MIdnight Diner 1: Jesus vs. Cthulhu

by Chris Mikesell

  The second fight took place in Mr. Wisnewski’s homeroom. Smethport Senior High School. 1986. Ninth grade. I had grow n some since my confrontation with Dennis but had gained only the weight produced by longer bones and larger internal organs. Muscle mass and fatty tissue were two things my body avoided like rap music and Russians.

  It was a Tuesday morning, ten minutes before the first bell rang, and I was standing in the hall with my best friend, Timmy Bowers. I was leaning up against a gray locker laughing about something that probably was more disgusting than funny when Wally Winemiller walked by. Wally was the shortest kid in the freshman class and even of slighter build than myself. I don’t remember what I said to him, but before I could squint my eyes and wrinkle my nose, Wally’s eraser-sized fist was connecting with my jaw. The blow rocked me back against the locker and pulled the shades on my vision. I slumped to the floor, numb and barely coherent.

  I remember opening my eyes and watching Mr. Wisnewki’s blurry face slowly come into focus. His thick, dark mustache wriggled above his lip like a caterpillar on a hot sidewalk. His mouth moved, but I heard no words. Eventually, my hearing returned and I immediately wished it hadn’t. The halls echoed with laughter and jeering. I don’t know which bothered me more, the fact that I was knocked silly in the middle of the school, or the fact that it had been a runt named Wally Winemiller that had done the knocking.

  As for the third fight, well, that’s really where this story begins. But it begins ten years ago, in the bedroom of my two-room apartment, in the convoluted twists and turns of the noodle in my head.

  The year was 1997, I was on my own, single, working at the Smethport Texaco Service Station, and living in the two-room flat above the garage’s two bays. By single, I mean single: no wife, no girlfriend, no friends. By working, I mean running the register, pumping gas, answering the phone, keeping the shelves in the mini-mart stocked. And by flat, I mean apartment, barely. The two rooms consisted of a bedroom just large enough to fit a double bed and dresser and a kitchen/living room/dining area that amounted to a kitchen with a sofa.

  I was happy, though. The regulars at the service station all knew my name and gave me as much respect as I expected. Bob Crosby, the owner and head mechanic and my immediate boss, was a kind and fair man, though he had a tendency to be forgetful, especially on payday, and a habit of holding complete conversations with himself. My work was predictable, free of change or complications, and steady. The gas station did respectable business, the garage even better.

  I was content and happy to live the remainder of my days, however many they may have been, working for Mr. Crosby and squandering my time in my kitchen, spread out on my Goodwill sofa, watching John Wayne—the man with whom I shared a name. Life was good.

  Until the dream started.

  I remember the first night I had the dream. It was a Tuesday in July. I don’t remember the exact date but if I studied a calendar I could narrow it down to two or three candidates. Anyway, I know it was a Tuesday because I had worked late and I only worked late on Tuesdays. That was my day to take inventory and re-stock the shelves of the mini-mart, and I usually finished up around midnight or a little after. I’d taken a hot shower and gone to bed like I did every other Tuesday night.

  But that night was different. Wednesday morning came earlier than usual. I bolted upright in my bed, chilled by the sweat soaking through my T-shirt and dampening my forehead and upper lip. My breathing was heavy, my pulse tapped in my ears. The sun had yet to peek over the Pigeon Hills outside my window, and the sky was still a sheet of black velvet. I looked at my digital clock: 3:47. The hum of the air conditioner perched in my window sounded louder than it should have.

  I didn’t remember actually having the dream that first night, but the images, fuzzy and distorted, remained with me in my wakefulness like some lingering lover waving goodbye at a train station before departing for a faraway journey.

  There was a girl, young and blonde. I didn’t know how young because her face was distorted and blurred. She was small, though. I guessed no more than five or six. She stood in the middle of a field (at least I thought it was a field, it may have been a parking lot) arms hanging loosely at her sides, head tilted to her left. She was facing me and wearing what looked like a nightgown or sundress with some small print, maybe flowers, on it.

