“What?” I asked him to repeat himself.

“Quiet night,” he said.

I looked through the open front door of the small corner store.  Night had set, so I could only see outside as far as the inside lights would reach. The lights on top of the store must have kicked on because I could faintly make out the bus stop and garbage can from across the street, too.  Everything was still outside.  No cars passed, but I could hear one revving its engine at a stoplight.  The cold clung to the moisture that clung to the weight in the air.  The night was still young, but it was easy to write it off as a bust already.  Business would not be good.

“Quiet night,” he said a third time with no provoking.

The car had driven off.  All that was left was the sound of silence echoing off of brick walls.  It was a quiet night; he was right.  It’s what people say on nights like this.  Just like another person said to me on another night just like this one.  But that other person was different from this one.  That guy was older.  This was a teenager.  A boy.  He’s still getting used to the hair between his legs.  Do boys that age make observations about the stillness of a night?  Are they worldly enough to make a statement that allows their audience to comfortably respond in either silence or conversation?

I looked at him.  I more watched him.  I watched him reach his right hand behind the right side of his lower back.  I don’t know if he hesitated at that moment or if the gun got caught on his belt.  His eyes would have told me.  They would have stayed focused if he hesitated.  That would have told me he was still in control.  He could call it off.  Nothing was going to happen that night that he didn’t want to happen.  But if his eyes bulged, it would have been an indicator that something was already going wrong with the plan.  That he wasn’t prepared for the belt factor.  His wide eyes would have told me that he’s an inexperienced criminal.  And probably quick to panic.  I wasn’t looking at his eyes, though, so I didn’t know if he was calm or panicked.  I was focused on his right hand sliding behind the right side of his back.  The disbelief in me took over.  I’d seen that move so many times on TV that there was no doubt in my mind what he was doing.  And just like when watching TV, I sat still like an audience member taking in a scene.  So instead of focusing on his face so I could judge his cool, instead of reaching for the bat beneath the counter, instead of doing any one of dozens of useful things in that moment, I watched him pull a revolver from the back of his pants and aim it at my face.

You imagine yourself into these sorts of situations all the time.  You think you know how you’ll react.  Heroic or quick-witted.  But what will actually happen to you is exactly what happened to me.  You’ll be amazed that it’s really happening.  So much that you sink into a certain kind of waking coma.  Everything moves very slowly and the lights blur together.  And you’re totally caught on your heels.

The chrome weapon reflected light into my eye.  That’s the point at which I snapped out of my paralysis.  This was happening.  There was a weapon in my face.  I had to move.

The kid started screaming at me.  Do this!  Do this!  I didn’t know what he wanted.  He was talking too fast.  Asking for too much.  The kid didn’t know how to do this.

I stopped and stood sideways to him, leaning away.  I slowly raised my hands up to shoulder level.  “Take it easy,” I carefully said.  “I just need you to tell me what you want.”  I was afraid.  Afraid of getting shot for not doing as I was instructed by a scared boy.

“The money!” the kid shouted.

“There’s really nothing in there,” I felt a flicker of bravery glow in me.  Maybe I could rescue the store and myself by convincing the kid that the store wasn’t the cash cow he was hoping for.  “I can’t open the drawer like that,” I lied.

“Shut up!” the kid shouted.  Then he pointed the gun at a spot over my shoulder and fired it.  I couldn’t hear.  The bullet’s path was so close that I felt heat on my face.  The air tasted tinny. I was frozen again.  Just looking at him.  The kid’s face showed alarm.  He wasn’t ready for the noise, either.  Or the impact.  He wasn’t prepared for the sheer power he held in his hand.  A smile spread across his face.  At that moment, he was the toughest guy on the block.  On the planet!  And I was the weakest.  “I want the money!” the kid shouted again.  And he aimed the gun so that the black dot of the barrel was the middle of three pupils he was using to look at me.

I jerked my hand out for a bag and knocked over a display of lighters.  The kid laughed and waved the gun.  I popped the drawer open and crumpled bills as I stuffed handfuls into the plastic sack.  “More!  More!” the kid was chanting.  “I want the quarters, too!”  I was scooping out change and sloshing it all over the ground.  The register drawer quickly became a mess of bills and receipts and coins all jumbled together.  I was trying to swipe it into the bag, but most of the money fell to the floor.  The kid laughed and screamed, “NOW!”  I pushed the bag toward him, covering my face with my free arm.  He was smiling and bouncing on his feet.  He wore a daydreamy expression.  “Wait.  I can take anything,” this new thought took over his mind.  And somehow his smile grew wider.  “Condoms!  I need some condoms.  And liquor!”

At that point, I just wanted him to go.  He won.  With that gun, he was bigger and stronger and more confident than me.  I would do whatever he wanted as long as it facilitated his leaving my workplace.  “What kind?” I said and looked at the wall littered with single-serving first aid items hanging from hooks and shelves lined with miniature liquor bottles behind me.

“Hurry up!” he shouted and fired another shot into the ceiling.

I ducked at the second shot.  Again, I wasn’t looking at him.  I didn’t see where he fired.  I didn’t know it was the ceiling.  I didn’t know if there was a hole somewhere in me.  My legs wobbled.  I braced myself against the wall.  I was scared that I was shot.  I was scared that I was dying.  I couldn’t take in a breath.

“I said HURRY UP!” he shouted and fired another round into the glass case by my legs.

I jumped and started knocking random items from the hooks and shelves into the bag.  Aspirins, contact solution, batteries.  My vision was blurred.  I couldn’t think.  I thrust the bag at him.  I was nearly passed out sprawled across the counter top.

“What else you got?” he half sang and bounced from foot to foot.

I tried handing him the bag again.  “You’ve got all the good stuff right here,” I panted.  Go away! Is what I was thinking.  Leave me alone on this quiet night.

Rather than accept his payday, he started looking around the store.  He was so focused on what he could get out of this heist that he completely forgot how he was pulling the heist off in the first place.  Which was by keeping me believing that my life was at risk if I acted unaccommodatingly.  But, this fool was nearly pirouetting through the dried goods aisle.  Completely unaware that each time he looked away from me, I gained strength.  Formulated a plan.  My mind was sharp again.  I wasn’t shot.  I was only being threatened by a child.  A small bully.

Careful not to draw his attention, I put the bag on the counter with one hand and with the other pulled the wooden bat from its handy resting place.  “Just take the money and get out, will ya?” I said.  I nodded at the bag with a few bills spilling from its opening.  He pointed the weapon back at me and started walking toward the booty.  But, his eyes were still drifting around the store.  The kid was completely oblivious that I had raised a 36-inch bat made from treated Ash wood over my head.  I even had time to aim at a specific knuckle before I came down on his gun-wielding hand with all the force of a lumberjack.  The gun fired once more when it bounced hard on the tile floor.  The gunshot was quickly overcome by agonizing screams coming from the kid.  The screams sounded like the sort of pain few ever experience.  He held his hand close to his face to see if what he felt was really what he felt.  From where I was standing, already set to swing the bat again, I could see that his fingers were in the wrong order.  He ran from the store without even glancing at the plastic sack filled with no more than $45 and a few rolls of calcium tablets.

I closed and locked-up the store for the night. I was pretty shaken up and needed a hot meal and cold drink.  It was a relief, though.  The night could have ended a lot worse.  These kids keep getting dumber and dumber.  At least the older guy that talked about the weather the other day had the sense to shoot me before robbing the store of a quiet night’s take.

I’m the world’s second best line drawer.  I know this based on how the most recent World Line Championships played out.

