I: Whiskey Funeral

He took a swig from his hip flask and then ordered a chocolate milkshake.

“Extra sprinkles and cream, please,” he added. He took another swig of the hip flask, gave Petra a broad smile, and then stumbled towards one of the most uncomfortable-looking seats in the entire cafe.

It was thirty minutes before closing time, and he was the first customer of the day.

Company policy said Petra should tell him to leave. He was drinking in public, in a food establishment. She should tell him to leave, or she should call the police. But as she watched him over the counter, she found it very difficult to believe that that man was dangerous in the slightest.

He was sat at his tiny table with his head in his hands. His shoulders were shaking, and Petra briefly wondered whether he was crying. His hip flask was on the table, lid off. Either he didn’t care if he spilled the alcohol, or he’d run out. It would explain the crying.

He was a weird man. That was the first thing Petra noticed. He was tall--at least 6”--with the messiest black hair she had ever seen. He had huge bags under his sea-blue eyes and a goatee covering his pointed chin. His cheeks were sallow, cheekbones sharper than glass, and his ears stuck out from under tumbling, messy curls. He was thin--too thin--and carried himself like he didn’t want to be seen. Weirder still were his clothes: he was dressed in a full suit and tie, with handsome shoes and a tailored blazer. He had mud on his trousers, and an old-fashioned pocket-watch hanging on a chain from his blazer pocket. On the table was his black, wide-brimmed hat.

As Petra stared at him from over the counter, he lifted his head, turning to her. He didn’t look at her. His eyes were on the floor. But he spoke, very quietly, his voice rough and as shaky as his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, were you closing early?”

He didn’t sound sarcastic, just tired.

Petra swallowed. “No,” she said, turning around to the coffee machine, fridges and the little workspace she had at the front of house. As she did so, she thought it best to add a warning. “I won’t serve you if I see that hip flask again, though.”

She didn’t see his reaction, but she heard a soft thud. She glanced over her shoulder. He was sitting with his head on the table, completely motionless.

“Sir?” said Petra.

Without lifting his head, the stranger raised a large, bandaged hand and gave her a thumbs up. Petra shook her head in bewilderment. They had a lot of weird customers here, but this guy was taking the piss.

She got to work making him his milkshake, wishing she could just tell him to go away so she could close shop and go home. She was starving, and she had leftover Chinese food in the fridge and a night of Netflix to look forward to. Her roommate was on vacation with his family, and Petra was perhaps overexcited about having the apartment all to herself for a whole, glorious month.

She got out the ice cream and blended all the ingredients together, carefully glancing on the man. There was something about him. An aura, perhaps. He reeked of danger and exhaustion, of cigarettes and ancient sadness. He had placed his hat back on his head, and now sat with his head on the table, looking like he was hiding from the aggressive lighting of the cafe. Maybe he was an alcoholic. It wasn’t even five o’clock in the afternoon yet, and he was drunk off his a*s, sitting collapsed at a cafe table. He looked young, too, not much older than her. And yet here he was. Trapped, just as she was.

She would like to paint him, she decided as she watched him slumped there. He looked interesting enough to paint. If she had her supplies here with her, and if she didn’t have a job to do, she would sit here for hours trying to capture the slump of his shoulders and the way his bruised fingers brushed the floor.

She turned the blender off and poured the milkshake into a glass. At the sound of whipped cream being squirted into the glass, the strange man finally lifted his head, slowly sitting up as she turned around and began to carry it towards him.

Petra placed the glass on the table, smiling at him as kindly as she could. For the first time, she was treated to the unnerving intensity of his eyes on her, a heavy weight keeping her in place.

“Thanks,” he said.

It was as she was turning away to go and hide out in the kitchen for a bit when she heard him add, “Petra?”

She blinked, spinning around to stare at him. He was looking at her with a completely innocent expression, but it was weird. How did he know her name? Had someone sent him? Was he here to hurt her? Was he going to rob her?

That was ridiculous. Nobody turned up for a robbery in a full suit and a f*****g hat. He wasn’t here to rob her. He was here for a chocolate milkshake, for some reason.

“Um, yeah,” said Petra. “How did you…”

He gave her a crooked half-smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Name badge.”

She blinked again, looking down at herself. Of course. Her name badge. She was so used to her regulars, she often forgot that she actually owned one.

God, didn’t that say a lot about her? She was twenty-two years old with a bachelor’s degree, and here she was, forgetting she had a name badge because she spent so much time working in a rundown cafe that she had regulars.

This guy was drunk at 4:40PM, ordering a milkshake in a muddy suit with bandaged hands, and he was probably doing better than she was.

