Sugar and Tips

Chapter 1: Who, what, where, whenSusan wore a black eye-patch over her right eye. She waited tables at the 24-hour diner at the corner of the 58 and 395 highways in the Mojave Desert. It was early morning in mid-February.

Chapter 2: Diner without a nameThe diner didn’t have a name, except outside, on the side of the stucco-walled building, an electric sign said: “24 Hour Diner.” There were Spanish tiles that lined the roof. Across the street was a Pilot gas station and travel center, on the opposite corner was an AM/PM convenience store and Chevron station and on the other corner was a Shell Station. Behind the Chevron and Shell Station were railroad tracks that cut through the 395 and ran parallel with the 58. The 58 was the Blue Memorial Highway and ran from east to west. A block past the tracks was a hamburger and milkshake stand called Astro Burger. Its large sign had a cartoon caricature of an astronaut bull-riding a rocket. The sign lit up in white and blue at night.

There were Joshua trees spread sparingly across the vast desert and hills to the south.

Only the 2, H, o, D, i, and e, lit at night at the 24-hour diner.

Chapter 3: 2 Ho DieSusan had arrived to work at 4 a.m. It was dark, except for the diner’s sign.

“2 Ho Die,” she thought and laughed.

Two years ago, she suggested the sign get fixed, but nothing happened. Now she embraces it, “why not?” she thought. Susan laughs often.

Chapter 4: AdvancementSo that was it: the diner where Susan worked an eight-hour shift six mornings a week. She worked there for the last five years while she studied to earn a degree in Kinesiology at Cal State San Bernardino and took care of her five-year-old daughter, Maria.

Susan was 24-years old. She grew up in nearby Adelanto, California, and lived there in an apartment with her mother, sister and Maria. Maria didn’t have a father in the sense of someone being there to call Dad. Her father moved to Laughlin, Nevada, and didn’t return Susan’s phone-calls for two years and then his phone was disconnected and so they hadn’t heard from him in four years.

In Spanish, adelanto means advancement. Susan thought that was nice, but she laughed about that too. Nobody in Adelanto advances, but she worked like hell to try for herself and her daughter.

Chapter 5: WhyHer daughter was why Susan wore the eye patch. She was playing with Maria and her Barbee dolls two nights earlier when Maria threw one at her. The foot of the Barbee doll clipped her eye, scratching her cornea.

“Trop mal,” Susan thought, reflecting on the incident while placing a knife, spoon and fork, wrapped in a white napkin on a table.

Susan satisfied her university’s foreign language requirement with a French 101 course last semester.

Chapter 6: The Madonna of the Desert
“Sweetie,” The Madonna of the Desert said in a husky female voice. “Can you refill the sugar bowls?”

Susan turned around and saw her standing behind the counter that served the men who would come in late, alone and in need of coffee and a quick bite to eat before hitting the road again. The Madonna of the Desert was the diner’s manager and owner.

“Oh, sweetie,” The Madonna said. “You’re wearing that eye patch again.”

“Yeah, Cynthia,” Susan said to The Madonna. “The doctor said I’ll have to wear it for a week.”

“Oh, is that what he said when you went back yesterday afternoon?” Susan nodded and Cynthia said: “Oh, well that’s just fine, you let me know if you have any problems. You know how some folks are.”

“Thanks,” Susan said. “But it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I know,” Cynthia said with a glow showing through her pale makeup.

Susan liked to think of Cynthia as The Madonna of the Desert. She employed those who needed employment. She was sympathetic to all her costumers. She fed hungry men and took care of their tired women. She fought off food-vender men, bank men, health and safety department men, men jealous because one of the waitresses made him so, men angry because one of the cooks made his woman make him so and men who were just angry, because that’s what men do, like rattlesnakes nipping at her toes.

Cynthia showed crooked brown teeth through neon-pink lips. Her gray and gold hair was tied up in a mess on her head. Her face had wrinkles that made her hazel eyes look wise, they look green today, Susan thought, but they may have seemed that way because the top of the counter was green and the tile in the kitchen was green, but still, Cynthia’s eyes were pretty. She wore a green apron over a red shirt and plump belly and she looked 70 years old and stood slightly over five feet tall, about the same height as Susan, but she hunched when she walked.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Cynthia said. “I just sat two of our boys at table four. You can take care of them before you put more sugar in the bowls.”

Cynthia pushed the front door and walked out with a cigarette in between her fingers every bit as dignified as Phillip Marlowe. Susan turned around and walked to table four.

Chapter 7: Heroes who will never return from the journey
Table four was under a picture that showed the back of a truck. The lenses’ point of view was from the street as the eighteen-wheeler rolled bye on a desert highway with the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the horizon. The picture was black and white and a flash of lightening illuminated the dark sky.

