Anything Goes by Viktor Caeneus

Anything Goes by Viktor Caeneus

“Here’s your cocktail, Hon.”

I took my rum and coke, sans the lime wedge to my great disappointment, and checked out the waitress. Black and white A-line polka dot dress. Hair, dyed red like a carrot, pinned up with a pair of Bic pens. Eyebrows plucked and painted on with black eyeliner.

“Hon, is that real? I mean, I’d expect it in, I don’t know, Georgia.”

“Mm. You want something to eat?”

“You a legit small town girl or you putting it on for the tourists?” 

She crossed her arms and wagged her note pad.

“No need to get yourself flustered, sweetheart. I’m just grateful for service with a pretty face. It’s rare these days. Who would have thought, here we are in the future, where you bag your own groceries, wait your own table, can’t afford a house, and pay ten times what you did a few years back for cheap shit made to break after one use? You think that’s the golden age we were promised?”

“Sure, for some.” She snapped a wad of pink bubble gum between her teeth. Watermelon Bubble Yum if I reckoned right.

“How about you? You enjoying yourself?” I took a gulp of rum. “Tell me your name.”

“Your order, Hon.” She said it with less country charm this time around.

“Come on. Ya’ll used to have them on a tag above your balcony there.”

“Darlene.”

“Damn girl, you are for real. Well then, hello Daaarlene. Come sit with me for a minute.”

“I got other tables you know.”

“None so lonesome as me. I’ll pay for your trouble, promise.”

“You better be paying.” She slid into the booth and kicked up her feet, wagging a ruby bow tipped pump close enough to hoof me in the acorns if she got the urge.

“What do you need, Sugar?”

“That’s cute. I need someone to talk to, that’s all.”

“Anything you can’t say to your mother or your lover isn’t important enough to be said to a waitress.” She picked the dirt from under her nails.

“Haven’t got either, and soon, neither will you.” 

“That so?” She spun her head around like a barn owl and scoped the room.

“They’re fine. Everybody’s eating. Listen Darlene, what would you say to coming around the booth and giving me a little kiss?”

“I would say, a small town girl like me finds that forward.”

“A small town girl is exactly who a man in need of comfort turns to. They’re always in search of a mysterious out-of-towner or a wealthy big shot to come change their luck and get them out of their respective shithole.”

“You come here to save me then?”

“I can’t do that, Darlene. We’re all fucked, but we could have a whirlwind romance right here on the checkered floor.”

“In front of all the customers?” She pulled a pair of cherry red glasses from her bees nest and examined my body. Even peeping under the table briefly.

Considering.

Maybe.

Either way, I took it as a positive.

“Who cares, they’ll be dead in ten minutes. Let’s give them something to gawk at.”

“Dead, huh?”

“See that light in the sky? Hellfire, straight from the coal black heavens, darling.”

“You trying to tell me the Russians are coming?”

“No baby, worse than a pack of bear lovers. That’s God’s own wrath, raining down.”

“Anyone preaching the sky falling wouldn’t be trying to make it with a waitress in front of his fellow diners.”

‘Alright, alright, I lied. I’m trying to appeal to your worldview. No offense. It’s aliens. We pissed ‘em off, releasing a steady plume of microplastics into the universe. They figure getting rid of us is easier than lobbying. They watch television too, you know.”

Darlene scrunched her eye brows, trying hard to think that one over.

I downed the rest of my rum and coke, wishing I’d ordered two.

“Eight minutes left, sweetness. And I’ll say we need it. I am not a one minute man.”

She pursed her lips. They were as plump as fresh picked strawberries.

I slapped down my wallet and keys on the table. “Here’s nine hundred dollars. I’ve got a Model X out back big enough to put all your puppies in. We don’t die. They’re yours. What do you say?”

The vinyl creaked behind her as she leaned back and pressed one of her Lulus on the seat wiggling the heel like she’d enjoy grinding it into my face.

I could dig that.

A spark of giddiness caught her eyes or maybe it was reflection of the extraterrestrial nukes.

The truth? I didn’t know what the hell it was. But all the boys on base had vacated twenty minutes prior. The high ups informed everyone to kiss their wives if they were nearby, which most weren’t, then kiss their own asses goodbye.

I clacked my fingernails on the table, wondering if I’d miscalculated this small town missy.

“Now or never, Darlene.”

She looked at the growing ball of flames brightening up the parking lot like high noon then shrugged and crawled onto the table. She pressed her Dagmars out for me to ogle and grabbed my keys.

“Hon, I sure hope you’re wrong.”

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Viktor Caeneus 2024