 
 John's DinerStill Woozy, After All These Ringsby Michael Hahn
 
          
          I hadn't been in John's Diner in a while; I was suffering from
    acute onion ring deprivation.  John was waiting for me, a smile on
    his face and a heaping plate of rings on the counter.  "The rings,"
    he said, "are on the house."  I immediately began to wonder why.
          John wandered back into the kitchen--I think the sight of a
    grown man drooling, stuffing onion rings into his mouth like a
    deranged chipmunk unnerved him--and I glanced around, between bites,
    at the other folks in the Diner.
          There was a new addition in the corner, a large glass booth
    holding a stool and Francis Albert Stiffneck.  He appeared to be
    speaking, pounding "Moral Indignation" on the floor for emphasis,
    but I couldn't hear a sound.  I smacked myself a couple of times on
    the temple, but it didn't help.  Lucia saw the movement, left
    Maxine Urso's table to enlighten me.
          "It's soundproof glass, the one-way kind.  He can hear us, but
    we can't hear him.  He doesn't know that, by the way.  We lob a
    rotten vegetable or two in that direction to make him think he's
    being heard," she said, and fired one of my onion rings across the
    room.
          It was then I noticed the stains on the glass, marks of
    previous meal-time missiles.  "Nice solution," I said, using a spoon
    to flip a dollop of mustard toward the enclosure.
          "Did John talk to you about our problem?" Lucia asked, a
    sudden look of fear in her eyes.
          "Problem?" I asked, stuffing another ring in my mouth.
          "Big problem," Lucia answered.  "Ruby is moving to
    Washington," she whispered, shuddering.
          Visions of Velcro and Spandex, talking wheat and bungee-cords,
    and bubble-bath in the Reflecting Pool danced in my head.  "I take
    it you don't mean the state.  Has the Red Cross been notified?" I
    whispered back.
          "Seriously, Michael, what are we going to do?  She says she
    wants to live with John and me--the Secret Service still has us
    under surveillance from the last visit.  Their van keeps getting
    towed, too, so they can't be happy with us."  Lucia sighed a heavy
    sigh, laid her head on the counter.
          Zack climbed on her shoulder from his perch on the cash register,
    chattered, "Don't worry.  Be happy.  Ruby's dead meat."
          I wondered if that was prophecy, or a menu item.  "Don't sweat
    it, Lucia--I've got an idea . . ."

                               *     *     *

          It was tough to find enough brown shoe polish and Hawaiian
    shirts, but somehow we managed.  On the fateful night Ruby swayed into
    the Diner, a boom-box blasting "Devil with a Blue Dress On" slung
    over one shoulder, we were ready.
          Thirty-four brown faces stared at the Spandexed visitor, each
    face floating above a loud tropical print.  (It would have been
    thirty-five, but Francis refused to play along.)  Spanish conversation
    came to a halt.
          We stared.
          She stared.
          Then Ruby screamed, "Damned Cubans got here first!" and
    vanished into the night.
          Rumor has it she didn't stop running 'til she got to
    Baltimore.  Looks like she's Waddell Robey's problem now.
          The patrons of John's Diner breathed a collective sigh of
    relief, and began mopping the shoe polish off their faces.  Or at
    least, they tried.
          I'd have sworn that stuff was water-soluble . . .

                                    -end-
                      Copyright (c) 1993 by Michael Hahn
