It's Your Life: Five Stories
By Aron White
Copyright 2011 by Aron White
Published by Morning Paradise Press
Cover Image Copyright by Chris Galbraith, Dreamstime.com
Check out Aron's website for more stories at http://www.aronwhite.com
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Call me crazy, but I believe we're headed towards a short story renaissance.
Why?
The first reason is because a reader can enjoy five to ten pages of fiction as much as they can three to four hundred. Granted short fiction usually isn't at the top of our reading lists these days and is usually relegated to the literature teachers forced on us in grade school.
The second reason is due to the emergence of electronic books and the extreme ease with which they can be purchased online. We're an on-the-go culture and if a person can find the time to devote thirty minutes to watching a television show on their phone or computer, why not the same for a short story? Don't have the time to commit to a four hundred page novel? No problem. A ten page short story can fit the bill instead. Now that I've made this prediction for a short story comeback, we'll have to wait a few years to see whether or not I end up eating my words.
Either way, I hope you enjoy the five stories you're about to read. "Life is a bag of surprises," as it states at the beginning of this collection and just like each character, you'll sometimes come to realize a curveball is being unexpectedly thrown at lightning speed in your direction. Jumping out of the way or attempting to catch it is the choice I leave to you.
Enjoy!
Aron White
I'll Take My Gun to Go
“You got any string beans? Hey, buddy! Any string beans in this place?”
The increasing volume of the scratchy voice snapped me from my thoughts as I glanced down at a gray-haired, hunched over grandma-lady standing before me, silver walking cane in one hand, plastic plate stuffed with food in the other.
“We uh, let me see,” I responded before walking around the side of the nearest buffet counter to see the empty silver tray sitting beneath the heated lights. Pulling out the tray, I brought it back towards the grandma-lady and nodded towards the dumbwaiter in the nearby wall.
“Sorry about that, ma’am. We’ll have another tray ready in a moment.”
Grandma-lady’s nose wrinkled upwards with indignation, something not easy to discern considering she was covered head to toe with sagging skin and I mentally prepared for some sort of verbal thrashing.
“You know, Old Country Buffet never runs out of food. Everything’s fresh and available when I want it. I never have to wait.”
“Then why don’t you go to Old Country Buffet instead of coming here, you old bi…” Oh, how I wanted to say that out loud, but the customer service part of me knew better and instead I smiled while apologizing.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. We’ll have more string beans available shortly. If you like, I can stop by your table and let you know when they’re ready.”
Grandma-lady eyed me as if I were plotting to snatch one of her social security checks and walked away, heading back towards the dining room with her silver cane tapping against the tiled floor.
“Be sure you do, buddy,” she grumbled.
Did an eighty-year-old woman just call me buddy? My hands rolled into fists and I knew it was bad to want to pound a senior citizen into the ground, but oh how much better I would have felt if one could. That stupid, “the customer is always right," garbage. Why couldn’t this be France where the customer’s always wrong and I could swear at them in a way that would have sounded crude yet classy in the same breath? Guess it wasn’t my lucky day.
Looking down, I realized the empty silver tray was still in my hands and moved forward to the dumbwaiter, placing it on the small counter while calling out, “more string beans.”
“Gracias, Senor,” Miguel said as he popped up on the other side of the window dressed in his white cook’s coat and accompanying hair net. Miguel’s worked here at the buffet since I was a toddler, back when my father supervised the main counter and dining area, a job I inherited as only son a few years ago. Miguel never bothered to learn much English so we always communicated back and forth with bits and pieces of slaughtered Spanish and severely broken English. Whatever works, I guess.
While most teenagers go home and study after the school day ends I come to work here at the family restaurant, the Golden Goose Buffet. We’re not first, second, or even third generation immigrants of any kind, in fact I’ve heard we have ancestors who fought in the Civil War, but apparently my dad caught the entrepreneurial bug about twenty years back and decided to open this place with the help of some immediate family members and it's been steaming ahead at a steady pace since.
Today was Thursday, my dad’s night off, so I supervised the restaurant in his stead, decked out in a pair of black khaki pants, dress shoes and a white button-up shirt with a nametag on my left breast that read “Hi! I’m Brian! How can I help you?” which made me cringe every time I looked down. I thought of the grandma-lady again for a moment and wanted to change the wording to "Hi! I'm Brian! How can I kick your ass?"
"Yo, B. You doin' okay? B!" The smooth, relaxed voice pulled me away from my thoughts as I turned to face Charlie, my twenty-year-old first cousin and bus boy-in-residence for the buffet. He wore the same outfit as I, but his white shirt was un-tucked on one side and on nights my father wasn't working he always wore a black baseball cap turned backwards and slanted to one side, exposing the bottom of his blond crew cut. He held a dirty rag in one hand with a bucket of cleaning fluid in the other. I know for a fact he's not on anything, but when you meet him for the first time you'd swear the guy's tripped out on pot. "Looks like another old bitty tonight, huh? How the heck did she get here anyways? Too old to drive I'd guess."
"Looks like she's here with a son and two grandkids," I responded, my eyes glancing away from Charlie and towards a booth at the opposite end of the restaurant. Charlie slowly turned around, following my gaze.
