Intro
Wander into any diner and you can expect a side of slaw. What that guy behind the counter is dishing out, other than a little backhanded advice, is any lone traveler’s guess. Enjoy “Short Order,” the tenth installment of Genres Not Included, two authors serving up the the best typewriter improv, raw and unedited, every Friday night.
Brace for Impact. The next installment of Genres Not Included starts now.
Pulp Fiction meets the Surreal once again while Joe at @BooksPointof and I engage in a little flash fiction improv. We have five posts each to create a short story. Joe starts this thread!
Ready? Go.
— Eva Newcastle, 8/23/24
The day was Tuesday.
The location was Perry’s Diner.
The lunch was a turkey on rye. With yellow mustard.
It wasn’t great.
But as Scott waited, wondering if Amanda were going to show, it was all he wanted to eat. Anything more would have made him sick.
Where was she?
Scott waited, hunched over the deli counter, the place he knew she’d see him. No excuses. He peeled back the top slice of rye that may as well have been cheap white bread, that Wonder stuff he grew up eating.
“Problem?” the cook asked, drying a dish with his dirty white apron.
“Nah.” He shook his head, the lie easier than any he’d told that week.
She said she’d be there. Said she’d meet with him one last time.
Scott hoped she meant it, because the weight of his greatest lie was heavier than anything he’d spouted before.
Heavier than a damn anchor.
“You got a problem with the sandwich, you tell it to me straight. ” The cook sucked on a toothpick and set the dish aside.
Scott released the bread and swiveled, Elvis Presley’s, “A Little More Conversation” on repeat.
“Woman trouble, huh?” The cook leaned across the counter.
“You a fry cook or a bartender?” Scott tried, but the sardonic humor wasn’t there.
“I serve customers. Sandwiches, cocktails, buddy, it don’t matter. Now…you gonna grump into your cream soda, or you gonna tell me what’s what? I ain’t exactly got a ton of business right now.”
Scott clenched his jaw. That cook could read him better than a greasy recipe card clipped to some board.
“You in some kinda trouble?” The cook pressed. “Cuz I don’t want no trouble around here.”
Scott perused the joint. He’d told Amanda he was free on bail. She had to know.
“Bud, I’m free as a bird and with nobody and no one to tie me down. How could I be in trouble?”
Scott thought about the fanny pack of stolen gemstones around his waist.
His ticket out.
Amanda’s too, if she showed.
Where was she?
The man behind the counter chuckled.
“Women are trouble,” the cook said. “I told my old lady that. But she don’t listen, so I took care of her.”
Scott’s racing thoughts stopped. He took a second, a furtive look around. The frying pan. The rubbery turkey.
“I don’t like women comin’ ’round here,” the cook added.
Something seemed off. There was an unreality in the cook’s admission.
Scott had no misogyny in his body. Did he?
The last time he had seen Amanda…yeah, he’d gotten a little mad. But not THAT mad.
Right?
Suddenly, Scott’s mouth felt dry and he very much wanted to leave.
Scott felt the blood drain from his face when he saw Amanda’s car in the parking lot, a door open. Perry’s Diner was a rumor, one of those stories meant to serve up a warning in county prison with the grub. No free rides. No tickets out. The diner door locked by itself.
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