Jack Steele 1899 words
240 Regency Drive
Marstons Mills, MA 02648
508-280-8645
In the Rough
By
Jack Steele
Her daddy came around and opened the car door for her. The sidewalk was so high that he had to lift her up, and when he bent down, she noticed that the sun had already made his forehead sweat. As they walked towards the café, she looked down an alley and saw two men sitting near the bottom of a flight of stairs. One of them had a paper bag with a bottle in it. She kept her eyes on them until a building got in the way, and then her daddy was holding the screen door for her. He ushered her to a booth, the seat bumpy and so low that her chin was even with the table top. The sugar jar had a cracker in it, and the lid on the Tabasco sauce was crooked, a brownish red crust under it. When she put her arms up, the table tipped towards her.
Her daddy noticed none of those things. He was busy reading the menu on the wall behind him. She watched him light a cigarette, taking his eyes off the menu just long enough to make sure he didn’t burn his nose with his lighter. She’d seen him do that once, and the thought of it made her want to giggle, but she allowed herself only a smile. He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke through his mouth before sucking it back up through his nose and at the same time pulled his lips back over his teeth. That was always how he took the first puff on a cigarette. It never failed. She waited for him to turn around and put his elbows on the table, and sure enough, when he did, it tipped so far in his direction that he nearly got the sugar jar in his lap. She put her hand in front of her mouth, and he looked at her with his head lowered, as if she were being bad, but he also grinned.
She liked the smell of his cigarette. Its familiarity made her feel better about the strange odors of the café. She’d often smelled beer on her daddy, of course, when she hugged him, but she’d never been to a place where the smell was all over the room. And the only time she could remember such a strong smell of tobacco juice was when she’d visited her great-grandmother, who lived in one little room and dipped snuff. The grease smell was stronger than normal too. Her mother fried meat all the time, but it never took over the whole house. In the café, all of those smells seemed to be everywhere.
“They have grilled cheese,” said her daddy. “Is that what you want?” “Yes, please.” The waitress came up with two plastic glasses of ice water. She put them down and leaned over the table to wipe it off with a rag, using her apron to catch the crumbs. “She’ll have a grilled cheese sandwich and I’ll have a bowl of chili,” her daddy told the waitress. “And to drink?” “Iced tea for me and a Sprite for her.” He looked at her. “Is that right? Sprite?” She nodded and again said, “Yes, please.” She looked up at the waitress, expecting a smile, but the woman didn’t look at her.
The man in the booth across from them looked as if he’d been sitting there his whole life. One of his shoulders was about a foot lower than the other one, which made it seem like he was holding onto his coffee mug to keep from falling out of the booth. His eyes were bloodshot and they had big crescent shaped bags under them. He stared at the screen door as if expecting someone to walk through it at any minute.
“They say the price of coffee is going down,” he said. He seemed to be talking to the screen door. The girl stared at him but said nothing. She didn’t know what to say, or if she should say anything. A minute later, he said, “You know why, don’t you?” At the question, her daddy, who’d been studying the sugar jar and “thinking,” looked up and saw the man. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe I do. Why is that?” “Pecans. They’re selling boxcar loads of pecan shells to the big coffee companies and shipping them up north.” He started nodding with the whole upper part of his body, like a rocking horse. “Is that right,” said her Daddy. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was just trying to be nice. He used that tone with her all the time. “Pretty soon,” said the man, “when you buy a pound of coffee, half of it’ll be ground up pecan shells.” Her daddy didn’t say anything. “Yes, sir,” said the man, still rocking and staring at the screen door.
When the waitress brought their drinks, she also put a napkin and a big spoon in front of her daddy and a napkin and a straw in front of her. The girl looked up at her again, this time smiling, and finally the woman glanced at her, doing a slow double take, and on the second glance the girl thought she saw a trace of a grin. “Thank you,” the girl said, but the waitress didn’t respond.
