Long Takeout (eBook)
174 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-9613-7 (ISBN)
The short stories in this collection are unique in that they exhibit not only the foodscape of Los Angeles, but they also provide insight into the millions of lives going about their business in the wide-reaching locale. Neighborhoods, street corners, restaurants, and other geographical institutions, The Long Takeout is a love letter to the throbbing pulse of many a kid, teen and adult that has called the city of angels some kind of home. The Long Takeout intends to be a literary food court of showing people what's necessary on a trip to self-discovery.
All It Takes
They sat outside. The best excuse they came up with, that no one asked them for, was that it was a nice day. If someone did ask, the hypothetical answer would break down unmercifully, but they would have survived.
It was quiet. Almost in the way that things lost sound as they slowed down. Which was strange because they were on the sidelines of a well-trafficked neighborhood thoroughfare. But it just so happened to be the case that a certain preoccupation was at hand.
Everything was going as it usually did on the busy boulevard. And things usually went the manner they did, when there was a crisis having its way on the inside.
For Micha, it was the prime reason crimes occurred in the first place. The routine of life going uninterrupted for people and things. All they had to do was widen their eyes and look around.
And have a soul.
There were few other times he felt so out of place and yet felt so privileged to experience life in a way that he never would have – if something were not the matter with him.
“I’m going to need your head in this.”
“Then why did you request a table outside? There are too many things happening out here.”
“Got to kill your fish. Looked like you could use some air.”
“Whatever the hell that means. I’m fine.”
“You are a lot of things, Mike. But you are not fine.”
“I just need some food.”
“Relax. Focus on your breathing. We will get something to eat.”
Micha’s partner was terrifyingly calm under the circumstances of them needing to cool out at a restaurant table, in the near middle of the day. It was during working hours. A school day, by most assumptions. Cafes always seemed to drum up enough business on weekdays, somehow taking advantage of the late morning lulls when the majority of would-be customers were earning a living – or slacking off somewhere.
“Try not to be so squirrely when the waitress gets to our table,” Theodore added. “Last thing we need are suspecting eyes and ears.”
“I’m fine,” Micha measured out. With an ounce of tenseness.
“Killing someone—“
“SHUT up!”
“What I’m saying is,” Theodore calmly started, “we got to keep things dandy. The most important thing right now is just what’s in front of you.”
“The menu.”
Theodore showed the faintest smile, like a parent who did not have the heart to tell his child he was terrible at making his bed, but the kid tried.
“Yes. We just need some food, remember?”
Micha knew he was right. But the last person he wanted to be with at that moment was the very person sitting across from him. After the early morning they had.
He could barely stand to be himself right after it happened. Theodore was a pain from the start. But he was a friend, and he was useful. He had a desired skillset. Knew the business of their operation.
Under normal conditions, it turned out Theodore did not know much of what he was talking about. The man was a vague kind of cultured. A blowhard at being worldly. Whatever he did when Micha and Cole were not with him, Theodore could never tell them or anyone else what he was specifically up to.
He had an alarmingly frosty head right after it had been done; assured Micha he was fine. Nothing would get traced back to him or what they were trying to do.
“Sushi and boneless wings? Can you believe this place?” Theodore asked.
“I’ve been here before. They make a good peanut butter and jelly.”
“I didn’t know we can order from the kids’ menu.”
“It’s not on the kids’ menu. They do have their version. But the adult one has bacon. And you get the full slice of bread. With a hint of garlic butter.”
“Just seems so far the other way. Guess they have to fill this photo album of a menu with something.”
They were at the Cram Café. A hipster Denny’s on the corner of Ventura and Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley. Their whole thing was doing food right, and sourcing it well. The famous counterpart was Micha’s observation. The other assertion stemmed from Cram’s branding.
It was how Micha consumed food that was not his. If a restaurant lived up to its literature, the lore the man could gather from slogans and other ad campaigns, Micha tended to veer towards their food. It could even be an unpopular place, with a selection of eats that were less than okay. If they served what they said they served, in essence, it was a place he was comfortable patronizing.
