The Regular
Richard took off the apron tied at his waist and tossed it in the bin with the other dirty aprons and cloths. It had been a busy night for a Tuesday. Good to see the register ringing.
Luckily, most of the regulars from around town still showed up, even though times were tough for everyone.
Richard was happy to have them—the regulars. Some came in the morning, shivering in the cold outside with the sun barely up, waiting for him to unlock the door. Others came in the evening, nearly every night, like clockwork.
The morning regulars comprised mostly men. They were older now, up early but no longer working, wondering what to do with what was left of their lives. The dinner regulars showed up as soon as it got dark, sometimes as early as four o’clock during the winter months.
In the morning, the regulars mostly kept to themselves, reading the paper with a cup of coffee and a plate of fried eggs. The evening regulars did a lot of talking. They were mostly couples who all knew each other. All born and raised in Glenville.
Barbara and Larry Brown had been coming around ever since Richard bought the place. White-haired and slow-moving, they sat at the counter and smoked cigarettes and drank coffee until their food was served. The only night they didn’t show up was Wednesday. That’s the night they’d go to their son’s house for dinner.
Barbara must not’ve been one for the kitchen.
They were friends with Red and Alice Williams, at least when they all showed up at the diner. The four of them knew a little too much about everything around town. They’d know something about anyone who walked into the diner, gossiping for most of the night, lowering their voices when it was something that might’ve been more rumor than anything.
Like Barbara and Larry, Red and Alice were both raised in Glenville.
The couples never sat at a booth. They liked the counter, where they could interact with the employees and joke around with the cooks working the grill right there in front of them. Red would always have his eyes on the waitresses, usually until Alice would slap him on the arm for staring too much, and they’d all laugh about it.
After they’d finish eating, they’d all light up their cigarettes and smoke them with their coffee. Red was usually the one to have a piece of pie or a cup of tapioca.
Jimmy Cooper was one of the few single men who sat with the others most nights. But he wasn’t always single. For years he’d come in with his wife, Debbie, until she died three days after her 70th birthday. Jimmy became real quiet after that.
After some time had passed, he’d bring in a new female friend once in a while—someone the others had never met before. Occasionally he’d sit at a booth with her, away from the crowd at the counter. But otherwise, he’d show up alone, sit there at the counter with the others, not saying much, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Richard washed his hands and ran cold water over his face, then went to check the register, looking at the tape. It’d been a decent night, by recent standards. He just hoped it’d stay that way for once.
There’d be times business appeared to get better, but then it’d go back to how it was, where the diner had almost no customers at all.
Other than the regulars, of course.
In a small town like Glenville, there were only so many mouths to feed to begin with. People weren’t traveling back and forth through Rhode Island and into Connecticut the way they once had. At least it seemed that way.
Richard put on his coat and grabbed his keys. He went over to Clara, his server of twenty-three years, and told her he was going out for a couple of hours and would be back before closing.
“You don’t have to come back, you know,” she said. She told him that all the time. She knew how to close the place down.
And he trusted her. But not enough to count his money.
Richard thought about it as he headed for the door. The diner was just about empty now. “I’ll see,” he said. “I’ll call you if I’m not coming back.” He stopped at the door and glanced back to Clara. “You see Jimmy Cooper around?”
Clara shook her head. “He hasn’t been in here. Not since… It’s been at least a week. Maybe he’s out of town?”
“He didn’t mention it.”
All Richard could do was think maybe something was wrong. Jimmy hadn’t been a picture of health. He smoked, almost non-stop. And he liked his booze. His wife used to tell him he was going to die too young, and she’d be left alone.
One time Jimmy brought up something about how his smoking might’ve given her cancer. The others told him it didn’t work that way. Maybe just to keep him from feeling any guilt.
“All right, I’ll see you later.” Richard knew he’d be back to count the money himself.
He walked out into the chilly winter air. There wasn’t much snow left from the storm they’d had a couple of weeks earlier. It had warmed up a bit, with a good amount of rain to wash the snow away. But with February a week away, the temperature had dropped back down to what was expected on a late winter night.
It felt as if the moisture inside his nostrils had frozen.
Richard stood outside his station wagon and looked out at the quiet street, the red light flashing at the intersection. He held the cold door handle. It felt like a piece of ice. And when he slipped the key into the lock, he had a hard time getting it to turn. He kept forgetting to squeeze some graphite powder into it. The last thing he’d want is to be stuck somewhere, unable to unlock his door.
His station wagon was almost twelve years old now. He took good care of it, but it was getting to the point it might need to be replaced with something more reliable. His friends would tell him to buy something newer. They assumed he had all this money to blow on a new car.
He did all right, of course. He wasn’t rich. Or at least he didn’t feel like he was. But he knew he’d been lucky. He owned the land and the building, in a perfect location, buying both when he was practically still a kid. He’d even recently bought the ice cream shop next door, but only opened it in the summer months.
Richard slid onto the hard, cold leather seats and turned the key in the ignition. The engine took a moment to turn over, but then started. He knew he’d be home before the heat came on.
