Chapter 2

In which we learn about illegal drugs and the horrors of the food service industry.

Daniel Halcey was on drugs. He was on drugs because, at the tender age of seventeen, he was close enough to graduating high school to long for it, but far enough away that he still felt like it would never come. He also worked at a diner some two miles out of his hometown, because he liked to have money at times that were convenient, which were usually whenever anyone was offering him drugs. In Daniel’s opinion, the only thing better than working at a tiny chain diner right off of the interstate was literally any other job. The best way to deal with these facts, he concluded, was to get higher than a top hat on a giraffe in a hot air balloon, and to do it often. In fact, Daniel was still high at 10 pm in the evening on this particular night. The reason for this was that the boy that Daniel bought his drugs from, a dropout who went by the unfortunate name of Little P, had received a call from his girlfriend while he was mixing up a batch of what he would sell behind the school the next day. His girlfriend was calling him to inform him that she knew all about Little P and Jenny, that b***h, and that it was over between them, this was the last time, she meant it. This was the third time it had been over between them, the first two being about a girl named LaQuandary and the fact that Little P’s socks tended to smell like a fish market on a hot summer day, respectively. It would also, perhaps unsurprisingly, not be the last.

As they fought and Little P continued to mix the concoction of various hallucinogenic substances, the sum of which he referred to as Horny Dragon, it went completely unnoticed by Little P that he did not possess the ability to multitask. Had he been paying more attention to the task at hand instead of devoting so much energy to trying to convince his girlfriend that he had never done anything with Jenny, and in fact didn’t know any girls named Jenny nor had he ever even heard the name Jenny before, he would have mixed the correct amounts of each of the powders in the bowl.

But he hadn’t been paying attention, and he had totally screwed the pooch in terms of correctly balancing the amounts of chemicals, and so the little speckled pills of Horny Dragon that he had assured Daniel would only give him a little buzz for a few hours were messing with Daniel’s neurochemistry like he was a synesthete at a rave. The result of this was that, six and a half hours after taking Horny Dragon, Daniel was just finishing his break at Porky’s Diner while his vision danced in a cornucopia of psychosomatic flashing lights and psychedelic colors.

Aside from the wildly pulsating, amorphous visions, Daniel had spent the better part of his break talking to a large monitor lizard that was a particularly offensive shade of neon pink and wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. Daniel suspected that this was not normal, although at the moment he had trouble recalling whether his hands had always been the size of hubcaps with little smiley faces on his fingertips, so he couldn’t be totally certain.

As he sat on the stairs around the side of the building which overlooked the cramped parking lot, monitor lizard notwithstanding, Daniel wondered how long he had left in his break. The last time he had checked his watch the hands sprouted chubby little legs and started doing what he could only assume was some form of tap dance, so what time it was was totally lost on him as he saw a small car pull into lot and park semi-parallel to the lines of a space. He was sure that there actually was a car there and that three people, two women and one very large man, did step out of it, but if questioned he probably wouldn’t add that the car was on fire and each person had two heads.

The three people walked into the diner and Daniel started counting the seconds. He had just hit fifteen mississippi when the door behind him opened and the voice of Burt, his boss, hissed at him.

“Daniel! We have customers and your break ended ten minutes ago! Get in there and show them some service!”

Daniel climbed to his feet, a little unsteadily, and turned around to see Burt, arms crossed and belly threatening to burst the buttons of his hideous yellow shirt.

“Sure thing, boss,” said Daniel dreamily. No sooner had he said it than he had to pause, mesmerized by Burt’s buzzcut, which had begun to wave like an inflatable man outside a car dealership.

“Daniel. Daniel!” Burt snapped his fingers in front of Daniel’s face. “Get going!”

Despite what one might think, as Burt watched Daniel totter into the building, he had no idea that his coworker had consumed illegal substances. Burt, being what he would call a ‘competent self-starter and definite manager material’ and whom others referred to as ‘that prick’, was convinced that the world would go to pieces without him and lord knows what would happen to this restaurant. It goes without saying, then, that he considered other people totally lost without his direction, and therefore Daniel’s behavior was just more proof in his mind of that fact. He shook his head and tutted, trying in vain to tuck his shirt back into his slacks.

Inside, Daniel stood before the booth in which were seated the man and two women, clutching menus in his sweaty palms.

