Petsha’s Diner

I wonder if anyone has ever had a best friend that caused so much trouble where-ever they went? It was the last time I’d decided ... was allowed to go into Rhoans’ Diner after saying:

“Yo’ momma’s so fat, she didn’t give birth to you; doctors just had to pull out the crack-baby that she sat on!”

A spork was thrown at him too. Compared to today, I found this to be one of the most trivial things that would ever happen to us. On the other hand, let me recall what happened for the million plus time.

Some eighties song played barely audible through the crackling speaker system in the diner. A small and commonly known diner through town. Jeremy and I were discussing what we would do this summer, since every summer we’ve either gone to an amusement park and returned home with skin searing sun-burns (no amount of sun tan lotion would stop those crazy death rays!).

Poking at the customized debauchery Jeremy called “A Mortician’s Dream Breakfast” with French fries, ketchup and pancakes as his setting for a morgue-murder scene, he asked:

“What do you think would happen if I chucked some of these dead babies at Mr. Vasquez’s girls?”

At this point, knowing him as well as I do (since the second grade, thanks), I told him exactly “We’d get in trouble.” Obviously. Mr. Vasquez was a nice old guy, kinda smelly like those nasty cigarettes he smoked. His hair tined from dark gray to white, and from the past few years, he was balding. He owned the diner too, and out of all the things from stealing a handful of candy from the store to decorating his ex-girlfriends’ car with ductaped porn pics, I knew somehow this would turn out to be the worst thing he’d ever do, at least I thought.

Mr. Vasquez moved around behind the old worn-down bar cleaning the counter and dusting off his “God’s Donation Jar”. There were two others in the back who neither Jeremy nor I got acquainted with. They were his daughters, and they were known to spit in peoples’ food.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, don’t do it,” I said cutting off one third of his ketchup spattered French fry that he so cutely decorated with tiny bits of pepper and other, slightly deformed french fries as a person.

“You know nothing’ll happen,” he shrugged and stuck a small piece of another fry back onto the one I’d cut off for a head. “The one with the fat ass —” he paused. Both of Mr. Vasquez’s daughter’s had fat booties. Ghetto booties! Quadruplet watermelons! “Uh, well, the one that shmits.” Jeremy looked around inconspicuously and ducked under the table quickly before coming back up holding a lightly folded napkin in his hands. It had a small yellow stain on it when he opened it.

A dead cockroach. A big one too!

Jeremy giggled, “I found this when you went to the bathroom. I freaked out a little and kinda stomped on it. I felt bad for it though, so I saved it.” He pointed at the barely twitching legs and antenna that were unevenly bent at a grotesque angle. “I wanna try and get it into the shmit girls’ hair.”

When he said “shmit” he really just recalled the time when one of Mr. Vasquez’s daughter’s barfed a little in someone’s food — when they were watching (she didn’t think they saw..?), and she still tried to serve it. Since then, there’ve been a whole lot less customers. Okay, so, it’s mostly just been me and Jeremy and maybe a tourist from time to time. The F.D.A. came here a few times for the first time in over nine years after that!

“Waitress!” Jeremy yelled quickly hiding the cockroach in his lap.

One of the girls came out mumbling from the kitchen in an old faded white apron. She had the head shape of an upside down egg, big sparkly lip-gloss covered lips and a dark line of eye-shadow over her eyes. Pretty much a sad excuse for glam underneath an old and used diner signature hat.

“Yeah?” She quickly set her hand on her hip.

Suddenly, snapping, from Mr. Vasquez behind her, she took her hand off her hip. “I mean ... how can I help you?”

“I has found this -” Jeremy said in a deepish tone taking out the cockroach and held it out and close to the girls’ face “in mah foods.”

The girl jumped and screamed, slapping away the poor dreadful roach and ran back to her dad. She started talking ... in Spanish, when Mr. Vasquez looked at us, seemingly the cockroach and then his daughter. They started yelling when she pointed down, toward Jeremy, down again, and toward Jeremy one last time before ... complete and total silence (besides the now uncomfortable eighties music).

“You told my daughter that she’s comparatively ugly to a squished cockroach?” Mr. Vasquez shouted, his arms flailing wildly. Reminded me quickly of those silly ad balloony things that just wave around pointlessly with sign near it saying “Everything is half off, we’re crazy for discounts!” or something...

Jeremy looked at me as I looked at him, kinda confused.

“Jade, did he just say..?” Jeremy looked at me again, his face twisting into a semi-retarded expression of Wuuut?

I didn’t say anything. I got out of my seat quickly enough to dodge a spoon that was just chucked at me from behind the wall, which was Mr. Vasquez’s other daughter.

