Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

46 - THE USUAL

After the firemen had hosed me down there was little else to keep me at the Ulele Garden of Eternal Rest for Pets & Non-Christians.  So I aimlessly walked past the charred remains of friends and fans, over legless trousers, kicking aside an empty pair of boots, picking up an ownerless wallet, and moving onward past the horde of devoted dead.

Uncle Roy, Brother Hickpacker and the attorney, Cy Squeel III, was vaporized in a flash.  I decided to return to El Rancho Grande and pack up whatever I could carry off.

Once past the gates of the cemetery, with the carnage safely behind me, my stomach started rumbling something ferocious, reminding me that I was still an aggrieved funeral attendee who’d missed the spread of free food.  Right then I felt like I could use a little piece of pie.  The thought of pie made me think back on that roadside diner and the hot pink package who waitressed there.  It lifted my spirits to think that not everyone I knew in Ulele was gone to Kingdom Come, and that she was serving up pie.  It wasn’t no time at all before I was pushin’ through the chrome and glass entrance, throwin’ one leg over a stool and lowerin’ myself down.

Pretty-in-pink sidled up to the counter, giving me a great view.  “What the hell happened to you?”

“It’s been a rough week.  Cut me a hunk of pie.”

“Like hell I will.  You smell like the back end of a buffalo, and you’re all wet.  You’re leaving tracks all over my clean linoleum.”  She grabbed potholders and took to shoving me toward the door.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I pleaded.  “You’re the last friend I got in Ulele.”

“Yeah, some friend.  Where’s the twenty bucks you lifted from me last time?  Huh?”  Grabbing a skillet from behind the counter she closed in for the kill.

“I know, I know, I know,” I raised my hands in full surrender, “but that’s used beer down the piss pipe now.”  I slapped a fistful of soggy dollars on the counter.  “And there’s gonna be a lot more where that came from.”

She immediately sponged the cash off the counter into the frying pan that seconds before was aimed at my head.

“You want coffee with that pie?”

“The usual.”

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