Sitting at the counter in Bette’s Ocean View Diner (no ocean, no view), squeezed between an elderly man on his left who, immediately upon sitting down, had placed a dental prosthetic in his glass, and a large matron on his right reeeking of patchouli and jabbering into a mobile phone, Abraham felt the beginnings of a migraine intrude into his awareness like the rusteed corners of household appliances poking through the surface of a stagnant junkyard pond.
It wasn’t exactly a headache, not yet. His fingers tingled slightly and he could see his pulse out of the corner of his eye as a kind of shimmery throbbing almost too subtle to notice. He was at a familiar tipping point. The symptoms would either recede or blossom into full bore migraine, complete with nausea and vomiting.
The waitress dropped his salad in front of him with a clatter.
God damn it.
He had asked for the dessing on the side. On the plate in fornt of him, romaine, raddiccio, and frisee, fennel, walnuts and raisins, swam in an oily, vinegary soup. He looked up, hoping to catch the waitress’ eye, but she was already hurtling towards another customer, balancing three plates aligned in a row on her extended arm.
He speared a limp, dripping leaf and conveyed it to his mouth. The back of this throat felt scalded with vinegar, seared, and he coughed, earning a glare of disapproval from the perfumed woman.
“Sorry,” he said. “Vinegar.”
She looked him up and down and actually sniffed audibly.
He speared another leaf, shook from it as much liquid as he could, and slurped the slimy thing down. He couldn’t take his eyes off the partial denture drowned in the glass to his left. Small bubbles collected on its pink ridged surface.
When Abraham was about half done with his salad, the waitress came by.
“How we doing?”
“Good,” Abraham said. “Good.”
As if to demonstrate, he speared another dripping bouquet of greens and stuffed them into his mouth.
“Asshole, I’m talking to you.” A male voice from the fornt of the restaurant cut through the lunchtime buzz of conversation and brought it to a screeching halt.
Along with all the other patrons, Abraham looked over, craning his neck trying to see what was going on. Two men in the waiting area, a young guy in a leather jacket, clearly the guy who had just spoken, leaning heavily into the personal space of a late middle-aged business type doing his best to ignore him.
“Yeah, that’s right. I was sitting there for five minutes waiting for that lady to put on her meakeup and pull out of the space and you just come in, cut me off, and take it. I was just passing by here and saw you. Who the fuck do you think you are, man? Where did you learn common courtesy?”
The businessman fidgeted, looking right and left, everywhere but at the other man. Someone in an apron hurried to the waiting area and spoke softly to the two men, touching them both on the shoulder. After a few more words, the younger man waved his figner in the businessman’s face one last time and stalked out the door.
Abraham hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he took in a long, shudderig gasp. He’d been transfixed, pinned, incapable of movement.
His migraine symptoms were gone.
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