Russian Coffee

The coffee had a peculiar taste. It was lukewarm and watery, as if it were once just a boiling pot of water with a few coffee beans thrown in the day before and had just been left to sit in the back. It also had a strange, frankly bad, taste about it. Father often said Russia would never succeed as a country again because they had bad food. I now understood what he meant. Who starts a Russian truck stop in the middle of nowhere anyway? Even more importantly, who goes to one? Russian truck drivers I guess, which is reason enough why I should not be here for I am neither Russian, nor a truck driver. Not that I dislike the country though, just their food. I'm not an extremely biased person, I'm not extreme in any sort of way come to think of it, but back to the coffee.

The mug was round, as mugs often are. It was white with several noticeable dirty fingerprints painted across the side and a crack almost big enough to cut one's lip at the rim. The table was some cheap material that truck stop diner tables are often made of, not that I'm an expert on the subject. It was gray, but if you looked closely you could see reds and blues, greens and pinks and yellows, as if someone was aiming a prism upon the table. I thought it funny how from afar something could be so plain and unexciting, but when more closely examined explodes into many vibrant colors. The faded orange booth across from me definatly needed to be replaced. One section had been taped back with some peeling duct tape. There was another tear towards the top, revealing the cheap faded yellow foma underneath the old leather imitation material. One again, I am not an expert on truck stop diner furnishings.

Then there was the waitress behind the counter. At one time years ago she had been a beautiful young girl. Maybe the stuff of models even, but those days were long gone. Years of diner pie, cigarettes, alcohol, lustful truck drivers and children had disfigured her beauty. She was thick around the middle, not obese or anything, nothing of the sort, just a sort of not-so-pleasantly plump. Her skin was probably more similar to leather then the seat material and was plagued with wrinkles. At the roots of her hair was about a half inch of gray, the rest was blonde down to her shoulders. Well it would've probably been down to her shoulders had she not put it up today. Her time for retirement was fast approaching. I noticed her looking oddly at the suitcase I kept hugged to my side, wondering what was inside.

The diner was quite similar to the youth of the waitress, in a state of rapid decadence. Inside there was only one other person besides her and I, a young truck driver. He had the typical trucker hat fit firmly over his head, with the odd hair or two poking out of the holes in the back. He was facing the waitress and had on a long-sleeve red shirt with a denim vest over it. His gut seemed to bulge out through the front of the vest as if trying to escape. That is, as far as I could see from my angle. He was eating a slice of apple pie covered in whipped cream. It smelt like a delicious homemade pie but I could only guess how good it really could've been in a place like this. His dirty, work worn jeans were torn in several places. He seemed to be extremely tired and stared off as it the answer to life's questions were hidden deep inside the wrinkles of the waitress' skin or the back kitchen behind her.

I looked again at the half full mug of coffee, then up towards the counter. I decided I was definatly not going to finish the coffee and dropped a few dollars on the table next to the mug. Then I got up, took my briefcase in hand, and walked into the bathroom. I closed the door behind me and did a quick scan of the room. One toilet, a cracked mirror, a sink with the hot knob taken off and graffiti written across the walls. "JesusSaves" was written across the mirror in black sharpie, with "f**k" scraped with some sort of rock or something directly beneath it. It was dirty too, like most public restrooms and did not deserve or require much description beyond that. I knelt down, placed the suitcase on the ground and opened it up. I took the pair of folded black gloves out of the corner and put them on. Beneath them lay a picture of my daughter. I picked it up and examined it. The edges were slightly creased with a tear in the lower left side. She had brown hair, cut at her shoulders. There was a smile of infinite joy splattered across her face as she began to open up a Christmas present. I brought the picture close to my face and gave it a light kiss, then softly and carefully slid it into my glove along the bottom of my left wrist. I looked at the remaining denizen of the plain briefcase and picked it up, staring at it the entire time with care. I lifted the 9mm pistol close to my face as I had with the picture. The Browning Hi-Power 9mm loaded with a fifteen round clip stared back at me. I thought about the waitress, the young truck driver, the cup of coffee and the torn leather seat. I thought about my daughter. I forgot to think about the gray colorful diner table though. I place my finger against the trigger.

Reviews

[SR Urie]

Hi Connor.
A good story. Very good description of the setting and the dingy Russian diner, down to the cracked coffee cup and quasi-glow of the taped up booth. Good characters, too. Your waitress sounds like what my second ex-wife must look like these days (haven't seen her for a lot of years). The ulterior rage comes out in the end with the picture of the 'infinate joy' of your daughter and how it will soon be released in the insignificant truck stop to the passer by in the middle of ex-Soviet nowhere yet hugely righteous to you. Well done, sir. I would've liked to hear a tad more detail about what happened to the poor little angel after Christmas day, but that's between you and her, isn't it?
Good job, man. BZ