This skill in me came into light when I was just a boy.  In the third grade, my teacher ran out of all paper except for construction paper.  Each handwriting exercise that was returned for grading gave him a dizzying headache.  The lines of lowercase Js and capital Qs all jumbled together until the assignments looked like they were written in Arabic.  There was more organization in a bowl of alphabet soup.

“Okay, class,” he said in a patient monotone.  “Until we get new supplies from the city, I’d like you all to draw lines across your paper before practicing your cursive.”

Each of my classmates took out a ruler and carefully made as many rows across the orange and purple and green pages as would fit.  Being a child that thrived on the praise from any figure of authority, I joined them.  Until, that is, I noticed one of my classmates – the one with pigtails – without a ruler and verging on tears.  I stepped up.  Handed her my ruler.  Wondered which cheek she was going to devirginize with a kiss.  Either was fine with me, but I knew from my last glace in the mirror that my left side was slightly less soiled from roughing about in the playground.  I’d offer her that one.  Even back then, I was a gentleman among boys.

Once word spread about this gallant act, I was sure to score major points with the class’ fairer dodgeball team.  But suddenly I was without a ruler and had barely begun lining my page for the day’s lesson.  Fearing that failure in this assignment might keep me from getting into a decent university, I had to act fast and improvise.  I started freehand drawing lines across the paper.  Our instructor began instructing and by the end of it, my combination-LKs were really coming together.  When he handed back our classwork, he said, “And I want everyone to take a good look at this paper.”  He held up mine.  “This is how I’d like you all to line your paper from now on.  See how perfectly he used his ruler to make parallel and straight lines across the page?”

“I didn’t use a ruler,” I said without raising my hand.  I felt a cold sweat form across my brow.

He looked at the page and back at me.  “Hmmm…”  He handed me another piece of paper and asked me to do it again.  I did.  Then he handed me another piece of paper – this one yellow – and asked me to draw the lines closer together.  By the time I returned the page to him, it was almost completely black with perfectly straight and parallel lines of #2 lead hardly distinguishable by the naked eye.  “Hmmm…” he said again.

People started talking about my talent.  First my school was buzzing about it.  Then my entire community.  Before I was even halfway through high school, I had already landed a lucrative internship with the Mead Paper Company.  They were using my lines as boilerplates for their school notebooks.  (It was my idea to introduce the baby blue horizontal guiding lines with the perpendicular pink margin line.)  If I stayed on the straight-and-narrow, there was no imaginable end to my fortune-filled future.  I was it.

I graduated from high school and skipped college.  Mine was one of the rare cases where continued education would actually interfere with my career path.  I was in the biz for years and was continuously improving.  Not just improving my work for notebooks but improving my skills all around.  There was no one even close to my abilities in the whole game!  Or so I thought.

Then the day that changed everything.  Inspiration struck while I was driving home from the lab so I pulled into the first parking lot that I saw.  It belonged to a rough-looking bar.  I had some ideas for legal ledgers that I needed to draw down, so I went in planning to order one drink, mind my own business and get my lines on paper.  A plan destined to go askew.

I was only partway through lining a page and had made even less progress on my tap beer when I felt a presence looming over my shoulder.  I looked up and there was a bearded man with whiskey on his breath and tattoos poking from the neckline of his Harley-Davidson t-shirt.

“Not bad,” he said looking at my rough draft.  “But, can you do that beyond the short side of a piece of paper?”

I looked at him dumbfounded and said nothing.

“Well, I’ve got forty-five bucks that says you can’t,” he said and took two pieces of sidewalk chalk out of his studded leather jacket.

I followed him out to the parking lot.  The rest of the ruffians in the bar followed me.  They were taunting me, saying I was nothing but a curly-queue.  It was an intimidating situation for certain, but I wouldn’t let them know it.  I’d been professionally drawing lines for years!  Who was this toothless guy to challenge me?

I took my piece of chalk and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with my challenger at one end of the parking lot.  We were looking down a corridor lined with screaming and drunken bikers sizing me up and exchanging wads of cash with one another.  They started counting us down in unison.  “THREE…  TWO…  ONE!”  Then we knelt and started drawing our lines.  We hadn’t gone more than ten feet when I heard the onlookers work themselves into a frenzy.  I didn’t let it affect me.  I stayed on course; I focused on the line.  We got to the end of the parking lot and I saw what the commotion was about.  My challenger’s line was exact.  It didn’t as much as waver in one direction or the other.  Mine, however, stayed true for less than a few feet before it banked off course.  The deviation was subtle, but unmistakable from this end of the lot.  My line was anything but straight.  I gave my opponent $45 without a word.  The next day, I gave my resignation to Mead with as many words.  My life was about to follow a new line.

When the news got out that I was entering competitive line drawing, every coach in the game came after me.  I politely ignored those requests.  I was a self-made man to that point.  How would anyone else train me to draw a line any better than I could train myself?  The best of the best were pride-filled men and women and I was no exception.  One day, I would be standing alone on the highest podium.  At least that was the plan.

I read the memoirs of some of the greats.  They all had their tricks when it came to distance lining.  Alexander Montpellier, the reigning liner from 1979 – 1992, the man that basically brought the game to the mainstream, picked a point on the horizon and never took his eye off of it as he inched his writing utensil forward.  Then there was Keiffer Rutherford, a man who once drew a 5,000-foot straight line in under 17 minutes, who claimed that a line was only as true as the utensil with which it was drawn.  And there would be no avoiding Zeek Bodeen.  A man widely considered the “bad boy” of lining.  He had no approach whatsoever.  His strokes were unpredictable, his equipment may as well have been purchased at a Sharpie kiosk.  Zeek was often seen completely lifting his writer off of the surface to acknowledge his screaming fans before resuming for unimaginable distances.  He was once quoted saying, “Each of my lines is like each of my lays.  There’s not a single one that I’d erase.”  Even though his approach to the game was anything but orthodox, his lines were unmistakable and bold and stretched through postal codes.

There were clearly an infinite number of ways to draw a line.  Each had its advantages.  But I wouldn’t succumb to anyone else’s approach to the game.  My leg-up on the rest, the thing that got me to where I am today, was my ability to focus.  Deeply focus.  My focus was so deep that it was cavernous; it was a Sylvia Plath poem.  When I was training, there was nothing else in the world other than my writer, my hand and the line.  My strokes were modest, no more than four or five inches at a time.  And they were not fast.  Each told a story complete with a beginning, middle and end.  I’d never win in a speed lining race.  That was fine by me.  The speed liners often fizzled out as fast as they drew.  I was in it to get my name in the history books.  My face would be synonymous with lines.

So I trained.  I missed Christmases.  I missed loved ones’ birthdays.  I missed my own birthdays.  But with each passing day, my lines grew longer.  And darker.  And were the kind of straight that didn’t seem possible until I made it possible.  Then one early winter day – a day that I can clearly remember – I drove straight north until I arrived at a huge and rarely used lake.  It was frozen solid due to the year’s early chill.  Also due to the earliness of the season, it was completely bare of snow cover.  I drove out on the ice and parked at one end of the lake.  I armed myself with my steel-tipped writer – used for line engraving competitions – and started to work.  I lined and focused.  I focused and lined.  Due to the depth of my concentration, I didn’t realize how long I’d been out there until the sunshine started to dampen.  I looked back at what I’d done.  Starting from my feet and going off into the unseeable distance was the purest line that I’d ever created.  I walked alongside it back to my car with a regulation measuring device.  Not a single error.  That was the day that I knew I was ready.