“Hey! What the fuck with you, woman!” Jeremy also stood up, putting the cockroach down quickly on the shiny mahogany table.

“That ‘fuck’ was these spoons goin’ up yo’ ass, bitch. My sista ain’ ugly. Look who’s talkin’...” the girl hollered out of the giant metal doors. “Freak.”

“Go back in the kitchen and make me a sammich, biatch!” I shouted defending Jeremy. Being a little bit sexist was my part-time job, not to mention.

She gasped, clutching whatever it was, the schmit girl threw more silverware at the both of us.

“Don’t call my sista a biatch, ho, I know you’ been starin’!” She slapped her own ass. It jiggled mercilessly — holy — I felt something rise from my stomach, but I refrained from letting it spew out.

I lifted my plate and blocked another shiny object thrown at me with a loud dink! of something bouncing off my plate.

“By the way, if I were a lesbian, I’d kill myself before touching any of that ... necrotic flab you call an ass!” I noticed Jeremy’s hand out, I gave him a high-five before getting my serious face on, slyly grinning.

Mr. Vasquez gasped - quickly looking at his daughter. He looked kind of grossed out by his daughter’s ever so slutty behavior. No way to act in front of daddy, after all.

“You’re so ugly, even before you were born, there was no other choice ‘cause no sane abortionist would wanna touch you!” - Jeremy shouted. Oh, that was lame. Terribly lame.

Mr. Vasquez laughed - and stopped when his daughter nudged him. Can we say “PWNED!”?

“Bitch, don’t go on about my momma, at least I don’t ... well, you’re ugly,” the one from in the kitchen failed.

“Get out here, and bring your fail with you!” I shouted. It was the first time I’d noticed when the girl did come out that she gained weight. ... This would be so sweet, haha ...

“You wanna say something, skinny?” She hissed.

“Yeah, actually,” I paused. Looking at Jeremy to see if he wanted to add anything first, he simply shook his head. Perfect. “Your momma’s so fat, she didn’t give birth to you; doctors just had to pull out the crack-baby that she sat on.”

And those were my words of wise ... er, wise-dom.

“We wouldn’t come back even if you paid us to! I don’t want bitch-barf in my food anyway!” Jeremy shouted. For whatever reasons, our insults were off today, but thrice as offensive as if on a good day.

She threw a knife, and I ducked, throwing myself on the floor, scraping my arm just barely. Another bit of luck allowing me to escape with no blood-shed! She threw more silverware when Mr. Vasquez tried to break it up until he said he’d call the police. He yelled “Either get out or I’ll call the police!” Jeremy and I made a break out of the little diner, speeding off hoping no one would notice a could of teens speeding out of a diner like we just robbed it. I apologized in a speedy peep to Mr. Vasquez right before I thought something flew past me.

A good story, right?

Now we walked around the neighborhood, with nowhere to go since we were just kicked out of the place we’d go to everyday after school and over the summer. It’s still summer, and only the second week off.

“Dude. I, um, got us kicked out,” Jeremy said, suddenly surprised at his own fault.

I grunted, “Both of us. For ever.” It was OK though, so I smiled, and he returned the smile with his own innocent smile. His bright blue eyes shining with an deviant leer in them. His strange white, red tipped bat-cave cut (a major change from Abercrombie and Fitch model - no kidding) glued up hard enough to stab someone. He got his second nose ring right before summer, which of course “shocked the system”. A lot of his “normal” friends abandoned him shortly after. I stuck with him though. He carried his “bad ass” attitude for a long time, since fourth grade, but finally decided to make a statement about it. He always wore his platform boots, which made him practically ten feet tall. Skinny, white, occasionally transvestite-ish guy. He kept his make-up to a minimal of colors - red, black, green and sometimes purple.

I looked around. It was getting late, and I wanted to sit down somewhere inside, but not go home. Looking at the falsely tall giant, I asked “Where are we gonna go?”

He looked down and smiled through his thin, purse, Chapstick-ated lips. “I have no idea.”

It was all that we said before finally coming to the conclusion that hanging out at Jeremy’s place was best. For the rest of the night, we just stomped and marched around Jeremy’s room (which is also the basement) to loud EBM music, and maybe tried pulling off what people called “dancing” to every other song. Eventually, we just quit and started watching movies — watched Hannibal Rising twice, Saw I and II, and Sublime. Thanks to Jeremy’s faulty parents, right before ... well, I believe we just drank ourselves to sleep with his parent’s bit of rum and gin.

I always thought from that day on that the summer would be boring with no place to hang out besides each other’s houses ... I was wrong and I regret it.