Middle America.

It was a typical Friday afternoon when I took my usual seat at my usual booth in the diner I always went to before carting my tired body back to my motel room for another night alone with my pizza and budget beer. The heat was stifling as it always was at this time of year and I was sure that if I wrung out my shirt, I could fill a cup with sweat. It would probably taste better than the shit they serve here.

I always liked to people-watch. I could sit at that table, staring out of the window for hours while the world bustled by and that revolting film formed over the crappy coffee that I ordered but never planned to drink. I had to order it or they would impolitely ask me to leave the premises to make place for the over-weight family with screaming kids who enjoyed gorging their pimpled faces on the piles of discoloured grease that this fine establishment marketed as hamburgers.

The place smelled of old oil and cigarettes and ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was crackling through on the busted AM/FM on the corner of the counter. I stared at the piece of ribbon caught in the air-conditioning unit and found myself thinking, if this gets anymore ‘cliché, Mickey & Malory and going to walk through the door.

I had my head down, staring at the stains on the table when Amanda the waitress came waddling up to my table. I didn’t need to look up to know it was Amanda. After this many years of visiting this place I would know that cheap perfume smell and those varicose veins anywhere. ‘Just coffee.’ I said. She grunted. I was not a big tipper.

A young girl walked in closely followed by a relatively well dressed boy. First date, I thought. It had to be. No one ever got dressed up to crawl around this shit-hole. The cockroaches were cleaner than half the scum here. For some reason I took comfort in this.

I didn’t recall seeing the young couple before. Being a bit of a voyeur on these sorts of matters, I watched. She batted her eyelashes, stroked her auburn hair behind her ear and naughtily licked the ice cream off of her spoon. She had done this before. He was smitten.

Unfortunately, I was not the only one who had been surveying this ‘young-love scene’. There was an elderly man sitting at the counter with that all-too-familiar twinkle in his eye. ‘He likes them young’ I thought to myself.

Before long, the old-timer came up to the love-birds’ table. ‘How’r ya doin’ sweetheart?’ he said to the girl, ‘this boy treatin’ ya well?’ Every hair stood up on the boy’s body as these words slid off the tabbacco-stained tongue of the pervert that had taken place standing behind the girls left shoulder. He is staring down her shirt, I reckoned, now captivated by the scene.

The boy politely told the old snake where he could stick it but the man would have none of that. He stared the young boy straight in the eye as he slowly, with his gnarled left hand, lightly swept the girl’s dress sleeve off of her trembling shoulder and motioned it down onto her pert breast.

‘FUCK YOU, YOU PERVERT!’ screamed our hero as he leapt forward and struck the old man on the jaw.

He fell.

She stood.

‘WE’RE GETTING OUT OF HERE! C’MON!’

She stood.

‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?’ asked the boy now trembling from adrenaline.

Still she stood.

Lifting her dress to expose her pale, silky thigh, she reached higher up her leg and then lowered her hand revealing a small hand gun. She pointed it at the boy and fired.

‘That’ll teach ya to hurt my papa.’