I spend every morning in Double D\u2019s Downtown Diner. It\u2019s two blocks west of the oldest casino in town. In the early seventies, a billionaire bought the casino for one of his kids, renamed it the Silver Spoon Saloon, and constructed spirals on the roof so that it resembled a castle. I eat at Double D\u2019s every morning partly because I\u2019m enamored with the Silver Spoon\u2019s mesmerizing spirals, painted gold and silver, an homage to Reno\u2019s heritage. The spirals reach way up into the air and disappear.<\/p>\n
Today, I\u2019m with Danny Boy, and we\u2019re both hungover. I might piss myself.<\/p>\n
Danny Boy\u2019s eyes are wide. They’ve always been that way. Nobody knows why, least of all Danny Boy. He\u2019s the type of man who brushes his teeth every few days, and he\u2019s always in the way.<\/p>\n
He dismantles a neatly wrapped breakfast burrito stuffed with chorizo sausage and caramelized onions. He slugs a soda. Hot sauce is caught in his beard.<\/p>\n
I picked a table near one of the large store windows overlooking Fifth Street. The window offers the best view of the double doors that mark the main entrance to the Silver Spoon Saloon. I can watch the parking lot while Danny Boy eats his burrito. My boss, Darrell, usually arrives to work halfway through my breakfast every morning here at Double D\u2019s. He parks in the same spot every day and fiddles with his watch before heading through the Silver Spoon\u2019s glass doors and up the escalator to The Mining Shaft, another diner, where he oversees my fastidious work as a bartender. I shake up assorted mixed drinks or conjure the occasional rusty nail for an old timer, all while taking orders for the dinner rush. I work the late shift, but I like to watch Darrell walk into the casino in order to get an idea of his general mood. If he drops his shoulders and takes a deep, slow breath before opening the doors, I know it\u2019s going to be a long shift. He\u2019s easy to spot in the parking lot since he wears a papery suit, ugly black tennis shoes marketed only to those poor souls who have spent too long in the restaurant biz, and a black baseball cap to hide his bald spot. He looks like the world\u2019s worst limo driver.<\/p>\n
Cars pass in both directions. It rained early this morning\u2014a unique occurrence here in the autumnal throes of this, the high desert\u2014and tires smack on pavement. A few mountains catch a blue tint in the expansive distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooks wet out there,\u201d Danny Boy says. \u201cA regular showering.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure does,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got a small .38 snub nose with a slick oak handle and a silver barrel holstered nice and tight underneath my jeans. I’m going to rob Danny Boy. He carries a wad of cash in a money clip, which he keeps at all times in his back pocket. I know this because of the clip\u2019s faint outline, cut in the same spot in all of his jeans. Danny Boy drives trucks and he\u2019s always got money\u2014money for the taking.<\/p>\n
Danny Boy defected from our political operative\u2014the one I launched\u2014called the Nevada Separation Society for Normal Men. Some of us want to secede from the federal government and start our own rodeo. Well, I want to secede. Most of my organization\u2019s members, including Danny Boy here, mistook the Society for a divorced men\u2019s club, on account of the name and all. We spend most of the time in our monthly meetings arranged in a circle, like a church bible study. They discuss how they miss their wives, most of whom seem like reasonable people forced into unreasonable action by these sons of bitches in my secession therapy group. I\u2019m currently organizing a petition to present to the federal government sometime before the next election in 2016, but I keep getting sidetracked with the group\u2019s fixation on divorce. Still, everyone always pays their dues; except Danny Boy. He\u2019s never paid. I hope I get to shoot him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a good place,\u201d Danny Boy says.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a great place. In addition to coffee piped so hot you\u2019ll singe your taste buds into the next millennium, they keep a full bar stocked with the best kinds of booze you\u2019ll find anywhere. They serve all day. I like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look gaunt,\u201d Danny Boy says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a big word.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been taking some creative writing classes at the community college. They gave me a thesaurus. My teacher\u2014he\u2019s a writer\u2014tells me I\u2019ve got fire, the flair. A real storyteller. How about a burrito?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not hungry,\u201d I say. \u201cI’ll stick to coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n