She gave him another smile, and like his, it didn’t meet her eyes. “Oh. Yeah.” She realized he had framed her name as a question, and added, “Can I help you?”

“Thank you,” he said. She thought he was talking about the milkshake, but then he added, “For not turning me away. I know I’m, um. Y’know.” He gestured to himself, swaying in his seat. His eyes were bloodshot, but the blue was clear as day.

“Can’t really afford to turn down customers,” she answered. She was never that honest with customers--even with her regulars. She didn’t think she’d be seeing this guy again, however. She could tell, just from one look at him, that he wasn’t the sort of man who stayed in one place for long. He would be jumping on the next train out of here tomorrow morning. She’d had customers like him before. Not quite as weird, of course, but there were always tells.

She looked him up and down without really thinking about the fact that he was watching her, and then asked him the question she’d been wanting to ask since he’d walked in. “How come you’ve got mud on your suit?”

It looked like an expensive suit, after all. And he clearly took care of his hat. So why not his suit?

He smiled, and this smile, though full, was drier than sand. “I’ve been gravediggin’,” he told her.

From anyone else, that would have been a joke. From him, it was ominous.

“Err,” said Petra. She tried to laugh it off, but it was clear she wasn’t amused, and the atmosphere got a hundred per cent more awkward as a result. “You, um…serious?”

He just looked at her.

“Can I have a straw?” he asked.

Petra swallowed. “Sure.”

She walked back to the counter, crouching down to find the straws. Who the hell was this guy?

Who walks into a cafe drunk at half four in the afternoon and then makes jokes about gravedigging, which, by the way, I’m not sure are actually jokes?

Swallowing, she tried to calm herself down. No matter what she did, however, she couldn’t stop her mind from racing. What if this guy was crazy? What if he was here to hurt her? What if he was going to do something dangerous? What if she lifted her head now to find a gun being pointed at her, with those pretty blue eyes staring her dead in the face, a lethal warning in his gaze?

Don’t be stupid, Petra. He’s just a guy. Just a customer. He was making a joke; that’s all.

She got up as slowly as possible, a straw in her hand. The stranger was not pointing a gun at her. He was staring out of the window pensively, hat still on his head, hip flask still in his hand as he took another swig. Either he’d forgotten her earlier request to put it away or he didn’t care. She wasn’t sure which.

“Here you go,” she said, hating how her voice shook as she placed the straw on the table in front of him. His silence made her bolder, and she added, “I asked you to put that flask away. Sir, if you’re going to drink in public, it’s company policy--”

“S**t, sorry,” he said, quickly putting the flask into his pocket. He looked genuinely apologetic as he looked at her, blinking away something that looked suspiciously like tears. Tears? Over the flask? No. It had to be something else.

It’s none of my business, she thought.

“I really am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t--s**t, I just didn’t think.” He took a deep breath, wiping his eyes with the heel of his bandaged palm. The lifting of his arm made his blazer sleeve roll up slightly, revealing specks of blood on his wrists, covered by the bandages. He caught her staring and immediately dropped his arm, pulling his sleeves back down. “Sorry,” he said again. “Thanks for the straw.”

Avoiding her eyes now, he unwrapped the straw and started sipping at the milkshake, his eyes looking so tired, she wouldn’t be surprised if he fell asleep right there and then. He didn’t, however. He just looked straight ahead of him and continued sipping away, his eyes still tearing up as though someone had just died.

It would explain the suit, she supposed. Maybe he’d come from a funeral.

Yeah, she thought unkindly, because nothing says ‘funeral’ like chocolate milkshake with extra cream and sprinkles, you f*****g idiot, Petra.

“Hey, um. Do you have a name?” she asked. Just in case. Just in case she was right.

He blinked as though this question startled him, and when he looked at her, she noticed an actual tear escaping one of his eyes.

“Tuesday,” he said.

“Cute name,” she smiled.

He just looked at her, nodded, and looked back at his milkshake. She caught the cue.

Petra turned away from him, walking off into the back room. She was going to get her phone. She didn’t trust Tuesday, and though she was beginning to think that maybe he wasn’t going to murder her, she wanted to be sure to have it on her just in case. That dangerous air about him was beginning to make her think that maybe there was a more nefarious reason for his presence in the cafe. Maybe he was running from someone. Maybe he really had been gravedigging. Maybe he really was here to do something bad. Maybe he had fled a psychiatric ward somewhere and stolen someone’s worn suit. It would explain the bandages, and the sadness, and the fact that he was not coming across as sane.

Petra could relate to that one.

She turned her phone on. What a surprise. No texts. She sighed softly, sending a quick text to her roommate asking how his holiday was going. She had to extend the branches, just like Dr Phillips said. Even if this was perhaps an inappropriate time.