I started off in the bush leagues where I was matched against small-town people with big-city dreams.  They were no competition at all.  My stack of blue ribbons and winner’s coupon books grew to fire hazard proportions.  There was no challenge there, so I started competing in league play.  Again, it was mostly amateurs that had decent but limited skill.  The tournament purses were nothing to speak of, either.  The decision to try for The Show was made for me once my notebook paper money had run dry.

My first sponsored event was on a closed section of the I-29 in South Dakota.  This stretch of freeway was considered to be the longest and straightest in the US, which made it the perfect playing field.  I checked the bracket and I was matched against a liner named Austin Malone.  I’d heard his name before.  He had a reputation for being a scientifically exact liner, albeit a pompous one.  We met at the starting line where I offered him my hand in the name of friendly competition.  He scoffed and said, “Nice try, Zigzag.  I’m going to line you out!”

The starting pistol sounded and we placed our writers on the street.  Malone was fast with his strokes.  And distracting.  He crouched down like he was an offensive lineman in a three-point stance.  Then he’d look up from his writer to a spot about four feet before him and jut his arm out straight.  Then he’d reset and repeat the motion.  After five minutes into our match, he was easily 20 meters ahead.  It was a distance that frazzled me.  It made me unfocused.  It made me feel desperate to catch up.  So, I forgot my training and lined as fast as I could.  I was surprised to see that I’d caught up with him without much effort.  But, that was because he was completely stopped mid-line and looking at my path.

“I’m seeing sand all over the place,” he said.  “You’re going to need to wipe the road clean before you can line through this stretch.”

I didn’t see any debris on the road.  The street sweepers had done a good job.  But, I didn’t want to risk it so I put my free hand in front of my writer to swipe away any debris.  During that motion, I inadvertently wiggled my writer.  It would be a while before the judges reached this point to catch my error, but I didn’t continue from that point.  The error was one that wouldn’t be missed by the keen eyes of the officials.  My match was over.  Malone continued to draw through the competition until he was awarded the grand prize before a blasé crowd.

I learned something that day.  I learned that at this level of lining, I had no friends.  All I had was my focus and I vowed to never stray from it again.

I continued to compete and I began to make a name for myself among the current notable players.  I began feeling comfortable at the post-match press conferences.  I accepted gifts from my sponsors and advances from the female fans.  Grocery store lines no longer applied to me.  I was teetering on the precipice of greatness and it felt close to what I imagined it would.  The only thing that marred the experience was the fact that Malone was always one step ahead of me.

It became a regular sight for the fans to see Malone and me matched up in the finals of big budget tournaments.  And for them to see Malone use his mind games to throw me off my line.  Sometimes he’d frazzle me without even saying a word.  Once he paid a heckler to continuously reflect the sunlight off of a compact into my eyes.  Of course I couldn’t prove this so when I accused him of the wrongdoing I just looked like a sore loser.  In the interviews afterward, he said, “It’s just too bad that some of the other liners – who shall remain nameless <laughs> – feel the need to tarnish my victory rather than gracefully accept defeat.  That’s really a poke in the eye.  <laughs>”

I had a heavy winning record.  I even drew a few lines that would put me in the record books for those venues.  But, my goal was to be the best.  And as long as Malone was around, I couldn’t seem to get there.

Seasons passed and finally the World Line Championships were in the preparation stages.  I couldn’t sleep the night before, so I answered the early morning phone call inviting me to the games on the first ring.  At long last, this was my chance to show the world that my talents were unmatched.  And I knew who I’d have to face in order to do so.

The best liners from around the world flew into the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah.  Each one likely having the skill and determination to be number one.  But, they all lacked the focus.  I could see it in their eyes.  They were too overwhelmed by the space.  Too star-struck by the names in the list of competitors.  Me, on the other hand?  There was only one thing on my mind: drawing a line that was so long and so perfect that unless you were there to see it, you wouldn’t believe the tale.

That’s not entirely true.  Yes, I thought about my line.  I focused on my line.  But, I could feel something else penetrating my mind’s fortress.  More accurately, I could feel someone disturbing my focus.  I closed my eyes and meditated.

We were days into the championship games and I was really starting to find a groove.  I’d bested Iceland’s only hope for the title by over 450 meters.  The savant from Ethiopia gave me a good challenge, but he was later disqualified from competition when he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.  The rest of my bracket didn’t seem to pose any real threats.  Which gave me some time to watch Malone decimate his opponents.  The guy was flawless.  He was wiggle-proof.  Watching him draw a line was art in motion.  If I was going to beat Malone, it would require every ounce of focus that I could muster.

Then the morning of the final match came.  When I got to the starting line, Malone was already there waving to the droves of fans.  Our names were announced and the cheers grew even louder.  Malone turned to me and extended his hand.  “To the best man, right?” he said with a smile.  I was taken aback.  I accepted his hand and again, the decibel from the crowd elevated.

The starter gun fired and Malone and I knelt down.  This time, however, I didn’t see any fast strokes out of the corner of my eye.  In fact, I saw no motion whatsoever in my opponent’s lane.  I looked over and met Malone’s eyes.  He nodded his okay for me to take the initial lead in the race.  I was stunned again, but put my best engraving writer to the salty ground and scraped my first few inches.  I looked over at Malone and he matched my distance exactly.  I drew my next stroke and could feel Malone mimic it once again.  I looked over at him and he repeated his nod for me to lead.  I knew that this was all a part of his game, but I had no choice but to play along.  I did my best to clear my mind of everything.  The only things that existed were my writer, my hand and my line.  I felt the tension leave my body.  I felt the line form in the salt.  I was back on that frozen lake, alone and certain of myself.

We lined all morning.  As the sun hit its apex in the sky, I heard the judges who had been trailing us by about 200 meters the entire race leave and return from lunch.  Malone and I had been lining for hours without a break for food or water.  I was certain that he felt no more fatigue than I did.  I’d occasionally look ahead to rate my nemesis’ progress.  But each time I did, I’d find him right at my side matching my every stroke.  The sun got close to the horizon and the air went from hot to crisp to downright cold in minutes.  A set of pickup trucks adorned with bright lights had to flank us once the sun finally disappeared entirely.  I heard the commentator scream to the crowd, “This is the longest two liners have ever drawn in the history of the World Line Championships finals!  Who thinks they’ll draw through the night?”  The crowd went crazy with excitement.  Malone seemed to have not even noticed the hullabaloo.

We lined deep into the night.  Much of the crowd had dropped off from sleepiness or the cold.  The match became Zen-filled.  Peaceful.  I could hear the night commentator sneeze away from the microphone.  The wheels of the light trucks created an ambient and soothing sound as they rolled over dust and cracks.  I lined a few inches and felt Malone do the same.

“I don’t think I’ve ever lined this far before in my life.  Have you?” he asked.

I ignored the question.

“I’m sure that these two lines are longer than any other parallel lines ever created.  Even by the best!”

I didn’t respond.  And it was silent for a while.  Until…

“You know I respect you, right?” Malone said.  I could feel his eyes on me.  And it was too much.

“WHAT KIND OF GAME ARE YOU PLAYING, ASS HOLE?” I shouted at him.  He didn’t respond so I repeated myself.  But this time I stood up and without even considering the consequences I flung my writer at him.

Silence.

Then I watched Malone draw a two-foot stroke and smile up at me from his crouched position.  We’d have to wait for the judges to measure the last few hundred feet, but I knew that the competition was over.  I had failed.

We received separate rides back to the starting line.  I didn’t remove my eyes from my line for the entire trip.  It was the straightest and saddest thing I’d ever seen.  And I knew right then that I’d never draw another line for the rest of my life.

I was patting the dust and sand from my knees behind the stage erected to present the winner and first runner up with their prizes when I saw Malone round the corner.  He saw me and smiled again.

