A Fine Pillow

The elusive mistress he yearns for evades Ben for another night. This café has been more of a home the past few nights than his tiny apartment three blocks away for this lady has thrown him away, discarding him in the black of night. Now he is left in a daze, wandering the barely lit streets of the city. At this point, he can’t tell whether his dreams are reality or reality is a dream. Sitting in the yellowing light of the Black Cross 24-hour Café, he sips his decaf, two creams, one sugar. Slowly, waiting for her to return. However, his wait seems to be an eternity. He has not found the secret to letting him back into her good graces, but he is searching his mind for that secret. For his mistress is sleep and she keeps him up night after night. Ben hopes for some salvation from this malaise that robs of his nocturnal slumber. The answers lay not in the brown substance before him, though. He wants to find the paths to his dreams. To no avail, he has arrived here for the last week to watch the world behind the glass and sip his elixir to feign sleep. Instead, he thinks much more acutely and intensely as the world swims before and around him. His hand shakes his short spiky hair as if to struggle the mind’s intoxicating, paralyzing thoughts that war with the blissfully sweet woman who has left him. Now, he must find her.

He stares into his cup, a mustard yellow mug before him as the waitress moves almost like she was on wheels, a sleek smoothness in her glide even with a pot of coffee in her hand. Her short red dress accentuates the long thin legs hat stabilized that movement. In the corner of her top is a white handkerchief and a plastic nametag saying “Toni”.

“Need a refill?” Toni said with a lilt.

“I might not need it but, I’ll take it,” Ben responded with a bit of haze.

“Back agin tonight I see. You beginning to become a regular.”

“Cant’ let your pretty face go.”

She pours into the mug like dirt on the sun, and with a sly smile, turns from him and hides the true face she has, one of disgust and angst.

Ben goes back to his coffee and loses himself in his thoughts.

I am no Cary Grant. I can’t even keep the attention of a waitress who works a crappy job, crappy shifts and probably deserves more than what she has and man is she cute. Like I wouldn’t mess it up like all the other relationships…I gotta stop coming here. When the help starts to recognize ya, ya need to find a new place to hang out. Maybe I should stay home and watch TV again till dawn. Maybe after a few days, that will get me to sleep. Now what was in the middle of….the grocery list…..I need some antiperspirant, mouthwash boy do I need toothpaste, the taste in my mouth is god-awful. I gotta lay off those sandwiches they bring into the office. I need something for lunch but I hate those microwave dinners. They taste like plastic and dry and the potatoes never cook all the way through. I wish I had taken time to learn to cook. It’s the one skill they should mandate for guys to take in high school in case you spend the rest of your life as a bachelor. where was I, grocery list, that’s where I was….some orange juice. Maybe I should call in tomorrow and try to get some sleep. I don’t really want to go anyways. If only it didn’t pay so well, I would leave it in a minute. How so many stupid people could fit into one place is beyond me. My boss is nice and all but, he couldn’t find a needle in a stack of needles….why do I even bother sometimes with anything….

The clear sounds of birds play back inside his thoughts as a distant memory.

* * * * *

Toni pours into the mug and with a sly smile, turns from the dark clothed customer and hides her true face she has, one of disgust and angst. And walks away behind the counter, puts the coffeepot back into its warmer and begins to put away the clean glasses, warm from the washer into the appropriated slots under the teal countertop.

What the hell was I thinking taking Sara’s shift again?!? There are always weirdoes who come out late at night and make their way in here. Either that or dirty men who hit on ya left and right like that creep here. Acting like they could save me, the tarnished knights they are. If they were actually able to save me, why the heck would they here in the middle of the night? Why is it men when pursue women, they try to convince ya that they can save ya, but when they are with ya, they take advantage of what they have, and leave ya for some other damsel they convince they can save. ‘Can’t let my pretty face go?’ What’s that supposed to mean? I will never understand these creatures. I am so glad I don’t answer to nobody. I wish Sara were single. Then I wouldn’t be taking her shift for the third time this week. All of this for some loser that’s gonna leave her. Why isn’t there a guy out there who actually believes that crap? Ah man, a guy with a kid, please don’t come in….Crap! Just what I need. Some kindergartner bouncing off the wall in here. The guy’s has a nice butt though, he looks worn though. Bingo! Look at that white ring of skin on the finger there, could blind someone with that. Definitely a divorce case. Well time to put on my ‘happy to help you’ face on….

