Lenny

We've all got a darker side.

Lenny

            Every day at 2 o’clock he walks into my restaurant, sits in the same booth, and orders the same thing"a turkey club on rye and a tall tomato juice. He smiles at everyone he sees and always looks up from the paper he’s reading when someone walks by his booth. Once his lunch is eaten and before he finishes his beverage he orders a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie and a cup of skim milk. I’ve been in business now for ten years and Lenny’s presence here is as much a part of my daily routine as anything else that I do"waking up at 6am, opening doors at 7, starting the ovens and prepping food until 10 when we open. I run my business as well as I can. Schmoozing with the customers is a part of what I do, but with Lenny it’s different, I don’t consider it a chore. After his lunch, right at 2:30, I always have a chat with him, and without fail it makes my day. Today is Lenny’s sixty-second birthday and I got him a little something that I hope he’ll appreciate.

            I walked out of the kitchen, past the collection of two tops we have at the back of the restaurant, up through the aisle to the booth that sits right next to the window looking out over Green Street, the booth that Lenny always chooses. He looked up at me as I took a seat across from him.

            “Happy Birthday my friend!” I said as I handed him a small package wrapped in Christmas themed wrapping paper…I didn’t have time to get to the stationary store. Besides, I think I remember him once saying he likes snowmen.

            His face lit up as he tucked his newspaper back into his bag. “Angela, you remembered an old man’s birthday, shame on you,” he whispered with a wink. He tore open the paper to reveal a pair of beautiful leather driving gloves. His eyes shot open, “Angie…these are wonderful…you remembered.”

            “Of course I did Len…that story changed everything about my life, I don’t know who I’d be today if it wasn’t for all that you taught me and have shown me. So, do you want to try them out later?”

            He looked right at me with a crooked smile: “Angela. I’m too old for that stuff now, you know this. Things are different today; I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Let me guess. Marco’s? Alice's?”

            “Nope. Jack Thatcher's.”

            “Ha! And I suppose you have a plan all worked out then? Up late last night I take it? You know, if I’d have known those stories would have done what they've done I would have never told them to you. You’re looking for trouble and you’ll find it soon enough.”

            He wasn’t scolding me or trying to convince me not to go…he was trying to extinguish his own interest. But something about the flash in his eyes told me that I had definitely whetted Lenny Prince’s appetite.

            “Thatcher’s...wah-ho Angie you’ve really lost it this time. You know the last time I pulled a job like that? I was still living in Buffalo working double shifts at Bethlehem Steel, knockin’ off dealers during the night just so I could keep myself from losing it in that damned plant. Thatch has one of the best systems in the city, it’s a lost cause.”

            I thought he might have reacted that way. “You know that you can figure out his damn system Len! Come on, you were the best and you still are. Don’t kid yourself, don’t even try to pull that on me.”

            He was looking out the window, polishing his glasses and shaking his head. “Flattery is one duplicitous son-of-a-b***h sometimes, I tell ya. I’m gonna need a pair of pliers and a decent car this time for God’s sake, we’re not driving that piece of s**t again, it’s embarrassing. Oh, and these will help,” he said as he got up, grabbed his gloves and threw a twenty down for lunch. "An antique robbin' antiques, now there's something." 

Reviews

[Danny Kemp.]

Thank you your comment on mine I'll try and find time to post some more. Yours are fine, well composed and thoughtful. I will not insult you by scoring them; I'm not a teacher at School.

[Andrea]

Totally diggin the dialogue. Reading it makes me feel like Lenny's presence is part of my daily routine as well!

[Marie]

I reread it, and this time I got it. A neat story.

[Marie]

This is interesting and well written, but is it a story? Did you mean it as part of a book? I reread "Eugene Gray", but "Lenny" doesn't fit with that.