“Can I get you something to,” he started. “Uh.”

“Bring us four waters,” said the taller of the women, who had pointed features and small, predatory eyes. “We’re waiting on someone.

“And a coffee!” growled the man. He was built like a wrestling superstar; huge and full of muscles. “Black.” He thought for a moment. “And a donut.”

Daniel wrote what he thought was ‘four waters/coffee blk + donut’ on his pad of paper, but what it actually said was ‘fo Whtch ha!/(smudge) ~ (squiggle) dAnt’. He stared, transfixed, and the letters stood up off of the page and began to fight with the smudge. The squiggle remained prostrate, unsympathetic to the smudge’s plight.

“Sometime today!” barked the larger woman. Her brown hair hung in greasy tendrils over her face.

“I don’t like her,” remarked the pink monitor lizard in a refined English accent.

“Me neither,” said Daniel.

“What?” snapped the unpleasant woman.

“Nothin’,” mumbled Daniel. He made it halfway to the kitchen before he remembered about the menus, went back to the table, and then walked back to the kitchen. He hung the ticket up on the line in the kitchen window. Julio, the head (and only) cook at Porky’s, took the ticket, turned it over, turned it back, and then looked up.

“I can’t read this, cuz,” he said.

“Four water, coffeedon’t,” said Daniel. His tongue felt like it was trying to fly out of his mouth.

“Ju got it,” Julio bustled away into the kitchen.

Daniel realized for the second time that he was still holding the menus, and then immediately forgot about them as his mind wandered off into the aether.

He was roused several minutes later by Julio ringing the countertop bell, steady as clockwork, ding ding ding ding.

“Coffee, donut, four water,” said Julio, handing the tray over the counter.

“Thanks, Julio,” Daniel said, taking the tray as Julio returned to the depths of the greasy kitchen. When Daniel reached the table, he noticed that a fourth person had joined the group; a tall, thin man who appeared to be made up mostly of elbows and knees. Even through the mist of drug addled stupor, Daniel could tell there was something strange about this new arrival. For one thing, he was wearing an orange jumpsuit not unlike those worn in prison. A more obvious clue was that the monitor lizard, now a bright yellow color, had fled to the opposite side of the room and was hiding under a table with its head underneath its tail.

“-for this for a long time now, and you three were the most suitable candidates I could find-” the man was saying.

“Four,” Daniel cut in, and it felt like the words were falling out of his mouth to shatter on the floor, “Four...uh.”

The tall man, his head incandescent with a mane of shaggy white hair, turned his head and looked directly at Daniel. He smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Just set those on the table,” he said. He spoke with a laid back charm and despite the friendliness in his voice, the look in his eyes was cold and manic.

Daniel assigned each person a nearly-clean glass of water then handed the coffee and donut to the human leviathan, who grunted. Daniel retreated to a safe distance behind the counter and resisted the sudden urge to take cover underneath something. He noticed as he watched them that the demeanor of the first three people had changed. Before, the acted like they owned the place, brash and confident. Now, faced with the man with white hair, they seemed wary, like rodents who had just spotted the wheeling silhouette of an eagle. The only other person in the diner, a mildly overweight man with a mustache and a face that suggested he had been beaten up a lot in grade school, paid no attention to the new arrivals and continued to read a newspaper. Daniel pretended to make himself busy wiping down the countertops while he listened in to the conversation.

“-can trust you?” the large man was saying. He looked like someone who ate rocks for fun. “That was some pretty fancy s**t you pulled back there, so how do we know you won’t do the same thing to us?”

“To put it quite bluntly, friends, I need you,” said the white haired man. “There is a reason I went to great lengths to ensure your escape.”

“You never actually told us what you plan to do,” the unpleasant woman ran her fingers through her lank brown hair.

“All in good time, guys, all in good time,” the white haired man said. “For now, it is enough that I have held up my end of the bargain. I think it’s only fair that you do something for me in return, don’t you?”

All three of the others sat up straighter and eyed him warily. After a moment or two, he laughed.

“Don’t worry,” he said, flashing his grin again. “I’m pretty sure the three of you will enjoy this.” He leaned in close over the table. When the others remained sitting straight, he motioned them in with his hands. “I have here in my pocket the ticket to your salvation.”

“I don’t like riding in anything but cars,” said the large man.