He needed as much comfort as he could squeeze out that day.
Micha liked things easy. Anything less than sincere brought all the other mess that life was too happy, too ready to dole out.
“You ever been to the nurse’s office?”
“Mike, I believe you. Adults can eat pee bee and jays. I haven’t had one in at least twenty years, but—“
“No. I’m just asking. While you were in school. You ever have to be excused from class while school was still in session?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“I would get bloody noses once in a while,” Micha started, reflectively. “And as I waited to be cleared to return to class, with a wad of medical cloth up my nostrils, I would get this feeling.”
“All that blood loss made you light-headed or something.”
“Naw. I was used to that. I meant a strangeness. Towards all the stuff going on around me. Like, how would I ever have known what the administrators did in the front office? Or what the principal did when she wasn’t talking to us at an assembly, or telling us to quit running in the halls?”
“Sounds a wee bit too deep for a kid,” Theodore returned. “I mostly remember being excused from class because I had just given the teacher some lame reason for ditching a while, after being allowed to go to the restroom.”
“Didn’t it make you feel funny? Seeing all the habits and practices of people when you weren’t supposed to be around? And then you were, and it made you feel…omnipresent?”
“So you’re God now? What in the hell are you talking about, Mike?”
“Never mind.”
Micha was feeling that same sensation from all those years ago. It had eked up in other forms, at other times of his life as he grew older. But for an off-feeling that was impossibly hopeful, one he could not quite identify further, he was reminded of how it felt when he was a little boy in school. Sitting on a bench, outside of the nurse’s office.
Back then, it gave him a certain calmness. Reassured him of how much he was connected to other human beings, to seeing life unfold, however mundane. It communicated to Micha, to even his younger self, that everyone was playing toward a bigger reality. Otherwise, how could life happen – whether or not Micha was aware of it happening – in the specific form he witnessed with his own eyes?
As a man, that same ability to peer at life terrified him.
Sitting at a table, on a Tuesday morning, in a makeshift patio area of a restaurant – life, in its utter fullness of wave after wave of going on and on – Micha could not handle being hyperaware of all of it.
“My name is Susy. I’ll be serving you today. What can I get you two to drink, to start?”
“Hi, Susy! Think my guy here knows what he wants. Why don’t you circle back to me after getting his order down?”
“What will you have then?”
Theodore gave Micha a look. He needed him to act right. To order and eat his food, and then they could process how to handle whatever came next. What they could make come next, if they got out ahead of the incident enough.
“Let me get the chicken sandwich. Leave the pickles. I’ll do the slaw dressing on the side to replace the salad. And your curly fries to go with it. 7UP, please?”
“Excellent,” Susy said, gathering the last of her notes on the order. “Looks like I’m back to you. What’ll you have?”
Theodore smiled at his partner in crime. He seemed heartened that Micha was keeping it together. He proceeded.
“He made his sound so good, I’m in a hard place once again.”
“Would you like to hear our specials?” Susy asked.
“That might be fun. Let’s hear them.”
Micha knew what was coming. Theodore enjoyed having fun with people.
A less discerning person would think Theodore merely liked talking to strangers. But that was only half true. He got people to talk so they did not notice they were running where there was no ground.
The thing about Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff, and realizing he was about to fall, was that he was being led to do so. Holding the speech sign up – right before the descent – confirmed as much.
The actions of someone else caused the movements of another to respond accordingly. But Wile E. would survive the fall, knowing full well that on the way down, he had been duped.
Victims of Theodore’s stealth of tongue were not so lucky. He was gifted at gas-lighting the soul, only for you to have an off day and not know why.
“Today is a bit of a seafood surprise. We have tuna casserole potpie. Or a lox breakfast burrito you can try.”
“What exactly is the surprise?” Theodore asked, adjusting his eyeglasses with scary interest – getting Susy into his realm of the...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 27.6.2023 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen |
| ISBN-10 | 1-6678-9613-X / 166789613X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-6678-9613-7 / 9781667896137 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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