  That was it that first night. That was all I could recall, all I could grab onto before the train came and swept away the memory, taking it on that faraway journey.

  I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night and spent the remaining hours of darkness watching images of John Wayne flicker in the blackness of my apartment until my pupils ached from the constant constricting and dilating to keep up with the ever-changing hues.

  I went to work at eight o’clock, already tired and bleary-eyed, and found I couldn’t concentrate on my job. The image of that faceless girl was stuck in my head, a ghost that refused to leave me alone. There was something about her posture, the narrowness of her stance, the slump of her shoulders, the tilt of her head, that spoke of sadness, despair, pain. That night, Wednesday, I dreamt of her again, but this time the vision was clear. She was young, definitely no more than six, with hair that looked like it had been washed in sun rays, large oval eyes the color of the Caribbean shoreline on a clear day, and a face so soft and round and innocent it could have been that of an angel. And where she stood was a field, a meadow or pasture with rolling hills four shades of green. But the sadness was there. Her posture cried of it, yes, but her face melted with sorrow.

  She appeared to be standing about fifteen feet from me, arms at her sides, hands relaxed, head tilted again to the left. I asked her if she was okay but she didn’t answer, she just stared at me with those blue eyes, her mouth an inverted U.

  I felt pity for her and wanted to cheer her. What could make a girl so sweet and tender so sad?

  When I looked closer, I noticed something about her I hadn’t seen before. I don’t know if they had been there all along and I’d simply missed them or if they had just appeared, but I saw tears weaving two tracks down her cheeks.

  I wanted so badly to run to her and sweep her up in my arms, hold her close and comfort her, whisper assuring things in her ear and wipe the tears from her cheeks. But I couldn’t move.

  Her hands suddenly balled into fists and her face twisted in agony, or maybe it was terror, it was hard to tell. The look sent a wave of goosebumps over my flesh. She opened her hands and moved them in front of her, placing them both over her crotch in what I could only interpret as a protective gesture.

  Then she was gone. Vanished. I ran through the field looking for her until I came upon a wooded area. Hemlocks towered over me like giants from another world as I entered their domain. No more than ten feet into the forest my foot bumped against something soft. Bending on one knee, I used my hands to rake through the cold, slippery leaves. My fingers bumped against something rubbery and wet. It was a small hand with long, delicate fingers, nails encrusted with black dirt. My mind rebelled and didn’t want to process what my eyes were seeing. But I knew the hand had to be attached to something. And it was the something I least wanted to find. After several seconds of indecisiveness, my morbid sense of curiosity growing stronger with each passing moment, I numbly removed layers of decomposing leaves.

  What I found under the shallow blanket of decay put the taste of bile in the back of my mouth. There, naked and torn, was the body of the girl, lying supine, dark blood smeared across her shoulders and abdomen.

  Then I awoke, heart hammering, carotids throbbing, cheeks stained with tears. I had the same dream for the next four consecutive nights. My response never changed. I never grew immune to the sight of that innocent child lying in the wet leaves, ravaged and broken. My sleep was restless and troubled; my days spent wrestling the grisly images from my mind. For me, no peace was to be found, neither in sleep nor in wakefulness.

  By the next Monday, I was useless. My mind was a washrag that had been used to
scrub one too many pots. I was obsessed, haunted, and walking the razor’s edge between sanity and the nuthouse.

  I staggered down the wooden stairs from my apartment and entered the mini-mart to find Mr. Crosby behind the counter.

  “You’re fifteen minutes late, John,” he said, not looking up from whatever it was he was working on. I didn’t say anything in return and when he did look up his mouth dropped open. “Mary and Joseph, boy, what happened to you? You look like you spent the night sleepin’ on rocks.”

  I ran a hand over my head. I must have looked like exactly what he’d suggested. I hadn’t combed my hair (what was left of it), hadn’t shaved, and wore the same wrinkled jeans and T-shirt I’d donned all weekend.

  “I’ve been having some trouble sleeping lately,” I said. “Bad dreams.”