Two men sat at table four. One was skinny and the other was fat. They both appeared to be over sixty years old. The skinny man sat at Susan’s left and the fat man sat on the right. They both smiled at her.

Susan said to the skinny man “Buster …” and to the fat man “Stan … so it’s been two months and neither of you has bothered to call me?”

Buster said, “Aw, now, Suzie, you know I’ve got a wife back home.”

“I know, I know.”

Buster fidgeted in his seat a little. He had white hair and a bold white mustache and wore a red, white and blue plaid shirt that hung loosely from his body. A cigarette was wedged between his right ear and head.

“So I’ll be seeing a lot of you two for the next few months, I assume.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Stan said. “We’ll be coming through here twice a week, like usual, so long as things go as planned.”

Stan looked very pleased to see Susan. He had a clean shaved face and pudgy cheeks and looked like Winston Churchill, if Churchill were working class.

“Well I’m glad to hear it,” Susan said. “Pancake special (for Buster) and Denver Omelet (for Stan) and two coffees, right boys?”

They nodded and she turned and she left them starring at the curvy places between her head and legs.

Chapter 8: The Book of JobSusan knew Buster and Stan were due to roll through again. In February they hulled truck-loads of citrus from California to Texas. She thought it was funny that they didn’t mention anything about her eye patch. It seemed they didn’t notice the black veil that covered her right eye. Sometimes those old, sweet and gentle men are as blind as God’s rage, she thought.

Susan believed in a God. Her mother raised her Catholic, she remained superstitious, and was often surprised to find symbols meaningful.  But she only knew a God that did horrible things to people and drove good people to drinking and dealing in drugs. It was a God to be feared; feared for herself, but mostly for her daughter. But ever since she read the Book of Job a year ago – as a part of a world’s religions course – she didn’t believe she owed God a Goddamn thing. He was reckless, egotistical and just fucking with everyone.

So what?

She was happy with that thought. Again, a French phrase came to mind.

Chapter 9: Trop malFebruary also meant a lot of traffic through the corner diner from snow-sports recreationalists who make trips to play in the snow of Mammoth Mountain. These folks were an entirely different crowd than the truck-stop regulars. They were often teenagers and young adults and ones with money.

Three of them stood at the door when Susan made her way to the kitchen.

“You guys can take a seat where ever you want,” Susan said and flashed a smile.

She went back behind the counter and tore the piece of paper that she wrote the men’s order on and placed it on a steel carrousel and said to the cook: “One up.”

She thought about her hands when she put her note pad back into her pocket. They were fat hands and they had not been manicured in years. She thought about her fat wrists and her fat arms and the whole rest of her fat body and then whispered, “Trop mal,” and walked back to the floor.

Chapter 10: The AntagonistsThe boys chose to sit at a table near a window on the opposite side of the restaurant from the old men.

Susan felt she had seen them before. She looked closely, baby faces, the three of them. No, she had not seen them before, but they looked familiar. One was tall and one was short and one was neither tall nor short and had James Dean cheek bones and dangerous green eyes. They wore baggy clothes and bright colored beanies on their heads. The tall one had long blonde hair that curled like a wave under the cap.

When Susan got to their table and handed them menus, the small boy said: “What happened? Did your boyfriend beat you?”

Like her daughter’s fist when she throws temper tantrums, the boy’s comment hit her in the gut. It doesn’t hurt and she won't physically hit back, but it shocks just the same. She dealt with these sorts of things at work before. She knew to show only a stone face and to say only icy, sparse and pointed words, the opposite of how she’d deal with her daughter.

“Do you want coffee?” she asked.

None of the boys wanted coffee. So she turned around and went back to the kitchen. She thought about the eye patch and then didn’t think about it anymore and thought about something else. It was dark and it was a distraction – the boys were – but she never told anyone about these sorts of things.

It’s a part of her job.

Chapter 11: Story of the lost heroOver a year ago, there was a drunken trucker who reached for her breasts late at night. He and two friends had hounded her for hours while they drank whiskey and coffee at their table. Whiskey drinking in the diner was against the rules, but she didn’t get in their way, yet when he reached for her breasts, she slapped his hand away and said, “Dave, you’ve gone too far.” She was cold to him the rest of the evening. The next morning, he came into the restaurant before heading east again and apologized. She remembers one thing he said:

“You’re so good to us and it’s so lonely out there.”

She didn’t have a problem with truckers, so she was good to them, as long as they didn’t go too far. They were tough, but gentle; vulgar, but sweet; and lonesome.

But the teenagers and young adults who rolled through the diner on their way up to the mountains in the early morning and down from the mountains late at night were her least favorite costumers. They’re rude. They made a mess. They used language as dirty as the truckers, but they often used the dirty words without thinking of anything except to be vulgar. Truckers were at least apologetic about their language. Truckers also tipped very well.