“I really do respect you,” he said.  “I respect that you’re the closest thing I’ll ever have to true competition.  Which is completely depressing seeing as how easily I out-line you every time we meet.  It’s true what they say: it’s lonely at the top.”

I felt my pulse increase, I lost all focus.  I rushed Malone and in one swift motion, I hoisted him above my head and threw him hard against a support pillar for the stage.  His lining arm broke in three separate places.  The attack was easy for me to perform because, as I’d discover at a different competition later in my life, I’m also the world’s second strongest man.

I woke up relatively early this morning with cotton mouth.  I had three beers last night before going to bed.  I remedied the situation with a tall glass of 2% milk and enough chocolate chunk cookies to prove that I’m maturing at an alarmingly slow rate.  The sugar hit me all at once and I needed to move.  So I decided to go for an AM jog.

I had my shoes strapped on tight and the drawstring of my sweatpants a little loose for comfort AND to give the ladies a sneak preview of whats happening just beneath my tan line.  Motivation has many forms.  Then I headed out my door to trace my typical running route.  I was moving.  I mean really hauling ass.  I could tell by how many people I was passing.  I was zipping by groups of joggers.  Oddly enough, they all had numbers displayed on their chests.  I didn’t realize it until I broke through a ribbon that I’d accidentally entered into some sort of running competition.  And won!  A race official demanded that I hold a bouquet of flowers and stand on a tall pedestal so the hoard of onlookers had a good view of me receiving my medal and prizes.

“…and lastly,” the mayor of the city said into the microphone, “we’d like to give this gift certificate for one free meal at the most expensive restaurant in the state to today’s winner!”

The crowd cheered my name in repetition and laughed when I mimicked eating the gift card.  I didn’t really eat it, though.  It was a very fortuitous prize since I had worked up a decent sized hunger from the athletic contest.  A free meal sounded like just the thing.

After I’d showered and dressed, I once again left my apartment with my belly pointed in the direction of the restaurant.  I was crossing the street to the bus stop when I saw a girl chase a ball into traffic.  She must have been hearing impaired because she didn’t react to the wail of the firetruck that was whizzing straight at her.  In a moment of pure reflex, I dove at the girl, wrapped her in my arms and rolled us to the middle of the street.  We laid perfectly between the tires of the rescue vehicle as it drove over us.  During all of the craziness, I also managed to collect her ball and tie her loose shoelace.  I carried her back to the sidewalk and she kissed me on the cheek.  Those that witnessed the feat slapped me on the back and shouted gratitude.

“I saw what happened,” a short man wearing a fedora said to me.  “You’re a hero!”

“No, no.  Those are the real heroes,” I said and pointed at the firetruck disappearing into the distance.

“I’d like to take your photo for the newspaper,” he said.  I begrudgingly allowed it.  “I would accompany it with a feature article, but our best writer just took a job at another paper.”

“I’ve always wanted to write a newspaper story,” I said.  “How many words can I use?”

I borrowed the man’s notepad and pen and wrote a quick 2,000 words on the events that had just occurred.  The man read my article and said, “Son, I am a board member for the PEN Literary Awards and I own my own publishing agency.  You can expect to hear from both.”  We shook hands and I resumed my walk to the bus stop.

As I was waiting there, a woman in a lab coat approached me.  She asked if I wouldn’t mind taking part in a series of tests to verify my eyesight and basic motor skills.  The bus wasn’t due for another few minutes, so I indulged her.  Once the tests were finished, she said, “This couldn’t have worked out better!  Our test pilot has just come down with a fever and couldn’t make it today.  You happen to be the exact right size and have the perfect set of physical attributes to take his place.  Since you’re at the bus stop, I assume you’re traveling somewhere, anyhow.  Are you a man that will answer the call from your government when it needs you?”

It seemed rude not to, so I followed her to her van filled with scientific instruments and beakers and whatnot.  Once she had the jet pack properly fastened to my back and shoulders, she said, “Okay, this one is the accelerator,” and pointed to a button on the joystick.  “This one is the decelerator,” and pointed at a second button.  “And this one is to activate the photon blaster.”

“Hopefully I won’t be needing that one!” I said and we both laughed.

“You think you’ve got it?” she asked.

“What does it look like to you?” I said and hit the accelerator rocketing myself about 100 yards straight up.  I performed a spiraling loop-the-loop and then hovered long enough to shoot her a thumbs up.  She returned the affirmative gesture.

Time for some grub.  I made a mental flight plan and flew toward the restaurant.  On the way there, I saw a hawk dive bombing at a sparrow.  I fired a warning blast at the two implying that they needed to play nice.  They got the hint.

I was almost to the eatery when I heard an alarm sound and a red warning light started blinking on the small display screen.  Somehow the enemy had found me!  I barrel rolled out of the way of incoming fire and returned a single blast of photon.  One is all that was needed as I struck the bogey right in the belly.  It burst into flames and crash landed into the side of a mountain.  They got the hint, too.

Another warning sound came from the jet pack.  I took a hit during the skirmish.  I was going down.  And hot.  Miraculously, I was falling straight at the factory that makes that squishy material used as the safety ground in playgrounds.  I aimed for the outdoor testing area and touched down like a drop of water into a sponge.  It was painless.

I felt bad littering, so I wrote the word “Free” on a piece of cardboard and stuck it to the jet pack.  It was gone before I was halfway down the block.  (A month later, I learned that I was given partial credit by a student for winning the science fair.)

At last, I arrived at the restaurant.  The maitre d’ said that I was required to wear a sport coat to dine at their establishment.  I told him that I arrived by jet pack and didn’t have access to one.  He found one in the lost and found for me to use.  I was then seated by the fireplace.

My server recommended a dish to me.  It was the one that earned the master chef the Outstanding Chef title at the acclaimed James Beard Restaurant and Chefs Awards.  In an apologetic tone, she said that - because of the complexity of the meal - it would take some time for the chef to prepare it for me.  Before I could respond, our conversation was interrupted.

“That’s perfect,” a stylishly dressed woman said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“I need a new IT model for my fashion magazine.  When I saw how well you combined casual with chic, I knew my search was over.  I have my crew on call and you have some time on your hands.  Want to be famous?”

Again, I didn’t want to seem rude so I followed her into the parking lot where her people were already finished erecting a portable studio.  The photographer snapped about a dozen pictures of me and said, “This is the first time I’ve never had to give any direction to a model!”

We worked for about 45 more minutes before the photographer said that he was going to have a hard time choosing which image was the most perfect.  Then the woman said, “Mine is the number one magazine in New York, Milan, Paris and Tokyo.  This time next week, you are going to be the most Googled term in the fashion world.”

I went back into the restaurant just as my server was placing my meal on my table.  I dug in and it was delicious.  Though, I had some ideas on how to make it even better.  I requested an audience with the master chef and told him my thoughts.  He invited me into the kitchen so I could teach him a couple tricks.  We each took a bite from the plate with my revisions and the cook insisted in renaming the meal after me.

Time to head home after a full day.  I sat at the bus stop and waited patiently.  Then a vehicle pulled up.  Not a bus, but a real slick-looking Ferrari.  The driver rolled a window down and asked if I needed a lift.  Normally I don’t accept invitations like this from strangers, but the driver happened to be the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.

“Call me old fashioned, but I’m not accustomed to being a passenger with a woman behind the wheel.”

“Not a problem,” she said.  She got out of the car and sashayed around the hood so her shapely figure was spotlighted in the vehicle’s headlamps.  “This is too much car for me, anyways.”  She tossed the keys to me.

“You’re in for one wild ride, girlie,” I said.