Toni moves a tendril of brown hair from her face and stroll over to the table where the family has seated.

* * * * *

Elyce bounces in first, moving in a flow of energy not remembered by the adults around her . Her curly hair rustles behind her within this movement. She immediately runs for the table at the end of the diner. Her father, Johnny, attached to her, hand in hand tethering her ball of energy. He sizes up the place and the people in it: A man dress in black, sipping a yellow mug, the young waitress behind the counter, taking out her pad and pencil, and, lastly, a white hat that bobbed in the window behind the counter that one must assume must be the cook.

Toni eases her way to them as Johnny sits down as though the bench is made of nails. As she slides by the table, he notices the length of her hemline.

“ What would you two like to drink?” Toni says with no allusion of the molten volcano of attitude underneath.

“Let me have a soda and she will have a chocolate milk” Johnny responds to the pretty brunette, looking her in the eye.

“Coming right up,” Toni responds and slides away while Elyce plays away with the two dolls she had brought with her. On top of the table, the danced and twirled around the linoleum of the table by the will of the little hands holding them.

…The princess kisses the knight…and they are in love and he is going to marry her…and they danced and danced and danced cause they were happy and he took her away from the evil troll king and they run and run…and he goes away to war…leaving her to dance a while for herself and she is lonely…but he comes back…and the world is change and they dance even more…

* * * * *

Johnny’s eyelids sag as he reads the menu. He already knows what Elyce will have, chicken strips. However, he is not sure whether to get the ravishing French dip sandwich or a patty melt. He looks over at the waitress behind the counter moving things about. And goes back to his menu to decide

I think I go with the patty melt…That waitress is cute and if I had enough energy to talk to her… And what the hell is up with the dude over there. He looks like death warmed over…Like someone woke him up from his grave and told him to get a cup of coffee… Geez what the hell is does Lena do to this kid that keeps her up so late…I always thought she was a stupid woman. Why the hell I even married her I will never know…maybe I was asleep…Love sometimes can keep you asleep for years, I read that in some magazine I think…Maybe I should have the French dip…I thought the movie would put her to sleep…and look at her, she is such a beautiful little girl…perfect dark ringlets and that smile with that one tooth askew…I gotta watch out for her when she grows up…she doesn’t look like her mother or me for that matter….some distant relative long gone….Maybe the patty melt…

Toni has returned to take their order…

* * * * *

Ben watches from his seat as the pair comes in and takes a booth far from him. He sips away at his coffee as observes how the father, he assumes, looks at Toni and interacts with the little girl. He watches Toni walk away and the man’s eyes follow her and return back to the menu…

Don’t even think about it….Toni is a hard cookie to break… She may be pretty but, she’s not going to break for the likes of you…Hah…I’d laugh so hard if she put you in her place…

In the back of his mind, the sound of ice crackling seep through his thoughts.

He goes back to his coffee and takes a somewhat satisfied sip…

What am I going to about my job? I am never going to be promoted in this company nor am I going to be moved to another department with the dingy boss I have….Then why do I stay??…Why?…cause I’m scared…Why can’t I go back home and sleep? The job…. The job isn’t important….It really isn’t ….It’s the only reason I stay in this city….The money is not worth sitting here night after night…I hate the way this city looks the dark grunge that hangs on the halo of the buildings…I don’t need to be here…

Ben looks out the window as he put down the mug.

