Shotgun Congress

Autumn with Charlotte.

It was at a pancake house, on a Sunday, when winter set in on Leroy Little’s life. He went to the eatery every Sunday. He went because the food was good and cheap. He went because he was allowed to smoke his hand rolled cigarettes next to the window in the back. He went there to think. He went there because they didn’t stare at the stump that used to be his right arm. But mostly, he went to the pancake house every Sunday, precisely at seven o’clock, for six consecutive years, because precisely at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning six years ago Charlotte Brown started her very first shift.

He hadn’t known she would be there. He hadn’t known her at all. He just wanted a decent breakfast and a hot cup of coffee. It was his birthday, after all. It was the first time he’d ever been in the diner. He had previously avoided it because he didn’t like its name, “Jack’s Flaps.” But it was his birthday, and he needed breakfast, and “Jack’s Flaps” was within walking distance from the motel.

The restaurant was a plain old flaky brown rectangle with a hand painted sign posted above the front door. The door jingled went he entered. A grey-haired hostess asked him a question.

“Smoking,” he replied.

She led him past the grills and griddles, past the non-smoking booths (an area which he would eventually label, “first-class”), through a little doorway to the smoking section. It was occupied by four lonely tables, and the plump little hostess sat him at a two person table in the back corner.

“Your waitresses’ name is Charlotte, she will be right with you,” the hostess said. She took a few steps from the table, then she stopped and turned back and said, “Be sweet to her now, it’s her first day.”