“One that I hope will never stop,” she said.

I held the passenger door open until she was comfortably seated.  I sat down behind the driver’s column and adjusted the mirrors.  Then I allowed her to kiss me on my neck.

Vegas was only four hours away.  I floored it.

Being a staunch creature of the night, I was shocked like a clumsy electrician to see the rising sun.  It was completely unexpected.  I had no alarm set.  My shades were drawn.  I had my sleep mask strapped on extra tight.  Even my noise machine emitting the soft laps of ocean waves and the seemingly agonizing yelps of Orca whales was set to the optimum volume.  Yet, with all of these deep-sleep techniques in place, I found myself wide-awake at the dawn of a new day.

I decided to get up.

After showering and dressing, I discovered that the day was beautiful.  But, when living in America’s Finest City, one comes to expect nothing but blue and yellow skies with an occasional cotton ball cloud intended for ambiance rather than precipitation.  I rubbed my hands together while my mind spun with ideas on how I could use the day.  After ten minutes, my hands were raw and my thoughts were dizzying.  I couldn’t think of a single joyful activity.  And, because of the early hour, I didn’t know anyone that would be awake to help me solve this riddle.  But, that wasn’t going to stop me.  Coin purse for sporadic purchases?  Check.  Keys for scratching my name into soft wood or moist cement?  Check.  I walked out my front door.

Since I’m a recent transplant to a beach neighborhood, I’ve been spending much time strolling along the surf.  What better spot to start my day’s meanderings?  After just a few very short strides and regular length minutes, I could feel the sand giving way under each of my steps.  I could also smell the beached, baking seaweed and hear its inhabiting insects buzzing.  The smell always makes me a little queasy.  And it’s a smell I have strongly associated with oceanic beaches.  Rather unfortunate since every time I remember a beautiful sunset I’ve seen melting into the ocean or one of the many times I had childish fun splashing in the sea, I have an initial gag reflex from the accompanying stench.

Though the morning to this point was very pleasant, serene, totally without any sort of violence or mob activity, I wasn’t at all satisfied.  I was bored without having any sort of human interaction.  But I always become a bit reflective and introverted when I’m looking at a beautiful view, such as the morning ocean, so I wouldn’t have been good company to anyone. anyhow.  I also wasn’t in the mood to try to meet someone new since that would require charisma, social networking skills, general interest in the human population and the ability to bare my teeth in a friendly gesture.  Of course I have all of these qualities – in spades – but they would have been feigned at this particular moment.

So, I was stuck.  I didn’t want to be by myself and I didn’t want to talk to anyone.  As I was trying to figure a way out of this predicament, a commotion took my attention.

A disheveled guy was walking out of a shadowed alleyway.  He was wearing an unbuttoned dress shirt tucked into his filthy trousers, loosened tie and scuffed shoes.  His hair jutted in many directions and had remnants of the alley woven through it.  He looked at his bare forearm where, presumably, a watch once resided.  Then he looked at the sun.  He seemed more surprised by it’s presence than the lack of his timepiece.  His eyes swept the beach and landed on me.  He smiled and patted his chest as if to say, “Whew.  Close one, huh?”  He staggered off.

I followed him.

At this point in the morning, shop doors were starting to open inviting commerce and shoplifting.  The guy didn’t have to walk far before he found a shop offering beach apparel and surfboard wax.  He went inside swinging his head around to view the entire inventory.  I waited outside of the establishment and read a piece of paper stapled to a street pole.  Evidentially there was soon to be a musical concert highlighting a band called Bong Hits for Jesus and I should only miss it if I were hospitalized.  I made a mental note to walk into traffic so I could miss the show guilt-free.

By the time I was done with the flyer, the guy was exiting the clothing store wearing a brightly-colored swimsuit, flip flops, and a t-shirt adorned with a drawing of a large-breasted woman taking a tequila shot.  He walked toward me and dropped his former outfit into a garbage can.  He said, “They weren’t mine, anyways.”  He walked down the street in another direction.  I followed him – trying to stay about 20 feet behind.

There wasn’t anything different about this person other than where he woke up.  He seemed just like any other guy I’d known.  Although, while he was walking, he was constantly looking straight up.  I tilted my head to see if I could discover what was drawing his attention.  But, I saw nothing other than the aforementioned beautiful sky.  I looked back at him as he was walking into a barbershop.  I parked on a bench just outside its front door.  This guy was already sitting back in a chair with a hot towel wrapped around his face.   An old man dressed in a white smock was standing nearby and sharpening a blade on a leather strap making his unusually large forearms ripple.  I crossed my legs at the ankle, closed my eyes and felt the heat of the budding day’s sunshine on my skin.  I could also hear the activities in the barber’s shop.  Sounded like the guy was getting the works.

After a long time, I heard the barber say that he’d never provide his service to the guy again unless he first picked out the gravel from his scalp.  The guy walked out of the shop alternately slapping his pink cheeks.  He was totally unrecognizable from the form he’d been when I first saw him.  His hair was neatly trimmed and combed, his face was clean of stubble and dirt, he looked like he slept in a very nice alley rather than the one he crawled out of.  Maybe an alley behind a Hilton Hotel or an expensive Italian restaurant.

He looked at me sitting on the bench.  “Are you following me?”

I told him that I was.

“Is there any reason you’re following me?”

I told him that there was not.

He looked up and down the street.  He scratched the top of his newly-manicured head.  “Well, I’m going to get a coffee.  I know a place.”  Then he walked off looking straight up.

And, I followed about 20 feet behind him looking in many different directions.

He made some twists and turns and I soon found myself in a part of my neighborhood I’d never seen before.  Then, he ducked into a doorway.  I approached the door just as it swung shut.  It was totally unmarked, no signage anywhere nearby.  I figured the guy lived there or worked there and my adventure was over.  But, then a girl walked passed me and through the entrance.  As the door was closing, I got a whiff of coffee and saw a small of group of very hip looking people sitting around small tables.  I followed the girl in and stood behind her in line.  The guy was three places in line ahead of me.

I looked around to realize this place was once a home of some sort, but was abandoned once the dilapidation had gotten too bad.  Some entrepreneur must have seen the potential in the place and put a coffeemaker in it.  It didn’t appear as though any money went into the structure, however.  There was a giant hole on the back wall – it looked like it was put there via strong men with sledgehammers – offering the coffeehouse an unobstructed view of the ocean far below us.  I didn’t even realize we were near a cliff.  Or the ocean.

I heard the guy order his drink, “I’ll have a non-fat, three-shot, mocha-latte with light foam and a pinch of cinnamon.  Can you also put the tall guy’s drink on my tab?” and he thumbed over his shoulder at me.

I said I’d like a cup of coffee and tried to ignore the two people’s angry-without-being-properly-caffeinated faces that I’d just cut in front of.

The guy sat at an empty table near the hole in the wall.  I sat at a table not far from his that also afforded a view of the ocean through the hole.  When he took a sip of his coffee, I took a sip of mine.  When he sat back in his chair, I leaned forward on my table.  When he stuck his head through the hole and looked up at the sky, I wondered what in the Hell he was doing.

“I was married once,” he said.  “You probably couldn’t have guessed that by how young I look.  But, I was married for a very long time.”

I told him he looked much younger since his shave.

“My wife and I used to come here together.  We liked how not many people knew about this place.  We’d come here and leave the newspaper folded on the table in front of us and not say a word to each other.  We’d just sit right here in front of this hole.  Sometimes I’d pretend to shoot a seagull with an invisible bow-and-arrow and she’d laugh at me.”  He looked at the ocean and squinted against the reflection of the high sun off the dancing swells.  “My wife and I got into an argument one day.  I called her some filthy words and she left after she lit my favorite shirt on fire.  I haven’t seen her since.  Sometimes I expect to find her here.  You know what I’d do if that happened?”

