A Strange Story
CHAD'S DINER
The visitor in the tattered baseball cap blinked painfully in the direction of the sun and winced. The map in his hand seemed to go white for a second as his eyes adjusted once more to the tiny words.
The Visitor's Center behind him shimmered in August heat with its CLOSED sign dangling from the locked door.
Now and then, he'd pull off the cap and wipe the sweat away stopping to ask strangers for directions.
He'd nod as they spoke. The heat baked his head which pounded with agony, making him lose track of what they had just said.
It was right about then --
he began to notice somebody watching him.
Across the narrow street he'd caught a man studying him .
Weird.
Immediately the spooky stranger feigned interest in a paperback book and moved his lips as though reading it.
Maybe. Maybe not. Could be heatstroke and imagination!
("It didn't mean anything. This headache is all that matters.")
Struggling to make sense of this village map, the man in the baseball cap narrowed his eyes and headed off due west.
At least - he hoped it was West.
_____
The large white lettering read CHAD'S DINER.
Stopping in front of a large glassed window the smell of coffee immediately felt promising...smelled wonderful!
The bell tinkled as he swung the door open and a wave of cold air met the August heat behind him as he entered.
Whew! Air conditioning! He smiled. But the smile began to fade.
The Diner seemed peculiar all at once.
"Chad's Diner", he whispered to himself.
It was bustling with activity as employees wearing red shirts scurried about like ants at a picnic.
That wasn't weird.
What WAS weird was the T-shirt each employee wore...with a name and how the person was related to the owner.
Chad's was obviously a family restaurant with an owner who had a BIG ego.
Three T-shirt employees passed his table. He found himself reading the letters as they passed by:
"HI! I'm Chad's Uncle."
"HI! I'm Chad's brother."
"Hi! I'm Chad's cousin."
Walls were decorated with hand-colored drawings signed by "Chad." Each drawing was a different view of the Diner from inside. One thing for sure ; Chad was not a great artist.
Half the pictures were child-like while others slightly more professional.
Curious nonsense!
A waitress suddenly appeared - way too cheerful!
"Hi, I'm Chad's...um....well, I guess I'm not!"
The woman's voice spoke cheerfully. He faced a lady in her mid-40's wearing a T-shirt with white letters he read out loud to himself:
"HI! I'm Chad's Mom."
The waitress looked confused. Embarrassed.
"I'm not her. Not Chad's Mom."
She lavished a broad smile.
He blinked at her as though he feared she were dangerous. She quickly reached out and touched his arm comfortingly.
"Chad's REAL mom gave me her shirt to wear. I'm just a friend of hers from High School visiting for the summer. I haven't seen her in years!
Can you believe it? She put me to work here in the diner!
Would you like a table?"
He nodded reluctantly and they crossed the hardwood floor passing tables and conversations, the sound of sipped coffee, rattling dishes and clinking silverware.
Not Chad's Mom sat him next to the window looking out across the road toward the Town Square where musician's were unloading their instruments for a sunset concert.
"Would you like a menu or do you already know what you want?"
"Coffee....please........and.......pie. You have pie?" He stammered.
He rubbed his head poking fingers under his baseball cap.
"I'll bet you have a headache, don't you? That sun is so bright out there! I'll get you some aspirin from my purse. We've got apple, cherry, lemon and coconut cream."
"Apple...is fine. Lots of whipped cream. Thanks. I guess I stared into the sun too long."
He rubbed his cap again and gazed absently out the window.
"Coming right up."
She turned briskly and headed off toward the swinging kitchen door.
Looking out through the window - that weird guy caught his gaze.
The same quirky fellow directly across the street staring back at him again! Immediately assuming the posture of a person examining a newspaper and fiddling in his pocket for pretend change.
(Some kind of creep; maybe a pickpocket?)
The strong scent of frying burgers pulled him back as his coffee arrived along with a generous heaping wedge of pie.
Lots of whipped cream!
Waitress faked her smile.
"I'll be right back. Gotta get this double cheese to Mister Impatient over there before he blows a gasket."
Now and again one of the "HI! I'm Chad's--" would pause and fix their gaze on him and make a face and go away.
(He must have whipped cream on his nose again.)
Or ...
He touched his armpit casually and held his fingers up to his nose.
Yeah. Well, too bad.
Wandering around this nowhere village and getting lost might bring out some honest sweat in anybody!
Outside, the lurking weird guy seemed to have moved on.
At least, he wasn't obvious any longer. Maybe tired of his sport already.
"Here ya go, honey. Two St. Joseph's aspirin for a whopping headache! Just what the Bishop ordered!"
He listened to her chuckle to herself and then swallowed the aspirin, chugging the tumbler of water without pause.
He glug-glugged without embarrassment.
"Woo. You must be thirsty."
She stated the obvious with a sense of discovery.
He checked his nose for whipped cream and began hesitantly trying to find just the right tone, "What is all this...."Chad" business with the shirts and drawings."?