  “Bad dreams, huh? My mother always used to say a swig of rum just before bed will cure bad dreams. You should try it.”

  “Thanks Mr. Crosby. I might take you up on that. Sorry I was late.”

  He waved a dismissive hand at me and smiled. “Aw, don’t worry about it. Just don’t let it be a habit. Here.” He grabbed a Smethport Texaco ball cap from a hook behind the counter and tossed it to me. “Put this on, and . . . tuck your shirt in or somethin’. You’ll scare the customers off lookin’ like that.”

  I slipped the hat over my head and shuffled over to the refrigerated soda case. Swinging the door open, I grabbed a Mountain Dew, twisted off the cap, and took a long swig, letting the carbonation burn its way down my throat. I’d need the caffeine. I already had a headache.

  The morning was slow at the pumps. I serviced a total of seven cars before lunch, not much to get excited about. But I was happy for the reprieve. It was just what I needed. Smethport is a small community just south of the Pennsylvania/New York line and the Texaco sits on the outskirts of town, along route 587. Some days business flowed right along, other days it seemed cars just didn’t need gas or fixing.

  After lunch I wandered out to the pumps for some fresh air and a little exercise. When it was slow at the pumps and I had everything caught up at the register I would walk around the pump island several times to get the blood flowing through my legs again. The sun sat high in the cloudless sky, a ball of fire threatening to scorch the earth like a burnt marshmallow. I looked down 587 as far as I could see and saw nothing but heat radiating off the blacktop like shimmering devils, writhing in tormented pleasure. The weatherman said it was supposed to get up to ninety; I guessed it was near ninety-five. Devil weather, Mr. Crosby called it.

  I circled the island a few more times, paused and noticed a car in the distance, heading our way. A potential customer. Quickly, I retreated to the air-conditioned mini-mart to wipe the sweat from my brow. A minute later, a faded-green, late 70’s model Chevy Malibu pulled into the lot and eased next to a gas pump, breaks whistling a high note.

  I stepped out into the midday sun, and wall of heat, and crossed the concrete to the pump island.

  The Malibu’s engine shut off, the driver’s side door creaked open, and an oversized, barrel-chested, gargantuan stepped out. He had to be in his mid-fifties, his skin thick and creased like old leather. A white T-shirt stretched tight over his massive chest, inching up from the belt line exposing a hairy mound of fat where his navel should have been. Arms, thick as mature tree limbs, were coated with a heavy forest of black hair and green tattoos. His jeans hung low on his hips, held up by a thick brown belt. His face was weathered and lined, partially hidden behind a full gray and yellow beard and crowned by a wisp of gray hair, combed to the left from just above the right ear.

  The beast of a man stood erect, shut the car door behind him, and rubbed his substantial girth with both hands.

  “Afternoon,” I said, approaching with the same caution I would a bear in the wild. A very large, overweight bear.

  He nodded to me and glanced at something or someone in the back seat then back at me. “Fill ‘er up. Regular. I gotta make a quick pit stop.” His voice was low and rough like coarse sandpaper. A chain smoker for sure.

  “No prob,” I said. “Where you from?”

  He just looked at me and frowned without answering. Glancing in the back seat again, he tapped on the glass of the driver’s side rear window and held up a thick index finger, nail in need of trimming . . . and cleaning. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  While Beast Man made his way to the restroom to relieve himself, I went around to the back of the car, flipped the license plate and unscrewed the gas cap. I then walked back to the pump and removed the nozzle. I could tell there was a child in the back seat, a small girl. I bent down to smile and wave at her, and my heart nearly shot up and out of my esophagus.

  It was her.

  The girl in my dream.

  Same sun-washed hair. Same Caribbean-blue eyes. Angel-kissed mouth. Slumped shoulders. Same flower-print sundress. She was sitting in the back, passenger side, both hands under her thighs. Our eyes met, and I saw that familiar look of sorrow. Despondency. I knew it well for it had haunted me in my dreams for the past six nights. My chest tightened. My scalp buzzed, hands went numb. Sweat pooled in my eyebrows.

