Steve walks. He enters. He will forget the whole ordeal with Enoch Mex.
Just like he forgot many things. You say it. He will conviently forget it.
Steve sits on a stool that is right in front of the counter in the diner. HE is a regular here. The stool is too small, and too short and it tilts. Upon seeing him, Helen- a waitress/preparer of various drinks who works behind the counter in this diner, she cries out:
" I don't know why you blue collar two bit trash come to dis place. This place for good respectable folk! Them folks having to dine with the likes of you. You goddamn hoods, never keep your nose clean. Never keeping your noses clean. " She preaches, her fat tongue flapping and her eyes rolling in indignation.
An ice-cream soda beautiful." Steve deepens his voice. He enjoys this. It is amusing to flirt with the ugliest waitress in the diner. She is uglier then him so she deserves it. But even through Soc's are richer then him, Steve Randle does not deserve what they give him.
One day, when he was an old man, the Soc's would come to Steve and beg for forgiveness with rivers of snot coming down their noses and weeping.
"Oh please. Oh please." They would weep.
Then Steve would take a sledgehammer and smash their heads open like a juicy watermelon. Then he would run them over and over with his future Mustang Acapulco Blue. Then Steve would then pour gasoline on them and light a match and then let them burn and scream. Afterwards, their charred remains would beg for forgiveness.
Then Steve would say:
"Yes, I forgive you."
Then he would probably die.
Helen was a bitter salty white woman in her late thirties who secretly drinks shots of whisky while she works. She is fat- her blue and white uniform searching around her large women hips and her women bust and her unnaturally thick arms. Her face was like a pancake without syrup, large doughy, round and greasy but not a bit of sweetness in it. Her nose was flat and wide as if crushed. Her lips are thin, white and tight. Her eyes, which were the color of pecans, are small, narrow and darting. Her cheeks are doughy, red and swollen, which if you looked closely enough you could see tiny red veins burrowing through her skin like thousands of angry locusts. She had fine wrinkles at the corner of her eyes and around her mouth. Her hair stringy, messy was washed out blonde- like used dishwater.
Helen makes a gargle in her flabby throat and turns her big behind on Steve Randle. She takes a bottle of cola and screws the bottle cap open with fury causing her to have red painful marks on her chapped calloused thick hands. She pours the Pepsi into a curvy woman shaped glass. She goes to the tub of stiff frozen vanilla ice cream and with great effort with the scooper grabs a thick ball of the stuff. The very smell and sight of ice cream makes her seethe with malice.
She wants to grab Steve and shove scoopful after scoopful down his greedy hoarse throat, it's sweetness running down his chin and him choking on the thick sweet substance and his tongue crying for any favor that is not sweet. Steve Randle is so low, that he is the slime that others trod upon. He is a waste of air and a waste of effort of his parent's part and a waste of cola and ice cream and sugar.
She recklessly dumps the ice cream into the Pepsi, letting sticky Pepsi dribble down her fat fingers and then very carefully she hides her face and the glass and then spits her cigarette whisky favored spit into the ice- cream soda.
She spits on ice cream and she spits on the American Dream. The goddamn American Dream, and it drowned underneath the river of melted sweet fat swirls of ice-cream and cheese and beautiful people who could walk on ice- cream and cheese while the rest of them went to hell- served with a buffet of lies that she could no longer take a bite from. It didn't matter what you were, as long as you paid your taxes and acted like the piece of shit you were.
"15 cents." She says tonelessly. She feels her lips curve gently as she places it in front of him.
"Worth more than you baby doll." Steve snickers as he places down some sliver colored change on the dirty counter. He wishes Soda or Two Bits was here to hear his cleverness. Steve Randle requires an audience. He has to share himself, because he is too good to hog himself.
Steve remembered Soda's mothers cooking. She would bake hot buttery starchy biscuits, smothered with hot opaque brown gravy which sometimes had lumps of god knows what in it. She would take the juices of her freshly cooked meat or chicken broth and then boil her vegetables in it. Her vegetables would become sweet and moist as fat that melted between your lips and left a resonant warm taste in your mouth. With asparagus, she would cook it until it was tender and then put a small dish of mayonnaise so you could dip it in. And with broccoli, she would smother melted shredded cheese all over it. In the summers, bitter refreshing lemon ice tea. In the winter, rich thick muggy bitter coffee.
And he takes a sip. It is sweet and good. It dulls Enoch and his damn worms.