My appetite vanished the moment Danny Boy ordered his burrito. A few years back, my wife, Lyla, convinced me to forsake all meat in favor of its distant cousin, the vegetable. She followed a strict vegetarian diet and, nowadays, so do I. In fact, it was our mutual affection for the vegetarian diet plan that inspired us to open our own diner, called It\u2019s Tempeh Time, that catered to the growing hipster community in bloom throughout this tiny, urban enclave. The diner\u2019s business was going well (four-and-a-half stars on Facebook) until Lyla died and I screwed everything up.<\/p>\n
Our waitress appears with a pot of coffee and there\u2019s a miniature bottle of expensive whiskey nestled in her apron. She keeps this for me. Her name is Betsy and she’s missing some important teeth.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore coffee?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tiny pockets of air whistle through the gaps in her smile. My head pounds and my drawers are a little wet. I\u2019ll need the whiskey soon, but not until the shakes start.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got a wife?\u201d Danny Boy asks.<\/p>\n
I hope Lyla isn\u2019t watching this scene: Danny Boy with pork scattered all over the lacquered table; my eyes sunken and hollow from a lack of nutrition and too much booze. Lyla hated meat of all kinds, but she especially despised pork. When we first hitched, I tried to cook bacon in the mornings before the sun poked through the jagged Sierras overhead, splashing light onto our faux-hardwood floors. She would appear in the kitchen, staring, arms folded. I would shrug, smile, flip the bacon. Be cute. But she wouldn\u2019t bite. Instead, she waited and waited until she couldn\u2019t take the smell. Then she would snatch the frying pan and dump the simmering pork into the trash. Bacon grease would smatter the floor: pop, bang. She would tell me to mop up my mess and I would do it and that would be the end of it. I miss that.<\/p>\n
One day not too long ago, Lyla was jogging on the treadmill when her heart gave out. She hit her head so hard on the rubber that the embalmer had to give her six stitches and cover the wound with makeup. I brought her makeup bag from the house, so she would approve of her complexion. Her death was so unusual that the local paper wanted to do a story. How does a healthy woman of forty, a business owner and local chef of strictly vegetarian food, with no known family history of heart disease, clean blood work, and no perceivable issues with her ticker end up dead on the treadmill? How indeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNope,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
Danny Boy shakes his head.<\/p>\n
I never brought up Lyla at the Separation Society\u2019s monthly meetings. While I founded the organization after Lyla\u2019s death and the diner\u2019s spectacular freefall into back taxes and unpaid fines, I stayed hyper-focused on our mission to secede from both the (arguably) great state of Nevada and the United States government, what, with all its human rights abuses and overreach. I may owe the IRS a bunch of payroll taxes, but I\u2019ll be damned if that money gets to them so they can send it overseas to Afghanistan and fight their proxy wars. I don\u2019t have the money, anyways, but that’s beside the point.<\/p>\n
\u201cA man needs a wife,\u201d Danny Boy says. \u201cThat’s how normal men like you and me get by. It’s how we stop from going crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not wrong. I can\u2019t stop cleaning ever since we buried Lyla. I vacuum microscopic fibers. I scrub the sink with Ajax. I wear rubber gloves that squeak while the water slides through my fingers and disappears down the drain. I pour Clorox into the bathtub and watch it bubble. I dust the ceiling fans with an old t-shirt, never Lyla\u2019s. Sometimes I get so mad about Obama\u2014how he\u2019s screwing the middle class, how young men die in the Middle East, how the healthcare exchange is really confusing\u2014and about Danny Boy\u2019s refusal to pay his dues. My life took such a terrible turn when Lyla died that it makes me do crazy things like wash the floorboards until the paint fades.<\/p>\n
My bladder problems also started after Lyla\u2019s funeral. The piss doctor thinks the stress of my wife dying on the treadmill while I was at work in the diner washing the stainless steel sinks and cursing her name\u2014asking everyone in the restaurant why she\u2019s always, always late\u2014and the issues with my bladder are somehow connected. But the piss doctor didn’t go to a good school and I\u2019m skeptical of his diagnosis, which falls somewhere on a wide spectrum between high levels of stress and deadly levels of cancer. He wants to order a biopsy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should get a wife,\u201d Danny Boy says.<\/p>\n