  I turned my head toward the restrooms—no sign of Beast Man—then back toward the girl. She was still looking at me, and I could see the pleading in her eyes, those endless blue eyes that I could lose myself in. I followed the course of her slender arm from the shoulder to the elbow and saw a large, blue and green bruise on her forearm. She must have followed my eyes because she repositioned her arm, keeping her hand under her thigh, so the bruise was no longer visible.

  It was her. And she was in trouble. The dream replayed in my mind like a vivid high-def movie. The protective gesture she’d made night after night of placing her hands in front of her crotch. The hopelessness, despair, in her eyes. Her naked, torn body, buried in the leaves.

  Beast Man was molesting her and his game, as he probably thought of it, would eventually lead to the death of this angel. I was so sure of it that my heart ached in its bony cage.

  Call it fate or destiny or providence but I was certain God had caused our paths to cross, mine and the girl’s. She was in danger, on a one-way road to a terribly violent and perverse death, and I was the only one who stood any chance of warding off that black moment.

  Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I took the nozzle to the rear of the car and shoved it into the gas receptacle. Looking toward the restroom and making sure Beast Man was nowhere in sight, I removed my pocket knife from my left hip pocket, swung open the blade, and plunged it into the passenger-side rear tire. I had no idea what I was planning; I was hoping it would come to me when I needed it to . . . or when she needed it to. I’d never sliced a tire before and it was harder to pull the blade back out than I had thought it would be. Wiggling it side to side while pulling hard, I played tug-of-war with a lifeless chunk of rubber. Finally, the blade popped out and I nearly fell over.

  The puncture wound hissed like a snake, warning me to forget my heroic intentions and back off.

  But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

  Sweat poured from my brow and stung my eyes. I ran a sleeve over my face, mopping up the salty wetness and noticed Beast Man rounding the corner of the mini-mart. Quickly, I closed the knife, slipped it back into my pocket and stood my ground at the rear of the car, one trembling hand on the gas nozzle.

  Beast Man drew close, a diabolical monster wrapped in human fat and flesh.

  The nozzle kicked off. I removed it, walked back to the pump and sat it in its cradle.

  “How much?” Beast Man said, reaching for his wallet.

  “Twenty . . .” I glanced at the pump, “uh, twenty-two.” I was nervous in the presence of such evil. I couldn’t imagine how the angel in the backseat felt. Again, my heart shriveled in my chest. I truly believe if I would have had a shotgun handy, I would have blown Beast Man’s head off his thick, rounded square shoulders right there and then.

  Beast Man handed me the money
, grunted something unintelligible, and climbed back into the Malibu, wedging his tremendous girth between seat and steering wheel. I saw him turn his head to his right and say something to the girl. She made no acknowledgment of hearing him, only stared at the back of the seat in front of her.

  He fired up the engine and pulled away from the pumps. As the Malibu exited the lot, I noticed the rear tire was already half-flat. It would be only a matter of minutes before he noticed.

  I suddenly felt an emotion I had never entertained before. Remember, I said I’m not a violent man. Fairly laid back, actually. Since I’d never experienced the emotion before I didn’t know what it was but can only describe it as rage. Pure, 100 percent, high-octane rage. And I knew what I had to do.

  Providence was on my side.

  I dashed inside the mini-mart, grabbed my wallet from behind the counter, and the keys to Mr. Crosby’s fully-restored, dark green, 1968 Ford Mustang G.T. 390 Fastback. Steve McQueen’s dream machine in “Bullitt.”

  I stuck my head in the garage and found Mr. Crosby leaning over the grill of a maroon Cadillac Seville, tinkering with the car’s luxury engine while carrying on some running conversation with himself. The hood was propped up, a pair of treacherous jaws gaping wide, a portal to another world, waiting to usher Mr. Crosby to his final destiny.

  “I’m borrowing your car for a quick minute, Mr. Crosby,” I said, then bolted before he had time to protest and slow me down.