the regular - April 5, 2005

It was a cold night. It felt like one of those spring evenings when the sun had beat down all day causing you to wear summer attire but as soon as the sun set you began shivering. It was the type of cold that wouldn’t make you numb, but would make you breakout in goose bumps on your arms and legs. But this was August. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. But the desert is funny like that. You can be burning up in 100 plus weather as long as there is daylight, but as soon as it gets dark…who knows? It’s that damn desert air. It is so dry that it scratches at your lungs and fossilizes your face but it can’t hold a lick of heat in just like it can’t capture any humidity. That’s what kind of night it was, one of cold thirsty air blowing against your skin enough to raise the goose bumps on your arms and legs.

And there she was, ten minutes later than usual. Arms clutched in, hugging herself through that tight black tube-top, as she pushed her way through the diner door. Her bleach blond dyed hair was not brushed and straightened as it usually was. You could tell that the dusty wind had had its way with it tonight, and now it sat strung about her head like an unraveled sweater. She was biting her blood-red glossed lower lip that matched her miniskirt. Her eyes scanned the diner quickly as the door slammed behind her and for a split second her eyes caught mine. I can’t exactly explain the look I saw on this girl’s face. It was a blank expression of disappointment. Not a look as if she had lost something, but one like she hadn’t got what she was expecting. Her face was like a child’s on Christmas day when they open a present expecting to find that special toy but instead find themselves unwrapping new socks.

Her eyes locked on an open booth in the back and she took a second to straighten her stance. With her shoulder blades thrust back, she ran her hands down the front of her tube-top and then her skirt to release their wrinkles. Then she quietly began stepping through the diner on her way to the rear, almost tiptoeing as if to not be noticed by the twenty pairs of eyes that were already locked on her. As she approached the booth, she swung her tiny black purse off her shoulder and plopped it onto the table and slipped onto the ratty old cushioned seat. She kept her eyes down and reached her hand into the purse. After fumbling around for what seemed like minutes, her fingers with that cherry red nail polish surfaced from the bag clutching a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Then, almost as if it was a mechanical process programmed into her, she tapped the pack three times on the table, pulled out a long white cigarette and lit it with a snap of her fingers on the lighter.

In a booth right behind her sat one of those families. You know the ones that you always see at the diners late at night, with the father that is on the break of wanting to end his pathetic life, the mother who ignores the screaming baby and instead focuses her attention on jabbing at her husband about who the hell knows what, and the two damn elementary kids who won’t shut up or sit down. I’ve always wondered what inspires a family to go out for dinner at midnight like this, kids and all. Don’t these children have a bedtime or a school to be at in the morning? But the commotion didn’t faze the girl in the least.

The waitress, one of those over fifty women that has spent her entire working life on her feet and it shows, walked over to her. The waitress plopped a menu down in front of her and walked away, never making eye contact. Still, there she sat, completely unaffected by the old waitress or the screaming children behind her, puffing on a cigarette with that same damn look of disappointment.

The waitress walked back up to her and said something. The girl’s trance broke and she looked down at the menu. Mumbling something, she put the small remainder of her cigarette in an ashtray and went to work on a second. The waitress nodded her head and walked towards the kitchen as she scribbled down the girl’s order. The waitress disappeared into the kitchen for a minute and then reappeared carrying a tray of food for the annoying family in the booth.

Seeing their food on the way, the children began squealing even louder than before. Excitedly, the two children went from standing on the seats of the booth to sitting behind their placemats. As the waitress began handing the meals to the family, the baby, sitting in a highchair at the end of the table, began another of its fits. The mother hushed it a few times and then gave it a French fry to suck on. The two older children went silent and began shoveling in bites of hamburger and onion rings to their mouths.

