Fiction : Savannah Guz
Armand’s
Along the wide expanse of a road heading to Peoria, Ed found a restaurant called Armand’s, which seemed a vaguely seedy oasis in the middle of agrarian austerity. He simply could not get used to the absence of the topographical rolls and swells he had grown so accustomed to on the east coast. The restaurant’s lighted sign flickered anxiously against the heavy descent of night. The sky in the Mid-West turned an authentic black after dark. He had never before experienced nocturnal hours like these, which were the indisputable reverse of day. Even on the horizon, there was no mitigating pink of city lights, the promise of life beyond the seemingly interminable, largely unpopulated horizontal plains. All was stygian scintillation, with the occasional green flash of a passing satellite, something he had also never before seen.
He waited awhile before getting out. Honestly, he wasn’t hungry. He couldn’t imagine putting another morsel of food into his mouth, experiencing the bland texture and salty intensity of another road-meal. He’d fasted all day in preparation and even now he could not bear the mental image of another plate, another coarse waitress, another parade of traditional gastronomic mediocrity, from appetizer to dessert. There was not much difference from meal to meal. Everything had, over the last 500 or so miles, begun to taste very much the same, like the landscape, which had not changed significantly either. He thought, as he folded his map and placed it back on the dash , ‘after this edition, I will give notice. I will find something else.’ But he knew this was not true. There was too much freedom in what he did, and while freedom had come to equal boredom in his life equation, he knew that he could not live otherwise, could not brook the cattle-corral of an editorial pool, could neither chase political candidates nor interview dignitaries and criminals. Even as there was a certain power in that life–a might in cracking open pearlescent lies to find the abrasive grains of fact that spurred them–or at least profess to have found it–there was not mettle enough in him to thrive doing it. His current situation was, by far, the best existence he could hope for. And he even had a great degree of his own kind of authority, as he conferred guide book stars, from zero to four. Unlike other guide-book writers, he cultivated knowledge of his identity and enjoyed seeing people in the big cities fumble and falter at his unexpected arrival. And that, too, was a satisfying faculty even if it did not change the world. Of course, among some restraunteurs, who relied on his opinion to help generate traffic, he was generally considered a bastard. He rarely awarded any greater number of stars than two.
Inside he was seated, given a menu by a sallow-looking waitress, who lacked a name tag. She apparently did not recognize him, or perhaps did not care. The restaurant was largely empty, except for a woman, alone, at a corner table. Her body language suggested that she was of worldly experience, not the inhibited feminine implosions he had too often encountered in this region. Her arm was slung out over the side of her chair, making her appear available in a seemingly unconscious way. As he was seated by the waitress, the woman looked up at him briefly and smiled. It was an irksome smile, like she knew something about him, some flaw, some well-concealed and undesirable fact. It made him think of his ex-wife.
The waitress had seated him so that he was forced to face the woman, and as he opened his menu, he glanced up at her once more. She was smoking and biting a nail as she read some small rectangle of paper (a letter perhaps?). Her hair was red, a deep and smoldering auburn that caught the gleam of the bar lights and shone with heated brilliance in the smoky mirror behind her head. He ordered a martini. What the hell, he thought. He’d begun drinking with increasing and uncharacteristic regularity over the past five days. Little shallow swigs here and there, along highways as featureless as he felt he had become. He’d even stopped at a discount liquor store a hundred miles ago and bought a pint bottle of Old Crow. He was sorry to find that they were plastic these days. There was nothing satisfying to tipping the plastic back or nipping from the wide-mouth opening. Even the alcohol seemed less potent now. He remembered the hefty glass bottles of his youth, how they had knocked forcefully against his front teeth, and dispensed stingy portions that burned his lips and instantly saturated his soul. He had been moistening himself regularly in the car as he flew along the road, his internal world suspended in a hazy abstraction stimulated by the contemplation of things he did not have.
When his drink came and the waitress left him alone again, the redhead lifted her glass and acknowledged his first sip. “Zum wohl,”she said and nodded.
“Beg your pardon?” he craned his head forward and lifted his brow.
“It’s a German toast. To your health.” She touched the corners of her mouth when she was done speaking. It was a gesture that was inherently seductive, although he couldn’t tell why.
“Oh yes? Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiled and looked down again at her letter.
With so much rich food, endless driving, and precious little exercise, he had grown to look like rising bread dough: pale, pasty, flaccid. He was generally ashamed of his appearance, but forgot himself now. “It’s a bit quiet here. Is this normal? A Saturday night and all?”
The redhead looked up and shrugged. “Not so bizarre for this area. We rely on travelers like you to bring the outside to us.”
“You mean you’re from here?” He sat, internally agog, but did not register it outwardly.
“Of course.”
“Born and bred?”
“No. I was born in New York City.”
“Ah that explains it.”
“That explains what?” she looked offended.
“Well….you just seem different than most of the people I’ve met here.”
She was quiet again, looked down at her paper. He took a very large gulp of his martini, waiting to feel it enter his veins and thin his blood. He hadn’t asked for Bombay, and they hadn’t used it either. His drink was caustic and went down hard. Before he knew it, though, his glass was empty, and he was feeling its agreeable effects. He didn’t even realize that he hadn’t yet been offered a menu. He signaled to the waitress (who, apparently, was also the bartender and hostess) for another by clicking the glass with his index finger and thumb. His mind said, “Ching, ching, sweetheart!” But he wasn’t drunk enough to actually say it yet. He turned his attention back to the redhead.
“Listen lady, I meant no offense by what I said just now.”
“None taken.” This time she smiled curtly and continued to gaze at her scrap of paper.