Counter Life

He had to die. There wasn’t really any other choice.

Coffee poured. From one to the next. Coffee poured. Everyone drank coffee. The waitress poured it mechanically. She never spilled it nor did she ever watch. Her mind was probably elsewhere. The kids, her new boyfriend, the over due rent. Nor did she notice the leering. Or maybe she did and didn’t care. Or maybe she thought we would tip better. We didn’t. As she passed by from cup to cup we all looked. A hint of cleavage on some days, the big show on others. We decided it was the bra. The black lacy one was the best, we all agreed.

It was muddy. I knew that was bad. The rain had stopped an hour before. I drove out to the same place I’d been only once before. I didn’t want to develop a pattern of driving in this area. It was remote, but I had seen some ATV tracks a couple weeks back. At the last turn there were a few crumpled beer cans. Some kids no doubt. No one I knew had the energy to crumble anything. The mud was thick in spots so I accelerated through it. I can’t get stuck with a dead stinking body in the back seat. AAA would revoke my membership for certain.

Occasionally I thought about her in an impure manner. She was loud and had hairy arms but she wasn’t hard to look at. I wondered out loud if women looked better after 4 cups of coffee. To my right Tim grunted. I knew he would get it. Tim had been a counter rat almost as long as I had. He worked for a pest control company and smelled it. I would sit up-fan from him whenever I could. Today I couldn’t.

I guess I didn’t know that recently dead bodies smelled so bad. I started to open the window and then stopped. Was that a good idea? I tried to think of the crime shows I had watched. What if a rare leaf only found in this area blew in my window? I regretted not bringing a six pack with me. I never thought about stupid stuff when I drank.

Someone sat down two stools away. A stranger. It was 6:50 am according to the greasy clock behind the cook’s line. One day I offered to clean the clock. I remember Tina just snorted at the idea. It wasn’t a pretty sound. The stranger settled in and Tina poured him a cup. His lucky day I thought, Tina in her black bra. He didn’t even look up from his paper. What a waste.

It was getting dark as I rounded the last bend and rolled to a stop. The woods were thick with palmetto bushes and palm trees. For the occasion I wore my favorite jeans and a pair of boots from Goodwill. I slide out of the front seat and opened the back door. Then I stopped. He was so quiet now. When I killed him he wasn’t.

Chip came in on time. As always. Tina frowned. So did I. Everyone else liked it. Particularly Tim. “Hey pal, that’s my spot,” Chip said with his early morning “don’t fuck with me” grin. He slapped the stranger hard on the back. Tina backed away and turned to fiddle with the toaster. I squirmed a little on the stool. I couldn’t help it, I hated conflict. “Get the fuck off my stool,” he emphasized and spun the stranger around by the shoulder. The stranger looked pissed at first, and then saw what he was up against. Literally. Chip was not a respecter of personal space. He towered over the stranger not inches away from him. The stranger spun free and leaned on Bill as he slipped off the stool. “Have a nice day” Chip quipped as he pushed the stranger away from the counter.

On television the bad guys always dragged the dead guy with such ease. In reality, dead people are really heavy. I weigh 190 and he probably 220. I pulled him out of the car and we both immediately fell to the ground. Great! Now he was heavy and slippery. The mud was thick and everywhere. I thought about beer again. I wish I had one.

Tina looked good from behind. She fiddled with the toaster and then bent over to pick up some plates from the bottom shelf. I wondered how long this new boyfriend would last. She didn’t even seem to like men once she had them.

My plan was to drag him about thirty feet into the palmettos. So far I had just looked at him lying in the mud. Maybe I should have stopped closer to the edge of the clearing. That would have cut 10 feet off my work. I stared at him for a minute, happy to have him out of my car but pissed that he weighed so much.

Chip hit me hard on the back. “Wasn’t that a fucking classic?” I bit my tongue to refocus the pain and said “awesome work, Chip.”  Everyone laughed. Even Tina. As bizarre as it was among this group of misfits, everyone depending on me to validate them. I was the ringleader of the counter rats. They needed me to approve. They needed me.

I looked around and, for a moment, reconsidered my plan. Maybe he would be fine right here. Throw a couple palm fronds over him and call it a day. There was beer in the fridge.

Now we were all here at the counter. We were six men, sharing meaningless moments our pitiful lives at a greasy spoon restaurant. And as sad as that was, it was for all of us, the only thing worth living for.

Maybe if I pulled him by his shoes, I thought. It was muddy for the next 10 feet anyway. He should slide pretty easily. Then maybe I could roll him into the woods. I was right. He did slide. Any for most of the way I was gaining speed. Until both of his shoes fell off and I fell backwards into the palmettos.

Tina turned to me. My coffee was still full. There had been too much excitement to drink. She leaned forward and put her hand on my shoulder. I tried to look at her face. But I didn’t. Maybe it was habit, maybe it was that I was ashamed, maybe it was because I hadn’t looked into a women’s eyes for too long. I stared at her cleavage.

This is bullshit, I thought. It was my turn the last time too. Maybe this is why I never won the lottery. Just my bad luck. I was the by far the lightest of the rats. Bill could have dragged this guy with one hand and knocked back a beer with the other. Tim would have thrown him over his shoulder without even a grunt.

When I looked up at Tina I expected her patented looked. The disgusted one when she knows we all think she is just a piece of meat. She smiled, and then frowned. “I hate him”, she said, low enough so only myself and Tim could hear. “I wish he would fall off the roof and break his neck”. I nodded, more like an imperceptible shake, and Tim stared at the clock. “Got to go” he suddenly announced to everyone. Got to kill some bugs so that you can all sleep in peace tonight.” He threw a buck on the counter. Wow, a four cent tip, I thought. Tina’s gonna get rich.

I threw his shoes in the woods. I didn’t think the crime shows ever cared about the shoes when they found the body. The body was the important thing. I still needed to move it. I had a blanket in my car. Maybe I could roll dead guy on to it and slide him in the woods.

“It’s the last time I’ll ever come to this hole” the stranger said to the assistant manager. Actually I always thought the assistant manager was more like a busboy with a title. He spent most of his getting grief from the help, the customers and running around with a plastic tub in his hands. “Who the hell is your boss?” he continued as the assistant manager/busboy stared at his shirt pocket. I couldn’t hear his response but the stranger obviously did. “I’m going to press charges against that asshole for harassment and sue you for allowing it to happen.”

I pushed him on to the blanket and pulled. It was working. The first five feet went pretty easy. I pulled him between two palmettos into the densely planted underbrush. It wasn’t 30 feet but at least he was out of site from the road.

Tim stopped at the cashier’s stand and turned. He knew he had to participate. We all did. He came back to the counter and stood behind me. I wondered why insecticide couldn’t smell better. Like a pina colada or limes. I pulled the cards out of my wallet. I passed one out to the six.

It was getting buggy and dark. I half kicked and half pushed him off my blanket with my foot. He was getting stiff and rolled pretty easily. Face up or face down? I hadn’t really thought about it but now it seemed important. He was ugly. Face down.

The number 4. That was the killing card. It was also the one had had in my hand. I didn’t show any emotion, none of us ever did. But even so, Tina looked at me. I smiled my stupid smile I use to show any women that I was incapable of any significant relationship. I come by that smile naturally. I really am incapable. I dropped a five on the counter and turned. It was going to be a long day. Then I followed the stranger out the door.