Just as she was beginning to put her phone into her apron, she heard the bell of the door. What, was the public making it its mission to push its luck? It was nearly closing time. There was no way Petra was going to serve them.

She marched towards the door, preparing to open it and tell them this, but was halted by the sound of talking.

“Don’t even bother getting up, you b*****d. Stay right where you are,” a rough, cold female voice drifted through the wood of the door.

Petra frowned. That didn’t sound like a customer.

“Don’t start this.” That was Tuesday, unmistakably. The half-drawl of his accent was clear as day. “Please. I don’t want this.”

“Shut the f**k up,” the female voice answered. “You’ve got nothing to say. You’re selfish, manipulative, and if you move one inch--”

“Then you’ll do nothing,” a new voice said, this one soft and male. “You know why we’re here, Tuesday. Just tell us what we need to know.”

“Just let it be,” Tuesday begged. He sounded tearful. “Let me be, damn it.”

Oh my god, they’re going to kill him in my cafe, Petra thought.

Immediately, she chastised herself. What had Dr Phillips been saying about paranoia? Tuesday wasn’t here to hurt her, and these strangers were probably just people who somehow knew him.

Or maybe it’s psychosis and you’re going to be taken back in.

Petra shook herself. No. No harmful thoughts. She was okay. She knew she was okay. She was trying her best to better herself, trying her best to listen to Dr Phillips’ advice and take her meds and go through as many CBT handbooks as she possibly could.

The key to paranoia is facing the truth, Dr Phillips said. If you think something is happening, tell someone, or confront the situation yourself. You will realize that it’s all in your head. Paranoia is just building tiny towers until they become giant pyramids. But those pyramids aren’t really a threat; they just seem that way because of how big they appear.

They were probably just customers, or people who were coming after Tuesday. Maybe he really had been at a funeral, and had somehow fled it. Maybe the people in the front of house were just family members chasing after him, furious at the selfish act.

Petra liked to think through every possible outcome before she confronted a paranoid situation. It helped calm her.

She dug her fingernails into her palms, her hands little fists at her sides. Her whole body ached, as tense and taut as a string. She could feel sweat beginning to pool at the small of her back.

She stepped towards the door, putting her hand on the handle. It seemed to burn her hand, eating away at her skin and bone.

Just open it. Just open the door.

She felt like she’d swallowed a frog, a slimy beast now stuck in her throat. She was out of place, a stranger in her own cafe, an anxious wreck. How was she supposed to confront this situation? She could feel the anxiety building up in her until it was nauseating. The slightest thing would set her off now; she could feel panic burning deep in the pit of her belly, preparing to burn her from the inside out. Burn her like this f*****g door handle.

She had to just do it. It was like ripping off a band-aid; the sooner it happened, the quicker it was over. These people were not going to be horrible monsters or mass murderers or robbers intent on stealing her livelihood. They were just going to be normal people. Customers, or funeral-goers, or friends of Tuesday. Perhaps they were even policemen here for him--policemen wouldn’t hurt her. None of these people would hurt her. They’re just going to be normal people, Petra. Just normal people. Or something like that.

She swallowed, ducking her head and letting loose strands of chestnut-coloured hair escape her bun. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. She could do this. She could do this.

I can f*****g do this.

Petra’s hand tightened on the handle of the door. Her mind was racing; her heart pounded like a kick drum. She felt like Death was waiting at her side, so close she could feel his breath drifting into her ear.

She opened the door.

Immediately, she heard the telltale clicks.

Five strangers stood in the cafe, all armed with guns.

And the guns were now pointed at her.

Author's Note

I have a serious case of writer's block and this is about all I can manage at the moment.

Reviews

[JayG]

I just saw this, a bit late, so I don't know if you still want comment. But if you do, I noticed that you've falling into the trap pretty much everyone does, that of trying to use the writing skills we got on school for fiction. It sounds reasonable to do that, given that we leave school thinking that writing-is-writing, and that we have that handled.

But think back to your school days. They had you writing reports and essays most of the time. And they never explained how to handle dialog, or how to make a character seem to be living the story as the story is read, so how could you know how to do it—or even that you should? They didn't explain the differences between a scene on the page and one on the screen, or even what a scene really is. So without additional knowledge, how can we write one?

The answer is that we can't. It's not a matter of talent, it's what Mark Twain said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

So while you're working hard, and perhaps are loaded with talent, You're missing the tricks the pros take for granted, and that's a killer. But it is fixable.

The library's fiction-writing section is loaded with books on the subject, so time spent there is time wisely invested. And while you're there, you might want to look for the names, Dwight Swain, Jack Bickham, James Scott Bell, or Debra Dixon on the cover. They're gold.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/