He spills hot sauce onto the table next to his plate and I take a wet wipe from my pocket and clean the hot sauce from the table. I notice Darrel across the street and his confident gait, all long strides towards the door, and his shoulders perched high along his neck. I can almost hear him whistling that Nora Jones song that always filters through the speakers in the bar. He\u2019s in a good mood. Time for a drink.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow\u2019s your wife?\u201d I say. I don\u2019t know what to do with the wet wipe, so I put it back in my pocket.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrand!\u201d Danny Boy says.<\/p>\n
Danny Boy\u2019s wife left him two days ago. He told me this when he called me last night. He doesn\u2019t remember our conversation, but I remember most of it\u2014the early stuff. I don\u2019t remember hanging up, which means I fuzzed out about halfway through our little powwow. I doubt we discussed the Society past the polite pleasantries of a defected member.<\/p>\n
I look around and recognize some faces trapped in the booths of Double D\u2019s. Former customers of my own place, now forced to forego their vegetarian habits for spaghetti with meat sauce and huevos rancheros. I reach down into myself as far as I can go to see if I feel any pity for these folks.<\/p>\n
After Lyla\u2019s death, our business exploded. News of her unfortunate end to a great life spread through Reno\u2019s hipster community and the cabal of vegetarians and vegans who had supported us through six years of dynamite breakfast items flooded our\u2014my\u2014restaurant. It became so difficult to manage the sudden influx of customers that I was forced to hire a few more well-meaning servers to handle the small dining room\u2019s incredible output of concerned customers. The dining room only sat about forty-five people at a time. It\u2019s located on the second floor of an office building and picture windows overlook an abandoned apartment building where a Shawarma shop had opened on the first floor to catch some of our new business.<\/p>\n
The food suffered with Lyla\u2019s absence. She wrote her recipes in a leather-bound notebook I had gifted her for our first anniversary, but she was not a meticulous record keeper and many of her secrets, that playful interplay between spice and heat where true chefs thrive, were absent from the notebook. The cooks I hired to replace her couldn\u2019t reproduce the brilliance of the food and, even though our hip little community refused to falter from steady business, I felt an emptiness. I came to believe that these customers did not actually want to eat here, but instead wanted a voyeuristic tour of the vegan diner and the host\/owner with the dead wife. It became something of a joke around town, as people heard stories of me crying in the middle of the dining room while pouring coffee into a ceramic mug stained with purple lipstick. No, people no longer came because they believed in eating healthy or because the food was sensuous and tasty or because the diner\u2019s picture windows looked onto the Truckee River as it cut its way into Reno\u2019s city center. No, they came to watch the crackpot grieve over his wife\u2019s sudden death and stare absently at the Silver Spoon\u2019s spirals while customers complained of slow service.<\/p>\n
I came to hate them. Once a business owner hates his clientele, the customers stop showing up. The cashflow disappeared quickly after that and I made the right choices with the little money I had left: I paid my employees instead of the government. That has caused some problems, and now I want to secede.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Back in Double D\u2019s, I can feel the leathery holster warm against my thigh.<\/p>\n
\u201cDamn, that chorizo was good.\u201d Danny Boy says. \u201cI think I\u2019ll get another one, if that\u2019s okay with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said I was buying. That means I\u2019m buying.\u201d I catch Betsy\u2019s attention and Danny B?oy orders another burrito while Betsy slides another miniature whiskey bottle my way. I dump it into the coffee and can feel its warmth before it even enters my system.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife\u2019s at home.\u201d His voice shakes with this lie. \u201cDid I ever tell you how we met?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The truth is, Danny Boy has told this story to me and everyone else in the Separation Society many, many times, but he likes to tell it and so I let him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was on 9\/11,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were both in line at the bank when word of the second tower reached our paltry\u2014that means small\u2014group of customers filling out deposit slips or writing checks. Someone wheeled in one of those old television sets that public school teachers kept in the back of their classroom and we found news of the attack. We watched for over an hour, frozen in line, until my wife, her name is Dorothy, but I call her Dot, she fell to the ground, not necessarily