Teenagers and young adults tipped poorly …

Chapter 12: The most evil… if they tipped at all.

Chapter 13: “They’re crazy in the desert”
After refilling the old men’s cups of coffee and seating another group of truckers, Susan returned to the young teens’ table.

“What do you want?” she asked pointedly.

All three ordered the pancake special – it’s the cheapest full-meal item on the menu – and she wrote: “3 PC Spec.” in her notebook.

And then the small one said: “Seriously, though, did your man’s dick miss your mouth?”

She left silently again and walked back toward the kitchen behind the counter. She looked toward the old men at the other end of the restaurant. They sat staring at their coffees. They must have heard the boy’s comment, they were silent and he was loud enough, but they didn’t appear to notice anything.

Despite countless disappointments from the men in her life – she hadn’t seen her father in 10 years (he was living somewhere south of New Mexico) – she still expected men to take a stand, however unwinnable, or pointless and trivial, for something, anything, but especially for a woman, even if the woman was just her.

But this disappointment about men made her smile and she thought about the boys, because as she walked away she heard the tall blonde boy say: “Come on dude, now she’s going to fuck with our food.”

“Whatever,” the small punk said. “They’re going to fuck with it no matter what we do. That’s what they do out here. They’re crazy in the desert. We might as well have some fun with them.”

At the counter she saw Buster and Stan’s meals. She picked them up and returned to their table to serve them.

Chapter 14: Like the Salton Sea“So you boys ought to be in Texas by evening, right?” Susan asked the two old men as she placed their meals in front of them.

“Yep,” Buster said. “Then we’ll be back in Lancaster to pick up another load tomorrow evening.”

“Want anything from Amarillo?” Stan asked quickly, but in a long breath.

Susan waited a moment before answering.

“Stan …” she said. “I don’t know. What is there in Amarillo?”

Stan looked up at her and didn’t say anything. Susan looked into his dark-green eyes. She had never really looked at them before. They were not pretty.

“How about one of those 40-ounce steaks? You’ve told me about the 40-ounce steaks before.”

“Ok,” Stan said. “But they’re 72-ounce steaks, the ones I talked about. But I can do that for you Susan.”

Susan shook her head and said: “No, Stan, you don’t have to do that. I was joking. I don’t need anything. You boys who come in here take care of me very well.”

“Well, you’re the best, Susan,” Stan said meekly, with a muffled voice, not unlike sound the small waves on the Salton Sea.

Chapter 15: Spoons
Susan went back to the kitchen and fetched two cups of coffee for the two other men who appeared to be truckers that she had never seen before. It was not uncommon for her to not know a trucker or a group of truckers. There were only about two-dozen who she knew by face and name.

One of the men asked for a spoon for his coffee. The sugar bowl on that table was also empty and this reminded Susan that Cynthia had asked her to refill the sugar bowls.

She fetched a spoon and a bag of sugar from another table and when she returned with it, he protested that he wanted a clean one.

She said: “It is clean.”

He said: “Ehh… I saw you lift it from that other table.”

She thought to say, “They’re all laid out there clean, even the one on your table that you’re going to use to eat your shit is clean.” But she didn’t say anything. Truckers tip well.

Suzan went into the kitchen and fetched another spoon and a package of sugar bags. Son of a bitch, she thought. And then she returned to the table to give the man his spoon. She also filled up all the sugar bowls with sugar bags.

Chapter 16: The importance of LeBron James
Susan returned to the kitchen and saw that the three pancake specials were ready. She put them on a tray with a pitcher of water and went to where the three teenagers were sitting, already braced for a vulgar comment or two.

She laid each of the boys’ meals in front of them and then refilled each of their classes with water. They were already engaged in conversation before she arrived, they were talking about a basketball player named LeBron James and they spoke about him as though he were a king, despot, or deity of some sort.

But James was just a basketball player.

As she turned to leave, the small boy said: “Jeez, you haven’t said anything in a while.”

Susan turned around and asked: “Would you like a cup of coffee? Or is there anything else I can get you?”

“Damn,” the boy said. “You’re a bitch, no wonder your boyfriend beats you.”

Susan looked at the boy for a few second. She knew she was tougher than the boy. She knew she was smarter than the boy. And she knew the boy was a punk. She knew the boy was small. She knew the boy probably didn’t think too much of himself as he sat beside the taller boy and the boy with a pretty face. She knew the boy was probably very lonely and very unsure of himself most nights.

He probably masturbated a lot, because that’s the way the jokes go about boys like that go.

She smiled and then turned around and went back to the kitchen to fetch the pot of coffee to refill or top-off the truckers’ cups.

Behind her, the small boy said: “Ha, bitch deserves and probably needs some of what I just gave her.”