The white haired man’s expression became slightly pained. “It’s not literally a ticket.” he said.

The large man looked skeptical. “Okay.” he said.

“I can tell I’m going to have to earn your trust,” said the white haired man. “So tell me, what can I do to show you I have the best intentions?”

“You can start by buying us dinner,” said the nasty woman. Her hair reminded Daniel of greasy snakes. The other woman, tiny and asian, nodded.

“Easy peasy, Ainsley,” the white haired man looked over at Daniel. “How about some menus, kiddo?”

Daniel became aware, once again, of the menus in his hand.

“Don’t go near him,” warned the lizard.

“I have to; it’s my job!” Daniel hissed. The man’s hair was now an interesting tartan pattern, and the table was covered in tiny disco dancing goblins.

Daniel crossed the room and began to hold out the menus when the large man spoke up.

“Give me a hamburger,” he said. Daniel noticed that he had a tattoo of a knife, horizontal, underneath his left eye.

“Me too,” said the nasty woman, Ainsley. Her hair rose up and began to writhe in the air.

“How about you, Mary?” the man whose hair had become celtic looked across the table at the smaller woman.

She said nothing, just nodded curtly.

“That settles it. Bring my friends here some hamburgers.” There was the too-friendly grin again, and the eyes with too much going on behind them.

Daniel mumbled something and scrambled off to the kitchen, relieved to be away from the four strangers. He had enough sense in the midst of his hallucinogenic fervor to have a bad feeling about them, and wondered briefly if the diner was going to end up as a headline on the news tomorrow. Employees Stabbed To Death In Diner Heist, it would say; Young Genius Tragically Cut Down In His Prime! He could even see his own funeral: his mother and father stricken with grief, hundreds of mourners wailing with sorrow, the high school cheerleading team throwing themselves against his coffin and sobbing; especially Margaret Morgan, whom he sat behind in Precalculus and whom also occupied most of his daydreams during said class.

“I always loved you!” she would say, tearing at her pigtails. “Especially the way you would think about my butt when you were supposed to be learning about derivation!”

The loud ringing of the countertop bell ripped him away from his reverie.

“Hamburgers,” said Julio. He held the tray out to Daniel. Even to Daniel’s simmering mind, the hamburgers resembled sandwiches in the same way that fruitcake resembles a dessert; that is, only qualifying in the most technical sense. Daniel had long since become desensitized to serving atrocious food, and therefore took the tray, only hesitating at the thought of approaching the strangers again.

When he returned to the front of the diner, he caught a glimpse of the thin man, his hair still a wacky tartan, putting something into his pocket. It looked small and rectangular, sort of like a cigar case. Over at the next table, the overweight man turned the page of his newspaper.

“So we just take these? And that’s it?” Ainsley was saying. She held something clenched in her fist. In fact, her two friends did as well, upon closer inspection.

“You just take them,” said Tartan Hair, leaning back in his seat.

Ainsley looked at whatever was in her hand, up at the man, and then back down at her hand.

“Screw it,” she said, seizing her glass of water. She threw back her head, tossed the contents of her hand into her mouth, and took a big swallow of water. After a second, her friends did as well, as tartan hair looked on with a smile.

Ainsley put down her water and looked at Tartan Hair expectantly, as if her head might suddenly explode. When nothing happened, she scowled.

“I don’t feel any different,” she said.

“It takes a little while for the effects to take hold,” said Tartan Hair. “But I assure you, when they do, you’ll see that they’re like nothing you’ve ever had before.”

Ah, so that’s how it was. What seemed like the start of a crime scene had been nothing more than a simple drug deal. Daniel suddenly felt much more reassured about the whole situation, having been through it more times than he could count with the people who supplied him his drugs. He walked to the table with a smile, putting the plates down in front of the seated people.

“Four hamburgers,” he thought he said, but what came out of his mouth was “flah hubblebubs”.

Tartan Hair raised his eyebrows, and then took the tray.

“Thanks, son,” he said.

The large man seized his hamburger and ate it in two bites, then eyed the plate hungrily as if he might suddenly develop a taste for cheap dishware.

“Haven’t had one of those in a long time,” he said.

“Stick with me, Vernon, and I’ll make sure you get all the hamburgers you can eat,” said Tartan Hair.

“I still don’t trust you,” said Ainsley, who was also wolfing her hamburger down.