in egregious\u2014that means a lot\u2014pain, but sort of with a childlike wonder. She sat cross legged\u2014they used to call it Indian style, but my creative writing professor says that\u2019s offensive\u2014on the bank\u2019s floor. So, I sat down next to her and introduced myself. I think that would be a pretty damn good short story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what,\u201d I say. \u201cMe too. But stick with cross-legged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danny Boy joined the Society in early March and, while he had told different variations of that story before, he never mentioned how they sat together on the floor and I wonder now if that detail is part of some artistic flair encouraged by this professor of his. What\u2019s real in times of grief?<\/p>\n
Danny Boy wasn\u2019t divorced in March\u2014this, he made clear; only separated. Which I know to be simply the first step in a long procession that ends in the single life. We spoke that first night after I encouraged him to join us in our monthly ritual of shooting skeet in the desert with the President\u2019s face attached to the clay discs. He proved himself worthy in skeet, so I aired my grievances against the government, never Lyla, and he aired his own against his wife and I told him he could stay, but he had to pay the dues, same as the rest of us. He was okie-dokie with all that. He came every week, listened to our free market of ideas, helped some men see their broken relationships more clearly, and shot skeet. In late June, he said he was back with his wife. Good, we agreed. But he never paid a dime.<\/p>\n
In July, he defected. Now it\u2019s September and he owes me a ton of cash and I aim to get it, for the good of the cause. Besides, I like to think we helped him with his familial trials.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Danny Boy can\u2019t finish his second breakfast, so he asks for a box. Betsy brings the box and slides a miniature bottle of Reno\u2019s finest bourbon towards my coffee mug. It\u2019s my second one today, and I finally start to feel that blind, canine confidence only familiar to old dogs and even older drunks.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo,\u201d Danny Boy begins, \u201cabout the Society.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou defected.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the thing. I didn\u2019t want to defect. That is, not per se\u2014that means it\u2019s not the whole story. I still support your cause. I hope we can get the signatures and buy that land near the Idaho border and I sure did enjoy the opportunity to meet more men like me, by that I mean men who have seen their marriage shattered apart and are slowly fastening the pieces together like a puzzle. But the dues were too damn high. I couldn\u2019t keep up. I didn\u2019t feel right being in the club without paying proper dues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never paid any dues,\u201d I say. \u201cNot once. You were with us for four months and you never pulled your weight. You never even brought a quiche. Richard always brought a quiche.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it. It was wrong of me not to pay my dues. I know that. And I hope there\u2019s no ignominy\u2014that\u2019s like bad feelings\u2014between me and the boys. On the off-chance there is some ignominy, I\u2019d like to pay for this breakfast today, and your whiskey, I might add. Call it even.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHalf-even?\u201d<\/p>\n
What a lutz. What a lowdown, piece of crock-a-shit. Here he is, cadging off my hospitality for four months, taking advantage of all the Nevada Separation Society for Normal Men has to offer, and he wants to call it half-even. He wants me to forgive the money he owes for participating in such a unique and prescient opportunity. To have a piece of history. Not to mention all the free therapy we offered him. He\u2019s just like those hipsters lining up to glance at the world\u2019s saddest ma\u00eetre d\u2019 trying his best to deliver his wife\u2019s famous imitation chicken fingers without experiencing a panic attack or soiling himself right there in his semi-famous restaurant.<\/p>\n