He sat there in the dark. The lights on the dashboard glowed, and the only other light came from the street lamps around the parking lot. He looked ahead at the diner, reached under the dash to feel if there was any heat blowing yet, then moved the shifter on the steering column into reverse. The lights behind the station wagon lit up the area behind him, and he backed out of his space.
He cut the wheel and waited with his foot on the brake, making sure the engine was warm enough to drive. He put the fan on higher, but nothing but cold air came out of the vents.
He thought about Jimmy Cooper. It wasn’t like they were close friends or anything. Jimmy was nearly twice his age, like the rest of his regulars. In fact, it seemed like most of his best customers were older. Richard had only turned thirty-four in November. But, thinking back, he’d known Jimmy for as long as he’d owned the diner.
He shifted into drive, and the transmission made a clunking sound—it had been that way for a while. He went left out of the parking lot.
Jimmy’s house wasn’t far, but he lived on the opposite end of Glenville. But Richard figured he’d at least take a ride out, make sure everything was all right. He hit the gas, and the engine hesitated for a moment before the car finally took off.
Once he was on the road, he turned up the radio. The Bruins were in the third period. And when he stopped at the traffic in front of Reed’s Lumber, he looked around the intersection. There was nobody else on the road, so after a moment he went right through the red light.
He drove another mile and was heading past the Double L Pub when he thought he saw Jimmy’s Ford pickup parked around the side. He slowed, trying to see if it was his or someone else’s. And by the time he realized it was Jimmy’s, he’d already driven past. He continued on Route 6 until he got to the Sunoco gas station and turned around in the parking lot.
He shut the radio off and cut the wheel into the Double L Pub’s parking lot. He parked out front and could see through the glass doors it was Jimmy inside, seated at the bar.
There were a handful of cars parked in front. More than at the diner when he left. It seemed even in a bad economy, people had a way of finding enough money for booze.
He stepped out and into the smell of burning wood in the air. Smoke poured from the chimney of the small brick building. He could see the glow of flames from the fireplace filling the dimly lit interior.
Richard went into the pub, and there was Jimmy at the bar with his back to the door.
“There you are,” Richard said. He climbed onto the stool next to Jimmy.
Jimmy had a bottle of beer and empty shot glass in front of him, and gave Richard a look as if his presence bothered him. He sipped his beer and didn’t say a word.
That was just how Jimmy was. He was a nice guy, really. The type who would give someone the shirt off his back. But he didn’t like to show it. Jimmy waved for the bartender. “Bruce, get Richard a drink, will ya?” He tapped the short stack of bills with the change on top on the bar.
Richard didn’t have to tell the bartender what he wanted. It was always a gin and tonic. It’s all he drank.
“I was just asking Clara where you’ve been,” Richard said. “You haven’t been around.”
Jimmy sipped from his bottle and shrugged. “You’re not the only place in town that sells food, you know.”
Richard cracked a smile.
Bruce filled the tall glass with ice and the gin and tonic, dropped a lime on top.
Richard said to Jimmy, “So, you just decided you don’t like my food anymore?”
Jimmy took another sip of his beer and pushed the bottle forward. “One more.”
Bruce obliged and placed a new cocktail napkin on the bar, and put the bottle of beer on top.
“Seriously,” Richard said. “I know you wouldn’t just stop coming in unless something was wrong. Or someone said something to—”
“I just don’t feel like hearing them talk anymore,” Jimmy said. He grabbed the empty shot glass and held it up to the bartender. “Give me one more of these too.”
There were three others at the bar, all three watching the Bruins on the TV behind the bar.
Richard waited.
“They do a lot of chirping,” Jimmy said, using his hand to make a puppet-like motion with his fingers, as if a barking dog.
“Who?”
“Barbara and Alice. The two of them. They never shut up. Couple of know-it-alls.”
Richard knew exactly what he meant. But he never guessed it bothered Jimmy.
The two sat silent for a couple of moments.
Jimmy said, “You know, when Debbie was around, she probably did the same thing. But now, what am I supposed to do, just sit there and listen to them all night?” He shook his head. “Honestly, Rich, I can’t stand either one of them. I don’t know how Red and Larry even handle listening to them.”
Richard sipped his gin and tonic. He didn’t say a word. Then took another sip. He watched the Bruins game.
Bruce filled the shot glass, and Jimmy threw it back, then sipped his beer.
“So, you’re never coming back in?” Richard said. “Because of those two?”
Jimmy had a stiff look on his face, the way it was all scrunched together. He got that way when he was drinking.
There was silence between the two again.
Richard finished his drink and took his wallet from his back pocket. He ordered another. “You want one more?” he said to Jimmy.
Jimmy shook his head. “Nah, I gotta get home, take the dog out.”
The two sat in more silence.
The men down the other end of the bar clapped when the Bruins had scored.
Jimmy grabbed the cash sitting in front of him, left a couple dollars and the change on the bar, then got up from the stool. He took his jacket off the backrest and pulled it on. He didn’t say another word to Richard until he got halfway toward the entrance. “See you around,” is all he said, then walked into the darkness outside.
