Free Shotgun Lovesongs: A Novel by Nickolas Butler Page A

was up to. Eddy’s like that. He’s pretty perceptive, sensitive—not all the time, but more than most people. I knew he wouldn’t let me be. So without saying anything I dusted off the seat of my pants, picked up my bag, and climbed into his car. What I wanted to do was start punching things—not Eddy—but goddamn it, I would have liked to punch out a window or a headlight or some damn thing.
    Eddy put his hand on my shoulder. “Come on, let’s get something to eat.”
    *   *   *
    We ate at the last diner left in Little Wing, a place called the Coffee Cup, with a rotating carousel of pies and walls stained brown with cigarette smoke and grill smoke and white-and-red checkered tablecloths that stick to your hands and forearms like flypaper. I don’t ever eat there if I can help it because the food runs through me like my guts were a sieve. But Eddy opened the door for me and led me toward the back of the restaurant, where a line of five stools sit below a beat-up counter and dishes full of pink and blue and white packets of sweetener and sugar and little plastic cups of cream and glass bottles of ketchup, the grill directly ahead and the owner, Howard, back there, nodding at us as if he were exhausted with work, though we were only two of four customers in the whole place.
    “Hey Ronny, hey Eddy,” he called, waving at us with his spatula. “Waitress’ll be right with you.”
    We both knew, of course, that by waitress, Howard meant his wife, Mary, who I could see perfectly well, standing behind Howard at the far back of the building, blowing cigarette smoke out a tiny little dirty window.
    “The Coffee Cup exists,” Eddy said, with a funny look on his face, “because of Midwestern guilt and Sunday after-church breakfast. In all my travels, only in the Midwest would someone spend their money in a place they hate simply because they feel bad for the proprietors. Also I suppose, because they know your name.”
    “And, it don’t hurt to be the only spot in town,” I added.
    Eddy raised an eyebrow at me. “No, it sure don’t. It sure don’t.”
    By and by, Mary came around with a pot of burnt-smelling coffee and filled our mugs. Eddy ordered their roast beef with gravy and mashed potatoes.
    “Howard!” Mary hollered toward the grill. “Roast beef?” Her voice made me jump. The café was quiet as a Monday morning church.
    He shook his head.
    “All out,” she said. “Dinner rush,” she said, eyeballing the ancient pressed-tin ceiling.
    “How about the fried walleye?” Eddy asked.
    She shook her head.
    “Cheeseburger?”
    “We can do that,” she said, and nodded. “Ronny sweetheart, you want anything?”
    I didn’t, but I ordered a slice of banana cream pie anyway, because Eddy was paying, and because I like Eddy, and besides, I didn’t want to go back to my apartment, even if the restaurant smelled funny. Sometimes, you just want to be with another person, and even though Eddy had lassoed me back to Little Wing I knew it was only because he cared.
    Mary moved off, toward the front of the café facing Main Street, where nothing stirred—no traffic, no evening strollers. She sat down at an empty table where a half-finished game of solitaire lay out and gazed through the window for a moment before standing, walking back toward the grill, and tossing our order at Howard, who clipped the paper above the grill and began to fry Eddy’s burger. The dining room filled with the smell of greasy meat.
    “So,” Eddy said, “you just out for a walk today? Long ways from Little Wing.” He sipped his coffee, organized the sugar and sweeteners by color, stacked and restacked the little packages of jam and marmalade according to flavor.
    I nodded, shrugged my shoulders. “I ain’t got a car.”
    “You know anyone in town would give you a ride if you asked. All you got to do is ask. Hell, I know Henry or Lee, even me or Kipper, we’d drive you down to Chicago if that’s where you wanted to go.”