The room deflates in a single huff and all I can see is the diner\u2019s muted colors. I feel my drawers start to dampen, and I wonder if Lyla is watching me at this very moment, perched atop the Silver Spoon\u2019s magnetic spirals. I\u2019ve got to lay off the booze.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo ahead and pay for the meal,\u201d I say. \u201cHalf-even.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat. Thanks. I mean, isn\u2019t the group really for separated guys, anyways? But then I got back with my wife and, well, my need for the separation support part of our little group kind of, like, diminished\u2014that means it was lowered.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what diminished means.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danny Boy finds his money clip with an exciting amount of money stuffed between the iron prongs and he flips through the large bills before counting enough cash to pay for the breakfast. He slaps the bills on the table. It begins to rain. Danny Boy smiles and I push the coffee mug aside, clutching the .38 with one hand.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We\u2019re in the parking lot now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis rain is docile, almost bovine that means\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what it means.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty bovine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danny Boy raises an outstretched palm over his cartoonish eyes and catches little droplets of rain that fall sideways, as though someone in a turret on top of the Silver Spoon is shooting artificial rainfall at us.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can\u2019t be bovine.\u201d I can\u2019t stop smiling at the thought of my next move. Finally, someone is going to pay. \u201cBovine means like a cow, cow-like.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think so. No, that\u2019s not right. It means transparent. That\u2019s what it means, like it\u2019s clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
I parked my truck on the opposite side of the street, in front of the Silver Spoon\u2019s double doors. My shift doesn\u2019t start until late afternoon, but I can already see in my mind Darrell\u2019s floppy hat and weathered suit as he stands over me to make sure I don\u2019t overpour well vodka into an ancient woman\u2019s tumbler as she hits the video poker machine: max bet, deal; max bet, deal.<\/p>\n
I can see the black outline of Danny Boy\u2019s Jeep right around the corner. He parked in the shade of an old, flowering plum tree and its thick branches wave with the wind this way and that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means like a cow,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
I know this because Lyla used bovine ironically on our menu. Bovine-less Black and Blue Burger (Hold the Blue!). She was obsessed with alliteration.<\/p>\n
The rain has startled a few homeless men awake and they mill about pushing abandoned shopping carts and carrying greasy pizza boxes. The cardboard sags in their grip. They wear gloves and coats that dwarf their frames and they shuffle and holler and adjust imaginary glasses and tip imaginary hats. One of them\u2014the only woman\u2014screams. All of them motion and talk and strut with a confidence so absolute. Lyla had that same conviction when it came to animal rights, carcinogens in beef products, pea protein. The whiskey feels explosive, and the spirals loom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got this dictionary in my car,\u201d Danny Boy says. \u201cCome on, we\u2019ll look up bovine.\u201d<\/p>\n
We turn down an alleyway and I unsnap the holster where the .38 is lodged. The gun\u2019s safety shifts and I clutch the trigger: ice cold. It tingles my fingertip in a funny way that almost makes me turn the safety back on and shove the gun into my pocket.<\/p>\n
Danny Boy jingles his keys, motioning up then down, right then left. He\u2019s lost in a conversation of one. As we reach his Jeep, I notice a few boxes marked Yur Shit stacked in the passenger\u2019s seat. Toiletries and socks are scattered along the floorboards. In the trunk: a light sleeping bag, headphones, a pillow. Another box marked Dot\u2019s Shit sits on the center console.<\/p>\n
Then I remember Danny Boy\u2019s phone call last night. I was sitting in my living room with an empty bottle of Maker\u2019s and a giant flashlight. Danny Boy slurred into the phone as he told me about how his wife had kicked him out again, how he was sad, depressed even, how he needed the divorced men\u2019s club now more than ever, how he was glad I had reached out. How he was sorry. And he told me about the Jeep: his temporary living space, and the box of Dorothy\u2019s possessions he stole in anger or confusion or just because he wanted to. I said yes, of course, we\u2019re still on for breakfast, and I accepted his vague apologies and laughed at his stupid jokes. I woke up cotton-mouthed and sweaty, a damp spot on the couch where I pissed in my sleep.<\/p>\n
Danny Boy\u2019s so lost in his conversation that he doesn\u2019t even bother to explain away the pillows in the trunk or the suitcase packed with pastel pants and dirty jeans. He digs around in a box in the passenger\u2019s seat. I\u2019m pointing the .38 at his neck, but I\u2019m trembling.<\/p>\n
Danny Boy turns around with a fat, paperback copy of Merriam-Webster and waves it in the air. The rain seems to pummel my shoulders with a weight so crippling I almost fall to the ground. Danny Boy freezes, frowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d<\/p>\n
