"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Eighteen -

"The Diner" - #2

Wilson slipped off his windbreaker as he pulled open the door of the diner. He stopped at a table next to the one where remnants of a meal recently eaten still lay scattered across its surface. He paused for a moment and looked around. The place was surreal. He'd heard about antiquities like this one, but had never actually been in one before.

All around him hung posters of movies his parents had seen as children: movies of teen-age angst. Girls in poodle skirts and crinolines, boys in penny loafers and vest sweaters, driving funny looking cars with white wall tires. Doo-Wop music on the radio and the jukebox. The 1950's. A time of innocence. Lover's Lane and necking in the back seat. Bribing little sister or little brother to keep quiet about anything they saw …

Whoa!

Wilson folded the jacket carefully and placed it on the seat closest to the window, then sat down. He returned his attention to the booth in front of him, and to the odds and ends of lunch residue that could only have been House's. He also noticed the small white stool abandoned beneath the table, and understood its purpose immediately.

There was nobody else around at this time of day, and Wilson thought that unusual.

He studied the bill of fare on the wall behind the counter and the extensive ice cream list beside it. He looked over the large pie case on the counter and the double-pot coffee machine behind it. The aroma was heavenly.

Where was everyone? Anyone? Waitress? Waiter? Cook?

Curious, he stood up and walked over to the counter. Leaned across and looked beyond it. The tiny round portholes in the bat-wing doors told him nothing. He called out. "Is anyone here? You have a customer if you are …"

Suddenly he heard a door closing, the hum of voices, and a surprisingly pretty redhead with a face full of freckles poked her head through the batwings. "I'm so sawry … I didn't know anyone was out here. I'm Penny. What can I git for y'awl?""

He gawked and frowned. She looked as though she'd been patching up from crying, and he felt a little guilty for his impatience. "Hi Penny. I'm Jim … and that coffee smells wonderful. Have I interrupted? I didn't mean to …"

"No … no … it's nothin' y'awl did. I'm still a little upset. Go over and have a seat. I'll brang y'awl's coffee."

"Are you all right? Are you hurt?" Wilson's naked concern for anyone in trouble widened his eyes with compassion as he looked at her.

She reached out, touched his arm with her fingers. "Oh no ... no … nothin' like that. There was this mayun …"

Wilson once more understood, only too well. He had seen it before. The abandoned meal on the table over there, the little white stool, still on the floor. House … just by the nature of who he was … had tugged at another set of heartstrings. His tortured friend had absolutely no idea he'd had that affect on another person who knew nothing of his history.

This girl had probably ventured a step over the line, gone a little too far in her instinctive efforts to help someone in pain. House must have fled in silent panic from any hint of solicitude he'd perceived from a total stranger.

Wilson returned her touch, the gentle tips of his fingers for a moment on her hand. He pulled back then, and retreated to the table behind the one Gregg House had occupied. "You must be talking about the disabled man who left here on the motorcycle a few minutes ago …"

Her eyes widened in surprise. This was the second man today who had taken her sensibilities and turned them upside down. This one's gentle brown eyes were as soft and kind as the other man's were pain-filled and hard and blue. She filled his coffee cup nearly to the brim and brought it to his table. She sat down in the booth opposite him. His smile was disarming and charming. Whatever he had to say to her, she wanted very much to hear. "How did y'awl … ?"

"He's my best friend," Wilson said softly. "It's very strange sometimes, I know, but he lives with pain … day after day … every day of his life. He's never free from it, and it has hardened him in ways that most people have a difficult time understanding. He can be cruel and thoughtless without realizing it. The pain does that to him." Wilson shrugged, looked down at his hands around the hot coffee cup.

He watched the girl very closely. Strikingly beautiful. She hung on his every word, and he knew that if he desired it, he might lure her to some out-of-the-way place without too much trouble. But that wasn't what this was about, was it? There was more important business at hand. He felt a moment's regret at what might have been one of the most obviously missed opportunities of his life. So be it.

