Between two and four the city goes quiet enough to hear yourself think, which is why I avoid thinking between two and four.
I park at the diner by the bridge and take the corner stool. Marlene slides a coffee across before I sit down. Same mug for three years, chip in the handle, she keeps it for me like a reserved seat.
You look terrible, she says. Good shift?
Guy cried in the back seat for eleven blocks, I tell her. Lost his dog. Then at the end of the ride the dog called him. Apparently it dug under the fence and went three streets over to the house of a lady dog. The dog had a whole second family. Had a different name there. Barry.
Marlene stops wiping the counter.
The dog's name was Barry.
At the other house. His real name here was Spike. Guy is forty-six, sobbing about how the dog chose her. Like his therapy bill wasn't going to cover it. Charged him full fare and he tipped. Criers always tip.
Marlene refills my mug, which is her version of buying me a drink.
Ex-husband did the same thing, she says. Different name at the other house. Spike suits him too.
The cook says something from the kitchen window that I miss over the espresso machine. Marlene laughs like it was actually funny, which is a professional skill she has and I never developed.
She tells me the health inspector came by yesterday. The diner passed. The place next door failed twice. Same owner. Same kitchen, technically, the wall between them is decorative. One building has a health license and the other has a certificate of excellence from an online travel site. The certificate hangs framed by the door. The customers photograph it.
You could not make it up, she says. I have given up making things up. Reality got a better writer.
A tram goes past outside, carrying its nobody.
Regulars drift out around four. Marlene flips her notepad to a fresh page. Somebody has written something in the corner of the old one and she turns it to show me. A customer, a regular, left her a poem. Two lines about her eyes and coffee.
Third poem this month, she says. Meanwhile the last three tips were coins. Poetry and coins. The economy of a woman my age.
I finished the coffee and left her the coins. Someone has to keep the sector balanced.
Meter off, radio on.
None of this happened. All of it is true.
#nightfare #nightshift #fiction #diner #shortstory