I told him that I didn’t know.

“I would sit down with her.”

We sat in the lonely silence for a minute.  He turned his cup upside-down to prove its emptiness and said, “Let’s get out of here.”  He got up and walked toward the door.  I finished my coffee and followed him a few seconds later.

Once I’d gotten out of the coffee shop, he was already walking down the street in long, deliberate strides.  I jogged a few steps to catch up to him, but slowed down to match his pace once I was about ten feet behind.  He rounded a corner.  I followed him around and abruptly stopped.

The guy was face-to-face with another man.  They both had balled fists and were breathing hard.  The man was saying something about how he’d better get what he was owed or there was going to be a problem.  The guy said he didn’t owe anything and that the man already had a problem if he didn’t leave immediately.  “And, besides, motherfucker.  You’re outnumbered,“ the guy added as he thumbed over his shoulder at me for the second time that day.  “I guarantee that this shit’ll end with you looking for the remains of your testicles if you don’t make history, cocksucker.”

The man sized me up.  Then said, “You’re not always going to have your tough-looking friends around for protection.  I’ll be seeing you.”  Then he scowled at me and brushed past my shoulder.  I wanted to thank him for saying I looked tough, but figured that would put our tactical advantage at risk.

“Sorry about that.  I may have borrowed some stuff from him and might have lost track what I did with it,” the guy said through a limp grin.  “I’m going to test these new trunks out.  Let’s go swimming.  You can borrow the suit I have in my locker.”

I walked ten feet behind him as he walked inland.  I decided there must be something in the sky that he was constantly staring at.  I looked exactly above us where his eyes were pointing and saw nothing.

We entered a small building with the words “Gym & Pool” on a sign out front.  At the front desk, he said that he had one more guest pass on his account and that I was with him.  The girl gave me a smile and a rough towel.  She also told me where I could buy a swimsuit.

By the time I was changed and standing by the outdoor pool, the guy was already in one of the lanes sanctioned for swimming laps.  I hopped in the next lane and stayed a few strokes behind him.  Back and forth, back and forth.  We splashed at the water effectively propelling our bodies in motion.  Occasionally I’d notice the guy take a gulp of water and have to grab the string of floaties to compose himself.  I would hold onto the string just behind him and wait for his airways to clear.  He would say, “Shit!  I can’t believe that happened again.  I’m normally such a strong swimmer.”  Then we’d both continue in turn.

After some time, the guy grabbed one of the pool’s wall and, through wheezes and gasps, said, “The sun’s too much for me today.  Let’s go take a steam.  There’s nothing like a steam after a workout, right?”

I followed him into the locker room and went through an airtight wooden door.  The intensity and thickness of the hot air opened my pores immediately.  He sat down on one end of the room and slumped over himself.  I sat on the same bench as him, but a little removed, took a deep breath and slowly let it leave my body.  There was one other man in the room with us.

No one talked until the third man left a few minutes after our arrival.  The guy said, “I think it’s completely disgusting when guys walk around in here not wearing any sandals or shower shoes.”

I covered my one bare foot with my other.

Then the guy said, “It’s funny what people think about when they’re in this room…what the steam reminds them of.”

I looked through the misty air and saw the still smoldering wreckage of a not-too-long-ago shipwreck on a sandy shore.  Its cargo strewn about the beach and its former occupants all sitting Indian-style looking out into the ocean for anything resembling rescue.  The men have stubbly faces and the women have torn dresses.  All of their expressions spell longing and regret.

“I see the smoke from my wife’s cigarette after we’d just messed up the sheets.  She’s laying there naked,” he spread his hands out in front of him.  “Her crotch is red and swollen from me being inside of her.  Her neck and breasts have marks from my teeth.  She’s exhausted and staring at our ceiling as if there’s a hole in it with a view of the ocean.  Her smoke twirls around her fingers before it floats up through the hole and turns into a contaminated rain cloud.  Can you see her?”

I looked at him looking at his scene.  Through the haze, I could make out his contorted expression.  I told him I felt uncomfortable.

He got up and left the steam room.  I followed shortly behind him.

We walked out of the fitness center, I was about five feet behind him, and he said, “Time to eat.  I know a place.”

I followed him through unknown streets and wondered how he avoided bumping into stuff while he was looking straight up.  We arrived at a diner where he was greeted by name.  We sat at the counter with a vacant chair between us.  He ordered us both a coffee and a plate of the special.  We quietly sat and waited for our meal.

He poured some sugar on the countertop and drew doodles in it with his finger.  “That one looks like the lady that just got run over by the bus, doesn’t it?”

I told him I didn’t hear about the incident.

“Take my word for it.  Looks just like her.”  He squirted ketchup on the pile of sugar.  “And, that’s an after picture.”

I told him I didn’t think it was funny.

“I know it wasn’t funny.  And, it was insensitive.  That’s how I cope with things.  I intentionally say the wrong thing.  Do the wrong thing.  The fouler I get, the better I feel.  Do you know that they still haven’t identified her?”

I told him I didn’t know anything about the incident.

“Well, they have no idea who this lady was.  She was a vagrant with no identification or family.  But, she could have been close to my wife’s age.  And, she could have had hair the color of my wife’s hair.  And, she might have thought it was funny to pretend to hurt birds.  I’m left here alone with nothing but a pile of ‘Could haves.’”

I didn’t know what to say, so I studied the mess of sugar and ketchup.

Our food arrived and we ate.  He asked me, “Does this taste like chlorine to you?”

I told him I kept my mouth closed while we were in the pool.

“Well, I can’t eat this shit anymore.  Besides, I’ve got to be to a place soon.”  He pushed away from the counter and left.

I did the same and walked side-by-side with him down the street.  I looked over at him and, again, he was looking directly up into the sky. Just as I was going to ask him about it, he put his arm out in front of me and said, “Wait.”

We stood stopped in the sidewalk for just a second when I heard a splattering sound.  I looked at the ground before us and there was a puddle of sloppy, green and white bird shit at our feet.  We looked at each other and laughed.

We walked back toward where I saw him for the first time.  He was looking into the sky.  I was cautiously stepping forward ready to halt at his command.  He abruptly turned off the sidewalk and headed to a large building.  He said over his shoulder, “This is where I live.”  I looked at it from my place on the sidewalk.

With his hand on the doorknob to his apartment building, he said, “We’ll probably not see each other again, will we?”

I told him we probably wouldn’t.

He said, “Thanks for spending the day with me,” and closed the door behind him.

I stood on the sidewalk looking at the apartment building’s door not knowing what to do next.  I felt a breeze press my clothes against my skin.  I heard a faint scratching sound that drew my eyes to my feet.  There was a small, dried leaf skipping in the wind down the walkway.

I followed it.

I’m not always charming.  In fact, more often than not I’m probably a pretty awkward person.  Especially in certain situations.  Like dates.  I think it’s because I get myself so worked up beforehand.  I look in the mirror and say things like, “You’re so good looking, don’t you ever die” and “This time I won’t knock a lit candle into her lap!”  Then I flex in a few different courageous poses and head out the door to make a total ass of myself.

The worst part is I can’t even blame it on my dates.  They’ve all been perfectly lawful and tax-paying US citizens.  Some even went to the trouble to wear high heels to showcase the curvature of their calves.  Although since I have the skinniest legs on this side of the Mississippi, I usually end up feeling more jealous than allured.

