No one paid much attention. And then there was a time right after the war. There was a slew 37 of disappearances when Shipp started throwing up the houses around here. Lot of rumors. Why do you ask?”
Hank smiled and closed his eyes.
“Just making small talk,” he said.
George snapped his gum and laughed.
Margaret
“What did you do?” Adelle asked Cathy, her eyes wide with anticipation.
Cathy leaned across the restaurant table in the booth the two girls occupied. “I kissed it!”
Adelle clapped her hands, leaned back, and laughed. Cathy smiled.
“You didn’t!” Adelle cried.
The waitress arrived at the table to take the girls’ order. With her hair pinned up, her thin bosom-less body, and the low sarcastic voice that slipped out of the side of her mouth, she was, for the girls, the anti-fe-male. Her name was Margaret. The girls looked up with disgust.
Couldn’t she see that they were talking? The girls ordered.
“You dragged me over here for a Coke and two straws?” Margaret said with a snarl.
Cathy looked up and smiled with as much charm as she could garner.
“We are having a conversation,” Cathy said, enunciating each word as if she were speaking to someone who did not understand the English language.
Adelle turned and raised her eyebrows, giving parenthesis to Cathy’s declaration.
Margaret tapped her pencil on her ordering pad, leaned to one side, and smiled. “We are running a business,” she replied. And then leaning over the table, added, “And if you ladies give me any more of this snotty business, you’ll no longer be welcome in this establishment.” The two girls were silent for a brief moment before Adelle added, “I’ll have toast.”
Margaret returned to the counter.
“Where is she coming from?” Adelle cried.
“What a bitch!” Cathy whispered.
“No wonder there’s never anyone in this place,” Adelle added, her eye on Margaret. “I would never talk to a customer like that. Mr. Leblanc would fire me on the spot. She must be going through the change. My mother’s like that. The other day she went into a rage because I used a 38 bit of her makeup. There was hardly anything left in the tube of face cream and she blames me because it’s all gone. Like it’s my fault that she didn’t buy more. She uses my tampons and I don’t scream at her. Why do women become such witches? If I turn out like that, promise me you’ll have me put down.”
Margaret returned with the girls’ Coke and toast. Both girls smiled at the waitress. Margaret shook her head.
When the waitress left, Adelle turned to Cathy.
“What happened next?”
The Fight
Sam Kelly sipped at his coffee as he sat on the stool by the counter.
“The blueberry pie is fresh,” Margaret said. She’d always had a soft spot for a man in uniform-although technically Sam wasn’t in uniform.
Still, he was a cop. Her ex-husband had been a fireman.
“Well, then I’ll have a piece.” Sam smiled.
Margaret turned away, returning a moment later with a slice of pie and a fork. Sam took a piece and smiled.
“This is good,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
Margaret leaned against the counter and lit up a cigarette.
“I didn’t make it so you don’t have to pretend that it’s good.”
“It’s not bad,” Sam reiterated.
“You don’t mind?” Margaret gestured to the cigarette.
Sam shook his head.
“The boss is out. It’s the only chance I get to steal a puff. If he shows up the cigarette is yours.”
She put an ashtray on the counter.
“I thought this place was nonsmoking,” Sam said.
“Only when a cop walks in.” Margaret laughed.
Finishing the pie, Sam wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed the plate away. He took a sip of coffee.
“Tell me about the fight.”
“Isn’t much to tell,” Margaret began. “They were sitting at one of the tables when suddenly their voices were raised. I turned and was about to go over and ask them to keep their voices down when I saw Terry lunge across the table and plant one on the kisser of the other kid. He had a strange name. Piggy or Wiggy-something like that. The other kid lay on the floor. There was blood coming out of the side of his mouth. Terry 39 stood over him and the kid on the floor started laughing. Then they got up and left together like nothing had happened.”
“Do you want to lay charges?” Sam asked.
Margaret shook her head. “There was no damage. And the boss wasn’t here. And Terry is Mary’s kid. Mary’s a good friend of mine.”
“I’ll have a talk with those boys,” Sam said.
“What’s wrong with kids these days?” Margaret cried. “It’s like they’re angry at the world.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Wiggy lay in the tall grass, raised the bottle of gin to the moon, and made a promise. “I shall buy the most expensive fuctioning automobill in the world once I get a whale paying job.” The moon isn’t yellow. Lifting himself from the grass, he bowed. He glanced out over the valley at the creek moving like a silver snake through the trees. God, it’s pretty. A laugh spurted out of his mouth as he collapsed once again onto the tall lush grass.
Cathy howled with laughter, smoke splattering out of her mouth.
“What’s a fuctioning automobill?”
“What’s a whale paying job?” Terry added, holding his stomach, his laughter tied in knots in his abdomen. Why do they say the moon is yellow?
Frank lifted himself off the grass into a seated position, his sobriety a wonder to his friends. “What is the proper use of shall?” Cathy looked at Frank with a puzzled expression. Are you real? Wiggy was about to untangle himself from the tall grass and address the group again when Adelle grabbed him by the sleeve and passed him a joint.
“Don’t say another word,” Adelle pleaded, looking at her other friends lying around on the long grass, laughing in gasps, holding their stomachs, tears running down their cheeks. “You’re going to hurt someone.” Wiggy shrugged his shoulders, a bottle of gin in one hand, a joint in the other. He looked up into the sky where clouds were huddling around the moon. Where’s my other hand?
“The moon looks like a scalper outside the Gardens.”
“What happened to the word shan’t?” Frank asked. “It’s completely disappeared from the language. Are there any other words that have disappeared?” Maybe whole languages have disappeared.
Adelle looked at Frank. Why do you always problem solve when you get stoned?
Frank looked back. Are you asking me a question?
Wiggy pointed into the sky. “The moon looks like a child in bed and someone is putting a pillow over its face.”
“That’s certainly a cheerful insight,” Terry said.
Adelle wiped the tears from her cheek. “Whose got the joint?” Wiggy passed the bottle of gin to Adelle who looked at it, shrugged, and took a swallow. Tastes like scotch tape.
“It sure is getting dark,” Cathy said as she moved closer to Terry.
Terry smiled and put his arm around her shoulder. She stared at the tall pines, their heads softly swaying in the night.
“The tree tops look like the Supremes.” She pointed at one particular tree and added, “That one is Diana Ross.”
Wiggy turned to Cathy. “Looks more like Van What’s-his-name.”