"Not bad baby doll. Not bad at all."
Helen smiles.
Steve sits on a stool that is right in front of the counter in the diner. HE is a regular here. The stool is too small, and too short and it tilts. Upon seeing him, Helen- a waitress/preparer of various drinks who works behind the counter in this diner, she cries out:
" I don't know why you blue collar two bit trash come to dis place. This place for good respectable folk! Them folks having to dine with the likes of you. You goddamn hoods, never keep your nose clean. Never keeping your noses clean. " She preaches, her fat tongue flapping and her eyes rolling in indignation.
An ice-cream soda beautiful." Steve deepens his voice. He enjoys this. It is amusing to flirt with the ugliest waitress in the diner. She is uglier then him so she deserves it. But even through Soc's are richer then him, Steve Randle does not deserve what they give him.
One day, when he was an old man, the Soc's would come to Steve and beg for forgiveness with rivers of snot coming down their noses and weeping.
"Oh please. Oh please." They would weep.
Then Steve would take a sledgehammer and smash their heads open like a juicy watermelon. Then he would run them over and over with his future Mustang Acapulco Blue. Then Steve would then pour gasoline on them and light a match and then let them burn and scream. Afterwards, their charred remains would beg for forgiveness.
Then Steve would say:
"Yes, I forgive you."
Then he would probably die.
Helen was a bitter salty white woman in her late thirties who secretly drinks shots of whisky while she works. She is fat- her blue and white uniform searching around her large women hips and her women bust and her unnaturally thick arms. Her face was like a pancake without syrup, large doughy, round and greasy but not a bit of sweetness in it. Her nose was flat and wide as if crushed. Her lips are thin, white and tight. Her eyes, which were the color of pecans, are small, narrow and darting. Her cheeks are doughy, red and swollen, which if you looked closely enough you could see tiny red veins burrowing through her skin like thousands of angry locusts. She had fine wrinkles at the corner of her eyes and around her mouth. Her hair stringy, messy was washed out blonde- like used dishwater.
Helen makes a gargle in her flabby throat and turns her big behind on Steve Randle. She takes a bottle of cola and screws the bottle cap open with fury causing her to have red painful marks on her chapped calloused thick hands. She pours the Pepsi into a curvy woman shaped glass. She goes to the tub of stiff frozen vanilla ice cream and with great effort with the scooper grabs a thick ball of the stuff. The very smell and sight of ice cream makes her seethe with malice.
She wants to grab Steve and shove scoopful after scoopful down his greedy hoarse throat, it's sweetness running down his chin and him choking on the thick sweet substance and his tongue crying for any favor that is not sweet. Steve Randle is so low, that he is the slime that others trod upon. He is a waste of air and a waste of effort of his parent's part and a waste of cola and ice cream and sugar.
She recklessly dumps the ice cream into the Pepsi, letting sticky Pepsi dribble down her fat fingers and then very carefully she hides her face and the glass and then spits her cigarette whisky favored spit into the ice- cream soda.
She spits on ice cream and she spits on the American Dream. The goddamn American Dream, and it drowned underneath the river of melted sweet fat swirls of ice-cream and cheese and beautiful people who could walk on ice- cream and cheese while the rest of them went to hell- served with a buffet of lies that she could no longer take a bite from. It didn't matter what you were, as long as you paid your taxes and acted like the piece of shit you were.
"15 cents." She says tonelessly. She feels her lips curve gently as she places it in front of him.
"Worth more than you baby doll." Steve snickers as he places down some sliver colored change on the dirty counter. He wishes Soda or Two Bits was here to hear his cleverness. Steve Randle requires an audience. He has to share himself, because he is too good to hog himself.
Steve remembered Soda's mothers cooking. She would bake hot buttery starchy biscuits, smothered with hot opaque brown gravy which sometimes had lumps of god knows what in it. She would take the juices of her freshly cooked meat or chicken broth and then boil her vegetables in it. Her vegetables would become sweet and moist as fat that melted between your lips and left a resonant warm taste in your mouth. With asparagus, she would cook it until it was tender and then put a small dish of mayonnaise so you could dip it in. And with broccoli, she would smother melted shredded cheese all over it. In the summers, bitter refreshing lemon ice tea. In the winter, rich thick muggy bitter coffee.
And he takes a sip. It is sweet and good. It dulls Enoch and his damn worms.
"Not bad baby doll. Not bad at all."
Helen smiles.