And they’re completely normal when it comes to conversation where I am not.  She asks me, “What did you do today?”  And I respond with, “Battery acid, shark tooth, purple cloud.  Haha.”  Then I can see in her expression how thankful she is that she planned an “emergency phone call” from one of her friends to interrupt our date.  It’s amazing to me how many girls think that a make-believe drown kitten is an acceptable excuse to bail on an uncomfortable situation.  She shakes my hand in a rush, then I’d watch her wipe my palm sweat off on her jeans and run out of my life forever.

Sometimes, though.  Sometimes something different happens.

I went on a date not too long ago.  With a girl that knew it was a date.  I think.  We met at a crowded restaurant and got a table square in the middle of the action.  I liked the location.  I could see everything that was happening around us.  Somehow, the bustle and cacophony of the joint calmed me.  She didn’t seem to mind it much, either.  Raising our voices above the clatter, we discussed the menu.  She convinced me to try something outside of my comfort zone.  I tried to do the same to her, but she refused.  I puzzled over the pronunciation of my meal and wondered if I should have been such a good sport.

Once we placed our order and received our drinks, there was nothing left to do but to share ourselves with each other.  I was still too nervous to speak without frothing at the mouth, so I let her go first.  Rather than tell me her favorite childhood memory or preferred method of travel, she decided to describe what was happening in the restaurant behind me.

“Don’t look now,” she said - which made me want to look now more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.  “There’s a table behind you with a man, woman and child.  The funny thing is, the man and woman are sitting on the same side of the table and the little girl is alone on the other side.  There’s no way that that’s a family - at least one parent would want to sit next to their child if it was.  Something’s weird here.”  She thought for a second.  “I bet that the girl is suffering from that one glandular disorder where she looks like a baby her whole life even though she’s in her forties.  I think Webster has that disease.  She’s actually the ringleader of their traveling scam where the ‘girl’ is selling handmade crafts and is publicly robbed by the two ‘strangers.’  Then through sobs, she convinces onlookers to give her money to buy a train ticket so she can get back to her family across the country.”  She smiled at me.  “They look like train people to me.”

“Do they?” I asked.

She nodded.  “What do you see?”

I looked around the restaurant.  “A waiter just spilled a glass of water across a table…  Two gay guys are bickering over how much tip to leave…”

“No,” she interrupted.  “I don’t want to know what you see.  I want to know what you see.”

I looked again.  There was an elderly lady at a table by the window.  She was dressed very properly and dined alone.  “That gal over there,” I nodded in her direction.  “She’s playing the role of a victim.  See the way she insisted on the second silverware setting to remain on the table?  She wants us to think she’s longing for someone.  Someone that she cared about but was somehow unjustly taken from her.  It’s all very human, but it’s just a ruse.”  I looked at my date.  She was listening.  Wanting me to continue.  “She’s actually here as part of a mission.  I guarantee you that the harmless, old lady thing is just an act.  She’s convincing people to let their guards down.  Eventually someone will want to befriend her.  A server, another customer, a passerby.  Did you hear about that meteor shower a week or so ago?” I asked.  My date shook her head.  “Well, anyway.  That’s how she got here.  And, it’s her job to collect human specimens for analysis.  They need to understand the weaknesses of our internal organs before they can invade and conquer us.”

“Very nice,” my date said and smiled again.  Her teeth and eyes were of equal brightness.

Just like that, I was comfortable.  Confident, even.  I looked at her while she was explaining her job, her relationships and her beliefs.  I hardly fidgeted when she asked me to elaborate about why I was afraid to go after my life’s goals.  She playfully made fun of my small town upbringing.  I skillfully complimented her on her uniquely casual persona.

And soon enough, we were passed the getting-to-know you chatter.  We were actually talking.  And the words that we were sharing!  They paired together so perfectly that I wanted to catch them all in a mason jar to watch them intertwine with each other over and over.

We were partway through our meal when she insisted I try some of her sandwich.  I did and it was delicious.  In good turn, I offered her a morsel from my plate.  She said, “There’s no way that I’d ever eat anything like that” and disgustingly pointed at her recommended dish.  I was taken aback by her mischievousness.

Though maybe it’d be fairer to say that I was bewitched by it.  I felt helpless.  I was drawn to her the way clouds are drawn to a sunset.  She was gravity to me in pastels and solar systems.

I ate as much of my crusty, slimy thing as I could, but called it quits as soon as she ate her last bite of sandwich.  Our server cleared our plates and dropped off the check.  Neither of us was in a big enough hurry to wrestle for it.  A good sign, I figured.

“What should we do now?” she asked.  An even better sign.

I told her I needed to use the restroom and that we’d decide once I got back.  Then I walked to the other side of the restaurant.  Once I knew I was out of her sight, I danced a short jig.  I stopped upon realizing that I had an audience.  There were two guys standing outside of the bathroom door.

“Line?” I asked.  They both nodded in response.

No matter.  I’d take the opportunity to text a friend a quick update on the outing.  I was careful to stay within the mandated 160 characters and hit SEND.  Then I started brainstorming on ideas for once we left the restaurant.  I was interrupted by my phone making a noise.  My friend set a message back - five minutes later.  That couldn’t be right.  My position in line hadn’t moved.  I felt the birth of panic within me.  I looked at the two guys in front of me who were obviously friends and were joking around.

“This sure is taking a while.  Hope our dates don’t leave us here,” I said and laughed.  They looked at me as if I intercepted the ping pong ball in the middle of their singles match.  It was then that I decided it wasn’t worth asking for line cuts.

Finally, the door to the restroom swung open and the occupant walked out and whispered something to the other two.  All three laughed disgusting laughs.  The next in line entered and the remaining two of us shifted forward one space.  And we waited.  And waited.  I was starting to feel embarrassed about how long I was gone.  But, I couldn’t very well return to the table now and have to take another potty break in five minutes.  She’d think I forgot my diapers.

The door opened and the two friends shared another foul laugh.  I was left alone in line to wait.  And wait.  I’m not sure what these guys ate for their meals, but it certainly involved bran and coffee.  Based on the timestamp of my text, I knew exactly how long I’d been gone from the table, but didn’t want to admit it.  Could I have really been waiting in this line for 22 minutes?

The door opened and the guy avoided eye contact as he walked passed me.  I entered the bathroom and the stench giving weight to the air was heavy enough to unwrinkle my shirt.  I suddenly understood the effectiveness of gas chambers.  I hurried through my use of the urinal and sink and left the restroom praying that the smell didn’t fuse itself to my 100% cotton clothing.

On the way back to the table, I was inventing lies to explain my ridiculous absence.  I couldn’t very well tell her the truth or else she’d think I was making excuses for how it took me that long to do exactly what those three guys did.  I decided the most believable story was that I helped extinguish a kitchen fire.  That could plausibly explain the gas smell, too, if one was attached to me.  Maybe I’d even look heroic.

I returned to an unoccupied table.  She had paid for her half of the meal and left a note that said, “My kitten drowned.  Had to run.”

The properly dressed woman dining alone had left, too.

This afternoon, I got hungry for lunch.  It’s a given; whenever I’m driving down the street with some time on my hands and am struck with a hunger pang for greasy diner food, I round the corner and there’s a Denny’s directly in my sights.  I’m drawn to their red on yellow signage the same way a honeybee is drawn to a fragrant blossom.  Or the way a botanist is drawn to a fragrant blossom.  Or the way a playboy is drawn to a fruitful bosom.

Partway though my automotive approach to the entrance of the Denny’s parking lot, I applied my directional indicator letting the other motorists know of my impending turn.  Then I turned once there was a break in the oncoming traffic large enough for my car to slip through without incident.  It was the stuff drivers’ manuals were made of.