She tore one end off the paper around the straw and blew it against the wall. It landed on the seat, and she put it on the table. She had to sit up very straight and tilt the can a little to get the straw in her mouth. When the straw was full of Sprite, she put her tongue over the end of it, then quickly removed her tongue and tried to suck up the Sprite before it dropped back into the can. But she soon tired of that and started wishing the waitress had brought saltines and butter to the table. It was one of her favorite things about eating in a restaurant, and she was just about to tell that to her daddy when a big fat man with a gun on his hip came in. For a moment he stood just inside the screen and looked around to see who was in the café. Then, as he walked by their booth, he tapped her daddy’s arm with the back of his hand. He didn’t stop though, and he sat at the counter.
When the fat man got his coffee, he turned sideways on his stool. She was afraid it might break under his weight. His bottom was about twice as big as the seat and his legs were so long that he had to sit with his knees apart, like he was straddling a horse. He took some ice chips out of his water glass and stirred them in his coffee. His cheeks and forehead were so puffy they almost hid his eyes. His lips were big and puffy too, like a clown’s. He pushed his spoon around the edge of his coffee mug so steadily that she thought he might be falling asleep, but then he said, “Selling any of that yellow iron, Pete?” Her daddy said, “Doing okay, Sheriff. How’s your dozer?” “Fine. Blade might be a little slow, though.” “Bring it in. I’ll take a look at it.” “I will, before long.” “Anytime.” “This your girl, Pete?” She blushed and took the straw out of her mouth. When her daddy introduced her, she said “Hello, glad to meet you,” and the man smiled at her and winked before turning back to face the counter.
About that time the waitress came with the food. The cheese was too thick and too strong, not at all like the cheese her mother used, and on one side the toast was too dark, but she ate as much of it as she could, took off the crust, and spread it and what else she didn’t eat around on her plate. She didn’t want her daddy to feel bad for bringing her here, or get after her for being finicky. Besides, she liked the dill pickle slices and the potato chips and the Sprite. Her daddy let her take a couple of the packages of saltines the waitress brought for his chili, and she put the pickles on the saltines, making sure he saw her do it. He liked to tell friends and relatives that at the movies she always asked for a whole dill pickle with mustard on it instead of popcorn.
He really liked the chili, she could tell. After putting Tabasco sauce and crumbled up crackers in it, he never looked up until his bowl was empty. Earlier, when he asked if she was hungry, he said, “We’re close to a place that always gives me a yen for chili. That okay?” And she’d been only a little surprised when it turned out to be a place that she knew her mother would call “rough.” She knew her daddy liked those places. She just hoped her mother wouldn’t ask too many questions about where they’d had lunch. “You’ve still got some on your cheek,” she told him after he’d wiped his face with his napkin. “Thank you, dear,” he said. She liked that. The only people in the world he ever called “dear” were her and her mother.
When they went up to the counter to pay, she noticed the other room for the first time. A red curtain hung over the doorway, but there was enough of a gap on one side to see into the room without getting much closer. It was darker in there, but there was a light over a table where four men sat playing dominoes. They weren’t talking. All she heard was the click of the tiles, and she was still staring at them when her daddy put his hand on her shoulder. He was holding a yellow sucker in his hand. She thanked him for it, but he said, “I didn’t give it to you. It’s from the lady.” She peered around him to look for the waitress, but she had her back turned and was talking to the fat man with the gun. “Wait before you take off the wrapper,” her daddy said. “You might want to save it.”
The same men were in the same place in the alley. Again she stared at them until her view was blocked by a building. When they were in the car, her daddy took two pralines out of his pocket and handed her one. “That’s why I said you might want to save the sucker,” he said. She’d brought a little purse with her that she’d left in the car, and as her daddy pulled away from the curb, she put the sucker away and started unwrapping the praline. It was a tiny little town and before she knew it they were back on the narrow highway. It ran straight between solid walls of skinny but very tall trees, and she wondered, as she stared at the trees passing by and tried to use her will power to eat slowly, if she should tell her mother about the yellow sucker, or if it would make her ask too many questions.
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