He continued with what he was saying.

"He's not always suspicious and inconsiderate. He knows when he's gone too far. He knows when he's hurt someone beyond redemption. But he hasn't the grace or the patience to make it right. If he hurts others and they don't heal with time, he abandons them; lets them go.

"Sometimes he lets me see the man beneath the anger … and it's always worth the wait. So please don't be upset by anything he might have done or said."

"Y'awl make it sound so simple, Jim," she said, finally. "Thank yew. I knew Graigg was hurt when he came in. His face was so … I dunno … scrunched. I saw the cane and how bad the limp was. At first, I thought just his foot was hurt. He was … like … walkin' on the toes of his right foot … an' I felt so bad for him … y'know? An' then he started rubbin' an' rubbin' on his laig. He ordered coffee an' poke chops an' sweet 'taters … an' I brought him an ice tea an' a stool from the kitchen to prop his foot up on … y'know?"

Wilson's eyebrows went up. "What was his reaction when you offered him the stool?"

"He jus' sat an' looked at me for a minute … like … was I on the level or somethin'? Then he let me set it up an' lift up his foot on it. After that, it was like he seemed a little better. He ate most of the chops an' stuff … well … y'awl can see what's left on the plate." She gestured, and Wilson's eyes followed the movement. It looked to him as though House had eaten about half of what he'd been served.

"What happened then?" He asked.

"Then," she said, "he took his foot down off the stool and went back to the ress room. He was in there awhile, but I was busy in the kitchen an' didn't take much notice. Then I heard this loud racket comin' from in the back, an' I ran out …"

Wilson's eyebrows went up.

"I think he fell in there. I heard him cuss, an' I heard the top of the metal waste can bang against the wall ... I called out to him, but he said he was fine … "

He saw her eyes mist up, but let her speak at her own pace.

After a moment, she continued. "When he came back out again, he had a paper towel wrapped around his hand. I asked him if he was okay, but it was like he was lookin' straight through me. I already told him BillyJoe could take his bike out back so's he wouldn't have to go down the steps out front … an' he just said for me to ask BillyJoe to do that then." She hesitated, catching her breath.

"An' then he paid his bill an' left. He was awful lame again … as bad as he was when he first came in. He had trouble liftin' his leg across the seat of the cycle … but he wouldn't let neither of us help him …"

Penny dropped her head and reached into her apron pocket to pull something out. When she opened her hand there was a $100 bill in her palm.

"He gave me this … an' he gave one to BillyJoe too."

Wilson crunched his eyes closed for a moment and allowed himself a sigh.

Aw, House …

When he looked up again, Penny was smiling tightly. "See?" She said. "I knew y'awl were right when you said he wasn't really always inconsiderate. His big ol' heart hurts sooo bad … an' he jus' don't know how to let anybody in …"

When Wilson visited the rest room before he left, he saw the blood spatters in the sink. He had a paper towel wrapped around his hand … The top of the big metal waste can was slightly askew on its base, and further investigation revealed blood along the sharp inside edge.

Aw Christ, House! What have you done now?

When Wilson left the Chase City Diner, he was full of excellent honey chicken and sweet potatoes, coffee and ice tea: fuel for future battles? He was also worried even more about House, and his fingers clamped around the wheel of the SUV with a death grip.

It was nearing noon, and he was pulling back on the road, back to chasing that damned suicide machine. Cars and pickup trucks began appearing out of nowhere into the parking lot behind him as though by magic, for the local lunch hour.

Penny, the pretty waitress, waved at him from the door of the diner, and he wondered what her reaction would be when she discovered his nervous attempts to scour the blood out of the washbowl in the men's room. He wondered what the hell he had been thinking …

Raleigh, North Carolina was only an hour or two away, and when he next saw Gregory House, he was going to shake the man until his teeth rattled.

Probably.

Or not.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

87