I mentally prepared myself for the endless circling of a full parking lot one is often confronted with while waiting for a recent Denny’s patron to drive away from the establishment with his belt loosened.  Shockingly, the scene I was presented with was just the contrary.  Right next to the entrance was a barren parking spot.  I wanted to make love to it with my car – and would have if the necessary borders were provided.  However, on both sides of this emptiness were gapes.  And, next to those gapes were two more.   In fact, the whole front row was available for my choosing.  I slowly drove around the side of the building and inspected the rest of the lot.  Completely empty!  So I kept driving and selected the farthest most spot from the entrance.  That way I wouldn’t have to fight the traffic when leaving.  Everything was coming up rock-steady for this guy.

I entered the restaurant and breathed in the smells of charred sausage links and perpetually-heated maple syrup.  I reveled in the way the grease in the air stuck to my exposed skin the same way my shoes were sticking to the tiled floor.  I felt the breeze from a squadron of flies that buzzed by my face.  These are the reasons I go to Denny’s.

I looked around and saw that the restaurant was as empty as its parking lot.  Not one single customer in the joint.  And if there was a team of energetic employees waiting for their sole customer to swagger through the doors, they were hiding behind the surly ex-cons glowering at me from the kitchen.  I approached the hostess’ podium.  There was a rag doll-looking gal behind it.  She was closely examining whatever wonder she’d just dug from beneath her fingernail.

I rapped a quick beat on the surface in front of her.  “A table with a view, please!”

She didn’t look up at me.  “Gimme a sec.”

I looked at her.  Then I looked at the empty restaurant.  Then I looked back at her.  “Really?”

Through a sigh, she said, “Yeeees.  I need a second.”

“Okay.  I’ll just wait over here,” I thumbed over my shoulder.

I headed to the foyer to sit on a waiting bench, but called a last second audible when I saw I would have smudged the unidentifiable, moist stain bearing a striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary.  Rather, I crossed my chest in a crucifix motion and snapped a candid shot with my camera phone.

After a few minutes of pacing, I hesitantly approached the hostess.

“I called your name,” she said.  “Didn’t you hear me call your name?”

“No.  I…uh…didn’t realize I…erm…gave you my name.”

“Well, I called your name.  Do you want a table or not?”

“You bet!”

She led me to a table with crumbs and a partially chewed pickle spear on it.  She left me without a beverage order or menu.  I looked at the tables surrounding me and admired their reflectively clean surfaces.

Before long, a guy with hairy nostrils and blue forearm tattoos came to my table and asked, “What do you want?”

I explained the predicament I found myself in concerning the lack of a menu.  He said, “Well, we’ve got waffles, t-bone steaks, eggs, a chicken sandwich that’s pretty good, I’m not sure if we serve soup or not…”

“Excuse me?” I interrupted.  “Um, although I commend you on the time you spent committing Denny’s delicious delectables to memory - hence fine tuning your craft in the service industry - this might go a little quicker if I could see a menu.”

My waiter responded, “You’ve got a smart mouth on you.”

Then I was left alone once more.  I figured he was giving me some time to think about what I did wrong.  And think I did.  Or perhaps “plan” is a more appropriate word.  After a few more minutes passed, the waiter returned with a menu.  Before he fled, I put my plan into motion.  “You know, I think those eggs you mentioned earlier might just hit the spot.”  I ran my eyes over the breakfast page and pointed at a picture of a nice looking omelet.  “I’ll take that one, please.”

He nodded and took the menu back from me.  “I’ll also take a cup of coffee,” I said to his back as he was loafing away from my table.  “Pleeease!”  Another nod.

As I sat and waited for my food and drink, other hungry people started filing into the diner.  I’d just beaten the rush.

There was a blur of blue and course hair before my eyes.  Before me appeared a steaming cup of coffee surrounded by a moat of steaming coffee sloshed onto the table.  The crumbs were floating in it.  I thought to ask for a few single servings of creamer, but my waiter was already long gone.  I mopped up the spillage with my napkin and took small, breathing sips from my Jo.

I watched the other tables full of people.  Really interesting folk, this crowd.  Some bikers were talking about movies.  A group of geriatrics shared their money woes.  I believe there was even a couple that was sharing a plate of extramarital, post-coital Moons Over My Hammie.  The Denny’s crowd is a diverse one.

Then there was another hairy blue blur in front of me.  I looked down and resting on my table was a Cobb salad.  It sort of looked like an omelet, if I squinted and looked at an angle.

“Umm…”

“What now?” the waiter barked at me.

I began to explain the situation, but the look in my waiter’s eye – the one that he was giving to his all female table – made me think it’d be an exercise in futility.  Rather, I gave up and said, “This salad looks like a delicious salad.  Have you had this salad before?”

“No.  Enjoy.”

I begrudgingly started grinding up bites of lettuce with a soupspoon as no other utensil had been provided.  After just a few mouthfuls, my tongue tired from separating the bacon bits from whatever it was that I couldn’t chew through.  I pushed my plate aside and waited patiently for the waiter to return with the bill and his closing argument in regards to a tip.

And, I waited.

I noticed the other diners also shifting impatiently in their seats.  A quick scan of the dining area revealed that there was not a single employee to be seen.    Because of my tidy upbringing, I couldn’t very well just sit and look at dirty dishes before me.  I stood up, grabbed my plate and headed to the dirty dishes tub.

Clunk.

I went back to my assigned table and resumed waiting.  But, what goes better with waiting than a fresh cup of coffee.  I looked at my empty mug and sighed.  Again I stood and headed to the service counter where I could see the rusty percolators.  On the way I stopped by another table.  “Let me grab that for you.  I’m on the way back there, anyhow.”  I stacked their empty dishes in my free hand and swung by the receptacle.

Clunk.

I refilled my mug with coffee and scooped out the grounds with a nearby ladle.  On the way back to the wait, I hear someone ask, “Excuse me?  Did you see any butter back there?  We’re all out.”

“I didn’t.  But I’ll bet I can find some.  Be right back.”

I dropped off my drink and, in seconds, I was rooting through a tiny refrigerator in search of wrapped pats of butter.  They were exactly where I would have put them!  I went back to the table with a handful.  “There you are,” I said and waved off their Thank Yous.

Before I had a chance to sit down, my attention was drawn to a sweet, old lady waving at me from a corner booth.  I approached her, “What’ll it be, darlin’?”

“Oh, dear.  I need to take my medicines, but I’m suppose to take them with juice.”

“Not a problem.  I’ll grab it for you.  O.J., okay?  Or, we’ve got apple, too.”

“I’d prefer grape juice, if it’s available.”

“Let me see what I can do,” I clicked my cheek and winked at her.  “And, why don’t I grab you a dinner roll?  Just as something to snack on.”

“That would be lovely!”

Every time I completed a task for one fellow eater, I found another one in need.  Before long, I was whizzing around the room explaining that eating undercooked meat may cause disease and that any egg meal was available with an egg whites substitute at an additional one-dollar charge.  My brow was beaded with sweat and my apron was sporting a collection of food stains.  I couldn’t find the box of hairnets, so I borrowed a teenage girl’s headband.

Just when I was getting into the swing of things, I felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned and was nearly touching noses with my waiter.  “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, just pitching in.”  I snapped my rag at him.

Imagine my surprise when, rather than unloading appreciation to me for my lending-a-helpful-hand-with-a-smile attitude, he said, “The police have been called.  It would be in your best interest if you stepped away from the milkshake maker and left this establishment … forever.”

I was so furious with this ungratefulness that I almost forgot to tip out the kitchen staff before I stormed out.