The waitress pursed her lips and looked around at nothing at all. Shrugged.
"It isn't a story to tell out loud, not really."
He watched her struggle with herself and lose. She liked the gossip.
"Chad is my best friend's son. I lived in another State and never met him. But I've heard plenty about him. He always--and I do mean ALWAYS--wanted to own his own Diner when he grew up. Those drawings are his plans he's been working on since he was knee-high. Very bright kid, I'll tell ya, honey! He knew just how many stools at the counter and what they should look like. Drew the table arrangements, color of the walls and all that."
He poked his fork into the crust of the apple pie and it flaked promisingly.
"Chad's idea, you see, was to start a business for the whole family to work at. He saw himself as Boss. Get it? Smart kid! And..ambitious you might say."
"Sure."
The bite of pie was tart, cold and fresh. He checked his nose for whipped cream.
"Everybody encouraged Chad, naturally. I doubt they--any of them--really figured it would come to anything in the long run."
"Sure looks like it did from where I'm sitting."
He spoke with his mouth stuffed and working the chew.
She smiled sadly. A distant look filled her eyes.
"What? Things didn't go as planned?"
He sipped the coffee as the pounding in his head eased off to a mild roar.
"The accident pretty much began and ended everything at the same time."
She seemed to say it more to herself than to him.
("Accident.")
He nudged the last morsel onto the tines of the fork. "Accident?"
She came back into focus and flashed a nothing smile out of habit.
"It was Chad's eighteenth birthday. After the party he and his next door neighbor went into the bedroom so he could show him his new pistol his Daddy had given him. Whatever happened next--the gun went off. It was loaded. Chad was shot in the head."
He paused in mid-sip and slowly put the coffee cup back down with a loud clink. He looked around. Each table, each face, with interest for the first time.
"The family decided to make the Diner really happen after that. For Chad. You know, as people sometimes do. In a strange way it suddenly made sense to all of them. Carry on just the way Chad expected his life to go. They'd honor his dream. They took up a collection and started the business. Took great care to build it just as Chad had figured it should look. Well, as you can see."
She passed her hand around in a half circle airily.
He turned his head away from her as though she were bad luck. His eyes instantly fixed on the figure across the street peering back again unflinchingly this time.
"Want anything else? More coffee?"
"Uh, no. I'll be going now. Thanks."
He picked up the check and reached into his pocket for change.
The waitress was halfway into the kitchen when he turned.
As he rose from the table he looked back at the street where the creepy figure began crossing with a purpose never breaking his gaze. Heading toward Chad's Dinner!
His waitress caught up beside him at the cash register standing next to "HI! I'm Chad's Dad."
They were having words. Not an argument. Serious words.
He waited patiently until he became impatient.
"I'm sorry," he interrupted them glancing back outside as the strange man stood just outside the door, "I don't seem to have brought my billfold with me. I'm very embarrassed..."
The waitress quickly turned away from him.
The "Chad's Dad" fellow quickly returned to the kitchen.
He had seemed to be upset.
All the red shirts were stopped in the middle of whatever it was they had been doing. Their attention was riveted at the front of the dinner.
"Small town people must love the sight of a visitor with no money", he whispered to himself.
Finally!
"I found a five dollar bill! Whew! That was a close one."
He passed the money across the glass counter toward his waitress.
She stared past him for a moment. Directing her attention out the door.
"Say, how long ago did Chad die?"
Faltering in her reach for the five dollars, the lady looked troubled and nervous.
"Chad didn't die." She stated flatly.
Color came into her cheeks as she spoke.
"He was shot in the head, but, it didn't kill him.
The...uh...after effects left him.......not quite himself any longer. He stays in a hospital next to the Visitor's Center for observation. But, according to Chad's Dad - well, occasionally he finds a way out and he has to be fetched back again.
His Dad said, Chad automatically comes here...."
The front door tinkled and warm air from outside brushed past his pant legs.
Watching everybody's face gave him chill bumps as he turned and faced the door.
Heading straight for the register with a grin, the weird man stopped two feet away. Confronting him directly with a steady expression, the creep stared into his eyes.
("This is outrageous," he thought to himself.)
A weird hand reached out and touched his sleeve just as he accepted his change from the waitress.
The man from outside spoke something softly as he tightened on his arm causing the change to spill onto the floor.
"It's time to go back, Chad." The creepy guy said to him.
He froze.
His head tingled.
He reached up with whipped cream on his fingers.
The baseball cap went back on his head uncovering his scar.
His headache had returned.
Suddenly, the hair went up on his neck. He was ... remembering something...
"Oh..yeah. yeah. Hi Dr. Bruce."
The doctor began guiding him gently toward the exit.
Chad licked the whipped cream from his fingers and pointed to the crowd of customers.
"Nice Diner, huh?"
______
THE END of Chad's Diner
Partially based on a true story