Chapter 17: Travelers to UtahSusan filled up the men’s cups of coffee and seated an elderly couple at a booth as far away from the boys’ booth as possible. She handed menus to the couple and asked how their morning was.

The man said: “It’s fine, we’re heading out to Utah to see our son and his family.”

“Oh,” Susan said and thought whether she’d asked them where they were going or not and then decided that she definitely didn’t ask, but continued: “Then where are you from?”

“We’re from Lancaster,” the woman said. “Our son is a preacher at a church in Utah and he’s invited us out for the week. He’s been living there for the last 20 years and he only just recently became the preacher of this new church near Sweetwater."

She paused for a second and a look of concern swept across her face and she said: “Darling, what happened to your …”

“But,” the old man interrupted. “Mostly we’re going to see our grandson play basketball for Brigham Young University. He’s their starting point guard.”

Susan told them that she thought that was neat and wished them well on their journey. She never had a problem with the Mormons that traveled through there, many of whom were heading either east for Utah, or returning home to Lancaster, California. They tipped well, but nobody tipped as well as the truckers. Constant travel must make some people more willing to give freely and something about religion must make people a bit thrifty.

Chapter 18: The heroes walk out the door and back to the journey that they’ll never complete
Susan returned to Buster and Stan’s table to deliver them their check.

Buster asked: “Do you give the AAA discount?”

Susan knew this line of questioning was coming. Buster asked the same bunch of questions after each meal he’d ever had at the 24-hour diner.

Susan answered, emphatically: “No.”

“Do you give a truckers discount?”

“No.”

“What about a nice-guy discount?”

“Buster,” Susan said. “We give the ‘tip the waitress well discount and maybe I’ll serve you an extra cup of coffee next time.’”

“Well that’s good enough for me, sweetheart,” Buster said as he stood up and put down $15.

Buster’s meal – a cup of coffee and the pancake special – only cost a little under $7. Stan left $20, his meal cost a little under $10.

“Always trying to out do me, aren’t ya,” Buster sneered at Stan as he looked at the crisp portrait of Andrew Jackson that lay next to the portraits of Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln that he placed down.

“Nope, nope,” Stan said as he got up and walked toward the door.

“I think he likes you,” Buster said with a wry smile as he took the cigarette out from behind his ear and placed it between his lips.

“You’re crazy,” Susan said.

Chapter 19: How
Susan approached the young boys’ table to deliver them their check. She had a feeling that the small boy would be worse than he was before, that he would try to land one more pot-shot insult at her before they left. She also wondered if one of the boys was going to pick up the check or if they would each pay separately in cash, perhaps asking her to split the small check into three. She wondered if the boys would complain about the price of the meal, even though the bill was a little under $15 between the three of them.

She thought both, “Trop mal,” and also “What the hell?”

So when she was about to place the check on the table, she was surprised to hear the kid with the James Dean cheek bones say: “Ma’am, I apologize for my friend. He was quite rude. But if you don’t mind me asking, how did you come to wear a patch over your eye?”

Susan had the check held out in her right hand. The apology and question froze her and she didn’t know quite what to say. But then she gathered herself, relaxed and put her left hand on her hip and said:

“A man came in here drunk and angry with his girlfriend late at night about a week ago. You know, people in the desert are all crazy.

“Me and the cook were the only ones working that night. They sat at that table over there (she pointed to the table where the old Mormon couple were sitting) and he started to yell at her, calling her a ‘fucking cunt,’ and ‘a cheating whore,’ and I didn’t want to stand for it anymore. I was dumb, I guess, because I told him to leave. They started to leave, but I grabbed the woman’s arm and told her to stay.

“Basically, the man got angry and threw me to the ground and used a spoon to gouge out my eye. That is why I wear an eye-patch and it is also why I don’t respond to peoples’ nasty comments anymore.”

Susan showed a very sad face and looked and sounded as somber as she’d ever looked and sounded. It was a great story, she thought to herself. But she didn’t expect them to believe it. She was never a story teller.

“Shit,” said the small boy with a look of real concern. “For real?”

Susan nodded her head and looked at the other two boys as she placed the check on the table. The tall boy was dumbfounded, but the face on the boy with the James Dean cheek bones hadn’t changed, except for a slight knowing smile.

There were too many trucker stories that Susan had heard from truck told to trucker told to her. She walked away. The boys were silence.

Chapter 20: So what
When Susan returned to the boys’ table, they were gone and she found $40, two Jackson portraits – a $25 tip for a $15 meal. It was the best tip she had ever received. It made her want to cry, but that feeling passed very quickly.

The door swung open behind Susan and Cynthia, who always took lengthy smoke breaks, came stomping in and asked nonchalantly: “You refill the sugar bowls?”

“Yeah,” Susan said. “I did.”