“I understand,” said Tartan Hair. “Just give me the benefit of the doubt, at least for now.”

He began to eat his hamburger neatly, occasionally dabbing his mouth with a napkin, never once dropping his smile.

When the four got up from the table to leave, the chubby man did so as well, standing up and stretching. He turned around and ran directly into Tartan Hair, who hadn’t been paying attention. Both men landed directly on their backsides, with the pill case flying out of Tartan Hair’s pocket and fell on the floor, where it exploded open in a shower of multicolored pills.

“I’m terribly sorry!” the overweight man said, crawling over to help Tartan Hair pick up the pills from the ugly-patterned floor.

“That’s quite all right,” Tartan Hair said, although his tone suggested that strangulation might be in the other man’s future.

When the pills were collected and safely back in their case, the overweight man beat a hasty retreat out the door. When the other four made motions to follow suit, Daniel spoke up.

“Excuse me,” he said.

All four people looked at him.

“What?” growled the mountainous one, Vernon.

“Y-you haven’t paid your bill,” Daniel said nervously.

“Don’t worry kiddo,” said Tartan Hair. “We don’t need to.” He looked directly into Daniel’s eyes and his irises glinted in the harsh glare of the halogen lighting.

“Um, yeah,” Daniel said. “Yeah you do.”

A puzzled look swept across Tartan Hair’s face. “I’m sorry, I’ll speak louder,” he said. “I said that we don’t need to.”

“I know,” out of the corner of his eyes Daniel caught a glimpse of the monitor lizard, who was miming being hanged. “But...you do need to pay for your dinner.”

Tartan Hair was silent for a few moments. “Let me speak to your manager,” he said finally.

Daniel walked to Burt’s office, being careful not to let the others out of his sight. Burt’s door was covered in stickers with animal cartoon characters saying ‘Great Job!’, “Gold Star!’, and ‘Excellent!’, among other facetiously positive things. It also had an laser engraved metal plaque with Burt’s name on it in stylized writing, which Daniel had long suspected Burt had bought himself. Daniel knocked.

The door creaked open and Burt emerged, which in Daniel’s mind always seemed to bear a terrible resemblance to a broken jack in the box with a particularly fat toy inside.

“What is it?” Burt asked.

“There are some people out here who say they don’t need to pay their bill,” said Daniel.

Burt looked at him like Daniel had just suggested he lose some weight. “They what?”

“They said that they don’t need to pay their bill.”

Burt pushed past Daniel and waddled out into the seating area. He stopped in front of Tartan Hair and puffed himself up, which he thought made him looked intimidating, but really just made him look like his last meal had disagreed with him.

“Is there a problem out here?” he asked, which is universal manager code saying that if there isn’t already a problem, there will be soon.

Tartan Hair leaned forward slightly, almost imperceptibly.  “No, there’s no problem. I was just telling your employee that our meal is going to be comped.”

Daniel couldn’t see Burt’s face, but there was a definite change in his posture. His shoulders relaxed, and his entire body seemed to deflate slightly like a hot air balloon with a slow leak. Burt turned around to look at Daniel.

“Daniel!” he said. “Why are you bothering these nice people?”

“W-what?” Daniel said, surprised.

“These people are just trying to have a pleasant evening, and they definitely do not need you pouring your sassy sauce on it and trying to ruin it!” And to Daniel’s amazement, he pulled out a handful of meal coupons from his pocket and thrust them at Tartan Hair. “I’m terribly sorry for any inconvenience, sir, and please take these as an apology for Daniel’s behavior. I assure you that he and I are going to have a long talk about waiter etiquette.”

Daniel, struck dumb from a combination of total surprise at Burt’s out of character behavior and disgust at the use of the term ‘sassy sauce’, could only stare slackjawed as Burt vigorously shook Tartan Hair’s hand and escorted them out the door, apologizing profusely.

“You and I are going to have a discussion,” said Burt, sweeping past Daniel and back into his office.

Daniel stood silent, trying to wrap his head around what he had just witnessed.

“Dat was da strangest ting I’ve seen in a long time, boss,” said a small imp who appeared on his shoulder. It took a puff on a tiny cigar.

Daniel said nothing. Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. Suddenly, it hit him like a piano out of an open window.

“Oh crap, I never gave them their menus,” he said.

Author's Note

Don't do drugs, kids.