Free Alpha 1 by Abby Weeks

I
    H OLDEN WEST PUSHED OPEN THE door of Angel’s Diner and held it for his friend.
    “After you, Jimmy,” he said.
    “And they say chivalry’s dead,” Jimmy said with a grin.
    They were both wearing navy blue mechanic’s overalls and were covered in engine grease. They’d been working for four hours on the transmission of an ’81 Jeep pickup. Holden’s hand was bleeding from where he’d cut it against the gear shaft. He’d wrapped it in a filthy engine rag that he was holding closed with his other fist.
    Lucy noticed them straight away. She was serving a table near the door and always noticed the two of them as soon as they came into the diner. To her it felt like they changed the entire atmosphere of the place. She spent most of the day serving stockbrokers in suits from the nearby financial district. Those guys were cocky and arrogant. They wore Rolex watches and tipped her a dollar on a ten dollar lunch bill. Holden and Jimmy were different. She knew their names from the tags on their overalls. They were like refugees from a different time, a time when the area south of Wall Street was a place of industry and shipping. They worked with their hands and spent their days lying under engines instead of staring at numbers and stock prices on a computer screen. They ate like men and tipped as if they actually appreciated her service.
    “Hi, fellas,” she said as she cleared them a table. “You look like you’ve been having trouble.”
    “This?” Holden said, raising his bandaged hand. “It’s nothing.”
    It didn’t look like nothing. The rag was dirty but Lucy could see where blood had soaked through it. “Let me see it,” she said. “Come on. I’m not going to hurt you.”
    Holden caught her eye. “You don’t want to see my hand,” he said.
    She took his arm and opened the bandage. “Ouch,” she said. He’d torn the skin on his knuckles and it looked painful. “You’ve hardly cleaned it.”
    “Jimmy cleaned it for me,” Holden said.
    Lucy shook her head and sat them at the table. Technically they were supposed to go to Cynthia’s section, Lucy had taken the last group of customers, but Cynthia wasn’t in sight and Lucy could let her take the next two tables.
    She went back to the staff area and got the first aid kit. She ran a clean cloth under the hot tap and went back to Holden and Jimmy’s table.
    “Give it to me,” she said to Holden, holding out her hand.
    He held up his hand and she carefully removed the bandage. She wiped the wound clean with the cloth and then took out the antiseptic. “This might sting.”
    “Go on,” Holden said. “Do it.”
    She poured the alcohol onto the cut and Holden breathed in sharply through his teeth. Then she wrapped it all in a clean bandage and fastened it with tape.
    “Thank you, Lucy,” he said.
    She smiled at him. They knew her name the same way she knew theirs, from the name tag beneath her collar.
    “Makes me wish I cut my hand too,” Jimmy said.
    “You’ll have your turn, no doubt,” Lucy said. “Now I presume you came in for some lunch.”
    “Our usual,” Jimmy said.
    Lucy jotted in her notebook and left them. They always had exactly the same thing, three eggs over easy, bacon, toast, home fries, beans, and black coffee. She got the coffee and two rollups and set their table.
    “Thank you,” Holden said when she put the coffee in front of him.
    She smiled and left again. She liked serving them. They weren’t as clean cut as the usual Wall Street men who came in but somehow they managed to treat her better than any of the other guys she served. It was as if they, a pair of mechanics from a noisy, smoky garage, classed up a joint that was two blocks from the most important financial center on the planet.
    Lucy noticed so many things about them that were missing from her other customers. They were nice to her and to each other, good friends who worked together and had eggs and bacon for lunch every day. They were both strong