Look at that man out there…He hasn’t taken a bath in forever…. that dirt looks painted on…. I can’t live like that…. Wait a second…. I don’t have to….I can go home….HOME home….. although, I don’t know if I can deal with my mother on a daily basis…. it beats the weird long distance calls would stop…’No mah, I have’nt met anyone. That why I have not called. Yes, I still have a job. Yes I am still alive. Yes, I will call you next week.’ I can’t believe she wrote me about Alice…My poor Alice…

Maybe I get breakfast…

A sploosh reverberates back of his mind.

“Miss…” Ben waves down Toni and wait for her to step quietly from the counter to his table. “I think it’s time to give to the lovely breakfast menu. Could I please have one?”

The young woman, taken aback by the straightforward and honest feeling statement, stumbles with an answer, “Um…Yeah, Sure I get you one, no problem.” She smiles a little and moves away.

Ben slouches over the table and his hand supports his head as though he had to hide from what is about to come.

…My poor Alice…I should have married her and taken her away…I loved her more than any woman ever and I can say that now….She looks, looked so much like that little girl sitting over there when I met her… she was probably that age when we met, soft and sweet, wide eyed and beautiful with jet black curls….Why didn’t I marry her…because I was stupid….But I didn’t know this was going to happen to her…I didn’t know…I thought she would have married someone from town like Jake or Tommy, someone who had a business that she would never leave the house…but she didn’t….she became a teacher…a noble profession that doomed her….what did I say we broke up…”I needed to find myself”….that was bull…and still she took that lame excuse…I was just scared to settle down and to commit to her…I hadn’t seen the world yet….Now that I have, I can’t go home to her…God…it was like an angel on earth…And it’s hard to imagine that that angel is gone…one day your secret fantasy life is still quite in tact and the next, you’re getting a news article and a full page letter from your mother…I wonder if she ever thought about me because I sure thought about her….She is here one day and the next gone, trapped in a school bus that sink to the bottom of a lake as she tries to get those kids out…It’s almost She probably thought this was going to be a usual field trip…She didn’t know that this was going to be her last…her last anything…left floating…floating…floating…floating in oblivion….

It is only the commotion at the other end of the diner that wakes him from his internal thoughts

* * * * *

“Honey, chew slower,” Johnny chides little Elyce but she doesn’t even acknowledge his statement and continues to shovel food down her throat as though she was a starving child in an underprivileged country. She stops the deluge to her stomach and begins to wriggle uncomfortably in the seat of the booth. She leans forward and gags slightly. Johnny looksat her in utter shock. It took a second for the events unfolding to register in his mind.

Red Cross…I wish I had taken a course

“Honey……HONEY!” The sheer terror of Johnny’s voice sends shivers down Ben’s spine and awakens him from his conundrum.

Toni stands in utter distress when she turns around that she drops the bucket of dirty dishes, clammering to the floor. Toni can do nothing but stand there.

“Call 911! She’s choking !” In a panicked moment, Johnny rushes to her side and begins patting her back as he watches his little girl begin to slip from a red hue.

Ben seems to break the time-space barrier and in the speed he moves through the single aisle restaurant. He pushes the father out of his way and he spins the girl around so that her back would face him.

“Call 911,” The father paces like a wild monkey behind them.

Toni seems frozen for a moment, startled seems moves toward the register and the phone located there. She fumbles through the numbers and begin to give information

Okay that’s done What Am I supposed Knell behind her wrap my arm around her waist. Make a fist and place it above the navel. OK Take the other hand and press

Thrust…nothing

Thrust…come on little Alice

Thrust…come on little girl

Thrust!

A piece of partially digested chicken strip flies across the table

The diner becomes silent, except for the irreverent hum from the lights above…A miracle has happened.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The lights from the fire engine begin to fade in the distance. Toni stands outside the coffeehouse, still shaken by the events she has witnessed

“Thank you so much,” Johnny has repeated the same statement over and over again just before the ambulance doors close. Ben only nods and shakes his head and pushes him into the ambulance a step at a time.

Ben steps back and waves as they take away the beautiful little girl. He beams and in his mind, he thinks

There was a reason why I was here and not home…

And yawns as he heads back to his apartment three blocks away to that fine pillow strewn across the floor to rest his weary head.