Dinner Plans

Fredo, Leanna, and I have dinner plans every Thursday night, at The Marigold Café near the hospital where Leanna works as a hospice nurse. She spends her days changing bedpans and reading Charles Dickens to old men without wives or families to care for them; or if they could take care of them, they'd really rather not.

On the occasions we've gotten stories from work out of her, we don't have a way to back out because it gets too dark, too fast. Even I can't joke my way through it.

The guy in room 2C who kept crying for coffee, but due to his dialysis and diet restrictions he was only allowed to have lemon water or pedialyte. They gave him water with food dye and told him it's coffee; he never noticed. Or that one guy who called her a fat bitch before having a stroke, foaming at the mouth, and dying in front of her. Fentanyl ODs that didn't stick. But she somehow keeps her faith in humanity despite it all.

She tells us the good stuff; the families who leave her thank you cards after the wake or the bearded guy who comes in once a week to play show-tunes on the ukulele for the ones still awake.

Leanna sees me at our booth and beams. "Hey dude! How was work?"

"Well, I sat in a chair, tapped on a keyboard, and didn't make any real concrete memories other than the time I went to the fridge and poured a diet coke that turned out to be too-flat-to-drink. You?"

A morose chuckle out of Leanna. "Oh, the usual things. No one died, so that was good... although sometimes I think it'd be a minor blessing for some to pass by and act of god instead of waiting for biology."

"Have you considered offering a murder-as-a-service? A little air injected into a vein or chainsaw decapitations for the theatrically inclined?"

"Oh my god! Stop! I'd never kill anyone. But, it's just sometimes they're just so..."

Fredo passes by the window in a vape cloud with headphones on. We both turn to watch him and Leanna puts on chapstick instead of finishing her sentence.

Fredo doesn't have sad stories to share — but his whole life is kind of train-wreck. He works for his dad, Jack Mergman of Mergman Motors; the used car lot on Cavalier Ave. When Leanna and I went off to college, Fredo stayed home to work at the family business and has barely ever left this town. He spent a summer in Texas with his cousins, riding motorbikes and smoking schwag-weed from an apple, but apart from that, "I'm from Wise, Virginia. Born and Raised." He's set to inherit the business, so he's "Vice President of some shit" and spends his days vaping and listening to Metallica until a poor carless schlub errors into their lot.

He doesn't enter the café so much as announce himself to it. "How's it hangin', y'all?"

A couple of the staff wave while Marianne appears from behind the counter with menus, which she knows we didn't need, we already know the menu by heart.

"Marianne! How's the kids? Benji and Geronimo still getting into the liquor cabinet?"

"I don't have kids, Fredo, and I don't want them. Especially if they turn out like you." Marianne says with a practiced wry warmth.

"Oh, you're a real hoot, Marianne. I'll have a Mountain Dew and a Reuben."

"Disgusting." She looks at the rest of us, dropping the bit. "And y'all?"

It's not clear why Marianne even asks me since I always have the same order. "Grilled Chicken Sandwich, extra lettuce, no tomato. And a water, I appreciate you."

Leanna looked up, sheepishly. "Oh Marianne, I ate a late lunch, so maybe a muffin? Some kind of pastry, on the smaller side."

Marianne smiles, blinks, nods, and heads back to her post without writing anything in her notepad, despite holding it. Some waitresses seem sad to be waitresses, but she seems content with life in the café.

Fredo slams his hands into the table and looks at us expectantly.

"Okay, Story Time, kiddos; so this guy shows up on the lot today, with four thousand dollars in cash, in his FRONT POCKET, which is a total power-move. I can see it bulging and everything. He doesn't even wander the lot like most people, he just waltz's right up to me and says What can I buy for $4,000? And, like, you can buy most of the cars we have for 4k. So, I ask, like, truck, car, sedan, muscle car, what's your style? And he looks at me, like, really looks at me with these beady eyes and says Fast, but doesn't even change his facial expression or anything, just Fast, like he's in a hurry. So, I point him to this 2001 Miata, just arrived a couple of days ago, 140k miles, but those things run forever, and he says nothing and hands me the cash from his pocket, rolled up with a rubber-band. No questions, just hands it to me and says Okay, great."

Leanna can't hold her excitement. "Did he look like a bank-robber or something?!"

The only way to find out if Fredo's stories are real is to stress-test his recall of what happened. Ask as many questions as possible until he breaks or the reality becomes too hyperrealistic. "No one robs a bank and only has 4k to spend on a car. How'd he get there, did someone drop him off? Did he look agitated or stressed out?"

"No, he just walked down Cavalier St. and into our lot." Fredo is ready this time, seems real. "Okay, so, right, it gets weirder because when we get to the paperwork, he hands me a California drivers license. Downtown LA (I looked it up afterwards) and, again, keeps staring at me like a fuckin' weirdo and I think This guy is on the run from something, should we take his money? Like, is this blood money?"

"So, I go Okay, let me go run this by the higher ups and I go to Pops and I say Hey, this guy is on the lot, wants to buy the Miata, and he's got $4,000 in cash and looks like he's in a hurry" and Pops doesn't even look up at me, just says Easy sale. Get him what he wants and close the deal. So, I go No, dad, he's really creeping me out, he just handed me $4000 with a rubber-band and Pops says All the more reason to sell it quick and get him on his way. So, I sell him the car and he leaves."

"That's it? Normal transaction, and he leaves?" I'm already a little disappointed by where this is heading. "No police chase?"

"Yeah, didn't even have to run credit. I know his name; James Ulysses Garfield of Los Angeles, California. Which sounds sooo fake."

"And your father wasn't concerned?" Leanna says, giving way too much credit to the moral compass of Mr. Mergman, who I'll only describe as a textbook raging sociopath who deserves only pain in this life.

Fredo deflates into his chair a little, now that the story is winding down. "No, he said go to the bank and drop it off before it gets too late. He's not gonna ask questions. I just feel like the guy was up to something."

"Well, if he's on the run he sure got out quick, good for him," I'm officially believing this story.

Fredo checks around the room, lightly hits his vape, and sighs "Yeah, maybe we could all take a lesson from him."

"What, crime pays?" Leanna's anxious eyes dart back and forth to each of us.

"No, getting the hell out of here. He took one look at this town and was like oh hell no, I'm not spending another moment in Wise, Virginia". Fredo's no longer looking at us.

Marianne arrives with our food, and offers Leanna a couple of options before going behind the counter to grab a blueberry muffin that we all know Leanna's not going to eat.

Leanna softens her features. "Wise isn't that bad, Fredo. It's like everywhere else; shops, churches, people, some nice, some not so nice; all towns are like this."

"Well, I'm gonna get out one day. That guy did something to my head, I gotta get out of here as soon as possible."

Leanna readies the talk-track, "You always say tha..."

"Well this time I mean it, dude. This place is killing me. It's killing all of us."

I don't think I hate this town, I don't even think about this town. None of us would be happier anywhere else. It'd be the same.

"Maybe that's the best part of shitty towns like this; they kill you sooner rather than later so you don't have to deal with it too long", water glass already waiting near my lips.

"Cheers to that." Fredo says, reanimated, raising his glass to all of us.

Fredo and I clink glasses with him assuming I agree with his world view. Leanna sighs and reluctantly toasts.