Years ago, when I was in my teens, I took a summer job working at a diner that sat on the outskirts of my small town. The diner hugged the exit of the nearby highway, making it a way-station between our little town and everything that wasn’t our town. Naturally, the location gave the place two types of customers: regulars — mostly older folks from our sleepy bedroom community — and a scattering of strangers, who often were staying at one of the nearby motels and who you would see once, twice, or ten times — and then never again.
Sometime during that summer, maybe midway through, two new faces appeared. They were older guys, maybe late fifties, and kind of rough looking, lean and wrinkled, wearing worn work shirts. They smelled strongly of cigarettes and (I could tell even at that age) booze. They could have been out of work truckers or retirees or something, but I never asked. No one else seemed to know either.
The two of them, I was certain, were staying up the road at one of the seedy motels and would come in early in my shift and order the same things. Coffee and toast. Sometimes a slice of pie. They were always in high spirits — too high — judging by the glares from the other customers, who didn’t like two laughing, rasping, strong-smelling strangers coming in and carrying on and asking me to put some bourbon in their coffee and such. I didn’t like them much either, especially because they would often stare at me with crooked faces and tell me things like, “son, one day I’m gonna have to order me a slice of you.” And then they would both laugh wheezily and I would smile thinly and say nothing. No one, for that matter, would said anything. After all, they were just passing through.
The pair came in every morning like this for the better part of two weeks, always eating the same things, carrying on in the same manner, smelling the same way, often wearing the same clothes for days at a time. Then, after about 10 or so days, they stopped appearing. And we assumed, with some relief, they had moved on.
Then, about five days after their last appearance, they reappeared. Except this time only one entered the diner — and he wasn’t in high spirits. He slouched in and sat down at the counter and I asked him, mainly to be polite, where his friend was. He gestured absently in the direction of the parking lot and told me his companion was, “passed out, stone drunk” in his truck. I looked through the front windows and saw, sure enough, a figure slumped in the passenger seat of their vehicle.
“It’s been a real rotten streak of luck for us,” the man growled. He leaned forward over the counter, peering at me. I nodded and waited for him to order, but he only kept looking at me. “A rotten streak and it’s not gettin any fuckin better from what I can tell.”
I regarded him wearily and mumbled something about how that was too bad, or some such.
Suddenly, he seemed to perk up. His eyes began to dance and his mouth twisted slightly with something like glee.
“It’s nothin but rotten luck until now. But now, now I get to see you. And you, you’re a real treat.” He clicked his tongue with a satisfied sound and continued to stare at me. I said nothing and glanced around. I mentally noted that the only other customers were an elderly couple, both half deaf and blind.
The man kept smiling but his wrinkled expression folded deeper, becoming more intense. He made his voice low and throaty. “I know what a boy like you wants. I know, I do, I do. Yessir.”
I opened my mouth slightly as if to respond, but he continued. “A smooth-faced thing like you! You… some boys — hell, most — they’re already already past it at your age. All used up. But you, you’re soft as a baby’s ass! Mint condition! Untouched… for the time bein.” At this, he leered at me and cocked his head, as if expecting me to agree.
I gripped the edge of the counter, white knuckled, and thought for a moment about launching myself into the kitchen to seek out the cook.
As if reading my thoughts, the man rocked backward on his stool and softened his gaze, and his tone turned apologetic. “Alright! Cmon now, have some fun!” He chuckled softly to himself.
Then he straightened up and said to me in almost business-like way, “Well, gimme a cup coffee, straight black, and another one for that sackashit in the truck.”
Quickly I poured him the coffee and he paid and went out to his vehicle.
No sooner had he left, he reappeared at the door. This time, he had a look of worry on his face.
He hurriedly motioned for me to come out to the parking lot. Maybe it was his worried expression or the speed of the interaction, but without much thought, I followed him to the parking lot.
“I think my buddy’s really out! Really out cold!” he said, pointing at the figure in the passenger seat. Sure enough his friend’s eyes were closed and he was slouched so far forward in the seat that his face nearly touched the dashboard. “I been slappin him and slappin him but he ain’t wakin up.”
Sure enough, the figure in the passenger seat continued to sit there slumped and motionless.
“Look I dont know what’s got into him but for all i know he drank one too many and could be his heart is stopped or is fixin to stop if we dont get him help,” the man panted, his voice taut with worry. “I can drive him to the hospital but I’m not from round here — you just get in and point me the way.”
I assured the man that the local hospital, which lay just on the other side of the highway, was a five minute drive and offered to write down the directions. His face flinched and he started again, with a hint of frustration. “Look I’m no strapping young buck like yourself and I cant get this fella in and out this truck on my own — just come with me and help haul his ass out when we get there!” He looked at me plaintively with a crooked, pitiful expression.
I hesitated. Then, I approached the truck to get a better look at the slumped man. When I was about five feet away from the cab, I was suddenly struck by an overpowering stench. It wasn’t the duo’s usual aroma of liquor and cigarettes. It was something else, something rotten. Simultaneously, as I peered through the glass at the motionless body in the passenger seat, I noticed his face had gone a chalky white. Blotchy smears were painted on the man’s throat. And on his shirt and jacket there were thick brown stains. But more than anything, the limpness of his features that made me certain, truly certain, that he was dead. Long dead.
I looked up at the man who was eyeing me intensely from the other side of the truck. Without saying anything, I gave him a look of (what I can only imagine resembled) true horror and raised my arms up as I backed away. He looked back at me with inscrutable, unforgettable eyes — hostile, knowing, yet with a hint of surprise. He said nothing. Then he got in the truck and drove off towards the highway.
Within two days it was all over the news. According to the papers — and not just small local ones — the two men were a pair of drifters wanted in multiple murder-abduction cases across the upper South in the past few years. They made a habit of going from town to town, often small unincorporated towns with not much law enforcement, and abducting boys in their early teens, often in abandoned places, often with promises of alcohol and drugs. You can imagine the rest. Then they’d get back on the ribbon of highway and go somewhere else.
Apparently, a few nights before my final encounter with them, and a few towns over from mine, they had come across two boys of about twelve or thirteen walking along some train tracks. From what it sounds like, the boys were out hunting, and, according to the papers, they ended up shooting the one man after an “altercation.” By the time they told their parents and led officers to the scene, both men had gone.
As it turned out, I was called in for questioning by police. Not because there was any case to build but because I had seen the pair on their last day on Earth. Or well, the last day for one of them. The man I had seen slumped in the car, well, he’d been like that for days the officers said. I guess two guys like that weren’t taking their chances with the ER. The other man, the one still alive, he’d been on a statewide APB after the shooting. His vehicle had been sighted in the area. State police and highway patrol had checkpoints up. It was only a matter of time. A few hours after I saw him, officers spotted him on the side of the road, leaning against the tailgate of his truck. When they pulled over to approach him, he shot himself.