The .38 is heavy, full. I start to piss myself. I can\u2019t control anything anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to shoot me?\u201d Danny Boy asks. \u201cOver bovine?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never paid your dues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danny Boy throws the dictionary at me. It hits my shoulder with a horrible whop and the gun falls to the ground. I want to tackle his giant, terrible midsection, but my vision is blurred for a moment. He hits me across the face and kicks my business, which causes me to piss all over the place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m living in my motherfucking car,\u201d he says. \u201cNowhere to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gun is out of reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just the dues,\u201d I say. \u201cIt\u2019s business. We\u2019re trying to secede. It\u2019s only fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the rain, it\u2019s hard to tell that I\u2019ve pissed myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou suck,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019ll never secede! You\u2019re non compos mentis\u2014that means crazy!\u201d<\/p>\n
I lunge for the gun in between Danny Boy\u2019s insults. He sees this, and he goes for it too, but I beat him to it and I fire at his neck. The sound rings out through the pounding rain and Danny Boy drops, covering his ears. There\u2019s no blood, no spectacle. The shot was loud enough to pierce the eardrum. His mouth hangs open and he\u2019s clicking his jaw. His eyes water. I hit him in the cheek with the pistol\u2019s brown handle. He curls into a ball and tries to kick me in the junk again. It\u2019s at this moment that a surge or regret fires through me. Danny Boy might be a cheapskate, but he didn\u2019t deserve to be shot at, injured with the fine butt of my .38. But I\u2019ve gone too far now. It\u2019s either act fast or get arrested.<\/p>\n
The back pocket of his wrinkled jeans sports the same faded parallel lines I saw many months ago when Danny Boy would show up empty-handed at the Nevada Separation Society for Normal Men\u2019s weekly divorce meetings. I take the silver money clip from his pocket and fan crinkly dollar bills in the rain. It\u2019s plenty of money, though it won\u2019t cover everything he owes me. I wish he hadn\u2019t smacked me with the dictionary. I pick up the Mirriam-Webster from the ground where water has soiled the edges of the pages. I turn to the B\u2019s and run my fingers along the words: botch, botany, bout.<\/p>\n
\u201cBovine,\u201d I say. \u201cAdjective. Of, relating to, or resembling bovines, especially the ox or cow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Danny Boy is covering his ear. I don\u2019t know if he can hear me. I whiff chorizo in the heavy air and my stomach turns with the whiskey. One minute you\u2019re sitting at home, crossword on your lap, and the next you\u2019re asking to see the treadmill where your wife\u2019s heart closed shop forever. I crouch to the ground where quiet streams of rainwater are trickling through the rocks and the pebbles and laminated ads for the nightclub inside the Silver Spoon. Danny Boy smells, and so do I.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d I say. \u201cAbout your wife. About all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I take a few bills from the money clip and slide them into his pocket.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Tempeh Time defaulted on its lease a month ago, but I still have a key and the landlord never bothered to change the locks. A yellow notice from the IRS is taped to the diner\u2019s entrance and soggy envelopes from the Nevada Department of Revenues are strewn along the sidewalk. The glass door opens upon a set of narrow steps that lead to the diner\u2019s cozy entrance where a wooden lectern doubling as a host stand blocks entry into the dining room. Even from here, outside my old business, I can see the Silver Spoon\u2019s spirals twist in the desert air. The sun\u2019s low light against the rain cloud gives the spirals a strange effect, as though they are alive, turning and turning.<\/p>\n
I follow the stairs and move the host stand. The diner is as I left it, after our last lackluster Sunday brunch service. The chairs have been flipped upside down and placed on the tables and a mop bucket with its citrusy aroma permeating from the water sits next to the bar. There\u2019s an empty champagne glass dirtied with dust and remnants of orange juice on the bar\u2019s rubber mat. I take the glass and turn on the faucet behind the bar. I\u2019m surprised to find that the water has not been turned off. I clean the glass, hold it up to the window, and find a bottle of Licor 43. We were a little ahead of the game in the cocktail world and our most popular drink before everything collapsed into chaos were Carajillos. It\u2019s mostly just espresso and Licor 43, but I don\u2019t have the willpower to make espresso, so I just pour some of the liqueur into the champagne glass. The more I drink on an empty stomach like this, the more I run the risk of doing something brash, again. I need to get ready for work soon.<\/p>\n
