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Anyway—you want a fresh slice of tomato? The man across the counter grinned at me showing a full set of gleaming teeth with silver caps on his molars and a piece of lettuce wedged in between two of his bottom teeth. No, no thanks. No tomato. I hate tomatoes. And, I thought silently to myself, I hate you. Your grin frightens the bejeezus out of me. Those shining eyes, my god, where did this man come from? Straight out of an evil cartoon with the devils horns hidden underneath his blue and white stripped train conductors hat, a replica, and a poor one at that.
He moved along down the counter to help other customers. I thanked my god damn lucky stars that I was only a stranger around these parts, passing though, on to new sights after this breakfast that tastes like deep fried oil that had smoldered for a long while in a pot with a chicken leg and a ham bone and a few worn out pieces of celery in an excuse for god only knows what.
I shoveled the remnants of food around on my plate, watching the trail of grease catching the glint of florescent lights above and looking like a trail that a slug had left behind, so green and translucent and gooey and solidifying right before my eyes. I swallowed. My stomach turned.
The grinning man reappeared out of nowhere to refill my coffee. No, no thanks, I said and placed my hand over my cup. The brown water was not coffee and couldn’t even call itself coffee and I wondered how often the grinds were even changed for newly brewed pots and wondered whether I was really so far from anywhere that I wouldn’t be able to find a cup of coffee that even resembled coffee and wondered whether the people around here thought this brown slush water was actually. As soon as I moved my hand away from my coffee cup, the grinning man pounced on it and refilled it anyhow. At least it was free refills, after wasting a dollar and a quarter for brown water that I could have dished out of the sewer.
The lettuce remnant had relocated and was now wedged in his top teeth and had disintegrated a bit. He must have swallowed the other little bit, and I wondered why I was thinking about the lettuce leaf when I was three hours from a funeral for my mother, and guessed that the grave was already dug, and was filling with water with the onset of rain, and the roses were already picked and were sitting in vases so that we could throw them on top of the shiny oak box that was polished so I could see my reflection and the reflection of the rose, and I hoped that I wouldn’t look down and grin and see the reflection of a lettuce leaf in my own teeth, and guessed that wouldn’t happen since I wouldn’t be grinning and I hadn’t eaten lettuce today, or even yesterday.