The girl was finishing off her second cigarette when the waitress brought her a cup of coffee. The girl, still without looking the waitress in the eyes, mouthed a thank you. Taking one sip, the girl stood up and slowly walked towards the bathroom leaving her newly lit cigarette hanging on the edge of the ashtray next to her coffee. I could not take my eyes off her. She had the face of just a girl, but she carried herself like a woman. It was as if she was a child held hostage in the body of a grownup. She pushed open the bathroom door and disappeared. I couldn’t help but wonder who she was. I had been coming to this very diner for nearly three years and almost every night she would walk in just about the same time. How could she come to a place like this so often, yet be such a stranger? I knew the moment she walked in that she would order coffee, she always did, but the waitress took her order like she would from any first time customer. She wasn’t considered a “regular” like me.

As she stepped outside the women’s restroom, I saw the younger of the two kids at the family booth staring at her. This little boy, who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, had eyes the size of the empty plates that sat in front of him.

“Why is that lady dressed up like Halloween daddy?” the child asked.

“Damn it Jake. She’s a goddamn hooker, quit staring!” the father grunted as he picked up his hamburger for another bite.

But the kid didn’t look away. I don’t think the word “hooker” was even in his vocabulary. He just kept his eyes fixed on her as she moved from the restroom back to her booth.

“She looks sad daddy.”

“Maybe it’s because she’s a whore.”

The girl didn’t even flinch, but I knew she had to have heard the father say those words. He had basically said it loudly enough for the entire restaurant to hear, but she moved right back into the booth and went to smoking her cigarette. The smoke flowed out of her mouth like water from a fountain. I noticed the little boy continue to steal glances at what was now the back of her head. He wasn’t grinning and he wasn’t frowning, he was just in a trance. It was as if something was irritating him, but he just couldn’t figure out what. With a grunt the boy’s father put down his fork on his plate and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out his wallet and the waitress approached with the family’s bill. Still the kid’s fixation was on that girl. The father threw down a wad of crumpled up bills from his wallet and the mother stood, taking the baby into her arms. The rest of the family filtered out of the booth, but the boy remained locked on her.

“Get the hell over here Jake, we’re leaving!” the mother yelled as she tottered towards the front door.

But something was holding the boy back. His legs began to shuffle out of the booth, but his head remained stationary. I wanted to know what he was thinking. He was much to young to be pondering about the sexual acts they could commit together or the other things that I had toyed with in my own mind on just a few occasions. I had seen this hooker girl a thousand times before and even watched her a few of those, but although this boy’s intentions were much different than my own, he was just down right obsessed.

As I continued to watch the boy, I saw his mother charging in from where she had been waiting at the entrance. “What the hell is wrong with you Jake, we’re leaving”.

Something about his mom’s sharp tongue caused the kid’s spell to break. He looked down at his feet, shot up from the booth and bolted towards the door. But despite the scene that had just occurred, the girl remained in her isolated world of coffee and smoke.

As I watched the boy disappear into the darkness outside, something began bothering me as well. Something about the way that young kid had struggled to understand the pain of this girl got to me. I brought my coffee to my lips and held it there. Then the front door of the restaurant blew open and the boy came running through. As he sprinted past me I could see that he was holding something in his hand. He came to a halting stop at her table and her head jerked away from her coffee to looking at him. Her look of disappointment was now coupled with being dumbfounded. He slowly raised his right hand to her and held out a flower that he had picked from the shrubs that went around the perimeter of the diner. She didn’t move. She didn’t know how to respond, but he just continued to stand there with his little arm held out with a dinky flower in hand. Then the father burst through the door and began marching over to him, “Jake, you son-of-a-bitch, she’s a goddamn whore, get your ass outside right now!”

And as the father grabbed the young boy by the shoulder and pulled him away, she reached out and grabbed the shrub flower. She starred at it for a second and then looked back at the boy, as he was dragged out of the restaurant by his heels. Their eyes caught for just a second and she managed to let a grin creep across her face. As the diner door slammed, taking the boy out of her life forever, she went back to looking at the flower. She was frozen, stunned and now fully smiling. It was the first time I had ever seen this girl smile.