I walk through the kitchen and into the office, where a picture of Lyla and me sits on a desk littered with more bills. We took the picture in Madrid at a famous bullfighting bar\u2014I forget the name of it now. We liked that they served free tapas so long as customers ordered wine every hour or so. I can see a black and white photo of a bullfighter behind us in the bar. Lyla\u2019s smile lines grace her lips. She hated those.<\/p>\n
I reach under the desk and find the safe and punch in its code. The metal doors swing open and I take the gun and the leather holster from my belt and I stash them in the safe. I keep the money in my pocket. No telling when those government slugs will raid this poor, old vegetarian diner, crack open my safe, and take Danny Boy\u2019s cash. No sir, this stays with me.<\/p>\n
I find a fireproof metal box in the safe and place it on the desk. The only key to the box is hanging on Lyla\u2019s keychain in my kitchen. I tuck the box under my arm and walk back through the kitchen to the open bottle of Licor 43. I take one more sip, this time straight from the bottle\u2019s neck, and I head towards my car, hoping I don\u2019t meet any cops along the way.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At home, I park my truck next to Lyla\u2019s Volkswagen. I\u2019ve never moved her car. On Saturdays, I fill an orange bucket with soapy water and take a sponge to the driveway, where I wash all the grime that has gathered on the Volkswagen throughout the week. I talk to Lyla as I work, which is the only time we speak. I tell her about the Society, my eating habits\u2014Obama\u2019s politics. The tire rims glint with a proud sheen and the windows shudder in the hard desert sunlight. After I spray the soap with a garden hose, I sit in the passenger\u2019s seat and we talk some more and I cry and cry and promise her I\u2019ll cut down on the drinking, stop cleaning so much. Get that biopsy. Open up to the divorced men at our monthly meetings. Surely, some of them must know about Lyla’s death. These are the days I know she loves me.<\/p>\n
The rain has stopped and there\u2019s a smoky haze gliding over the driveway. Sagebrush captures what moisture is left in the air. I pull Danny Boy\u2019s cash from my back pocket. I forgot to give him back his money clip and the inscription reads: To Daniel. Love, LB. I try to guess his wife\u2019s name. Lisa B. Lauren Broadside. Lola Beechum.<\/p>\n
The house is dark, like my diner. Sunlight peeks through a kitchen window where frilly curtains hang limp on a wooden rod and the fabric obscures the Silver Spoon\u2019s spirals against the horizon. I shed my pants right there on the kitchen floor. The smell is rank, vinegary. I\u2019ll have to mop soon. My stomach writhes and I can feel the whiskey disappearing and the coffee rushing forth in a surge of caffeine. I\u2019d better eat.<\/p>\n
I find Lyla\u2019s keys hanging on the nail fashioned to the wall in the kitchen. I sit in the recliner in my briefs and open the metal box that I took from the safe. Inside is Lyla\u2019s notebook full of her recipes. I paid extra to have her full name stitched in gold lettering across the bottom: Lyla Hawkins. She kept her maiden name, even in marriage. I run my finger along the calligraphy\u00a0and notice a small thread has come loose on the y and is threatening to unravel her first name. If Lyla were here, if she hadn\u2019t died face first on that treadmill, I\u2019d call her into the living room and she would grab the sewing kit and I\u2019d watch as her fingers would dance lightly along the wayward thread. She would form tiny spirals with the y until she found the confidence to pull gently on the string and loop the twisted fabric. She would ask me to place one finger firmly on the spot where the thread had come loose and she would pull until a microscopic knot materialized near the leather\u2019s worn edges. I would take the scissors\u2014the only tool in her kit that I know how to use\u2014and carefully cut the thread where the knot had formed and I would brush the string away and her name would be saved, forever etched into a book of recipes, until the next thread comes\u00a0apart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve got a small .38 snub nose with a slick oak handle and a silver barrel holstered nice and tight underneath my jeans. I’m going to rob Danny Boy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3728],"class_list":["post-20556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-instagram-jack-fredericks31","writer-john-m-fredericks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20556"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21061,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20556\/revisions\/21061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}