"Oh yeah, I see 'em. Hmm. Imagine that."
Without another word, Charlie walked away from the buffet and headed towards the double doors leading to the kitchen and staff area.
"Don't take that bucket of cleaner into the kitchen," I said. "You know dad hates it when you spill stuff in there."
"Yeah, yeah, I gotcha," Charlie muttered before pushing one of the doors open and disappearing inside.
I chuckled, knowing it ruffled his feathers every time I said that and turned around to see my sister, Shannon, the seating hostess, at the counter by the front door, struggling with a large stack of menus.
"Here you go, sis," I said, grabbing a large portion from the top and heaving them down on to the counter.
"Thanks, Bri," she responded, a faint smile across her face and I could tell she wasn't really paying attention, her mind off somewhere else, probably wistfully daydreaming about the boyfriend who'd recently broken up with her right before the Homecoming Dance at school. It took her by surprise and the rest of us left her alone to sort out the emotional trauma in peace.
"Did dad say what he was going to do with his night off?" I asked while helping her put the rest of the menus into a cabinet behind the front counter.
"Huh, what did you say?" Shannon asked, her eyes coming back to focus on me after having drifted off again for a few seconds.
"Dad? Night off?"
"Oh, I'm sure he'll do what he always does. Six-pack, television and the recliner."
"Figures. I thought he was planning on taking some golf lessons, getting back into shape a bit."
"You know how it worked out when he said he was going to quit smoking last year."
I nodded my head, knowing our house still smelled as much like tobacco as it did the year before.
"Some things never change," I said before standing up to stare out the nearby window.
"What? What are you looking at?" Shannon asked as she noticed my frozen stance and gaze towards the window. "Oh, I see who it is," she said after turning to look herself. "Cindy Taylor, you've had a crush on her since the end of middle school, haven't you?"
"Mmm..." was my response as I continued to stare at the most beautiful creature to ever grace my eyes and I mean that in the most sincere, non-sexist way possible. Cindy had moved to town with her parents in eighth grade and I'd been smitten ever since. She was a straight-A student and also happened to be the star of the high school gymnastics team. I would've traded ten years of Olympics on television just to watch her perform for five minutes.
"Have you spoken to her recently?" Shannon asked.
"No," I muttered.
"Have you ever spoken to her, Bri?"
"No," once again.
"Does she know you even exist?"
"What's with all these questions?" I asked, not taking my eyes off Cindy, accompanied by three other girls, all dressed in jeans and athletic coats with the gymnastic team logo emblazoned on the back.
"Suit yourself," Shannon said, chuckling as we watched the girls enter the restaurant.
"Hello. Welcome to the Golden Goose Buffet," Shannon said, grabbing four menus from behind the counter. "Brian, would you please take these ladies to their table?"
Even with a crowbar, I wouldn't be able to pry my lips open to speak as I stood there by the counter, frozen, my brain in a cloudy haze of indecision. She was here! Cindy was here in our restaurant! The stars have aligned!
"I'll take you to your table then," Shannon said, nudging me as she walked by and led the girls towards a nearby booth. If Cindy had thought anything odd about my behavior, she didn't show it, but I could hear her friends snickering as they moved out of earshot. I continued to watch Cindy for a minute until Shannon came back to the front desk and snapped her fingers in my face.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked with a trace of annoyance in her voice. "I remember you clamming up like that in front of her when the two of you had to sing a duet in ninth grade choir together. Don't tell me you're still doing that?"
"Can't be worse than daydreaming about an ex-boyfriend," I shot back.
Shannon shook her head and looked down to focus on some old customer receipts.
"Guess you're right. Some things never change."
The tone of her voice indicated it was my cue to find something else to do and I went back towards the buffet counter, remembering I'd promised grandma-lady I'd check on the string beans for her.
"Tough luck, B," Charlie said as I approached the dumbwaiter. He'd just come from the staff area with a clean rag in hand, ready to wipe down a few more tables.
"How do you mean?" I asked, knocking on the dumbwaiter door.
"Your lady friend there, Cindy," Charlie responded. "She don't know you exist does she?"
"Not you too," I said, rolling my eyes as Miguel appeared from behind the wall and handed over a hot tray of string beans. "Shannon's already given me enough grief about it for one night."
"You give yourself enough grief about it, B. Time to do something about it."
"Like I haven't heard that before."
"You've heard, B, but you haven't listened. I'm telling you, a girl like that has every reason to go for a guy like you."
"You really think so," I asked, tossing in a snort for kicks.
"Of course, B. Look, you're a nice guy, you work hard and you practically run this place for your old man. You're practically a friggin' entrepreneur, manager, businessman or whatever you want to call it. Why wouldn't a girl like Cindy go from something like that?"
"You mean someone like me?"
"Exactly! See what I mean? Life's about packaging, B. You gotta wrap yourself up in a nice box with sexy wrapping paper so that people will want to tear it off to get to the real you inside. Get what I'm sayin'?"
"Yeah, I think I do," I replied, intrigued by Charlie's sudden burst of wisdom, wondering why he never applied it to himself. "You're right. I should put my money where my mouth is and go talk to her."
"That's the spirit, B. Just make sure you got enough money to do that."
Resolute, I began to walk across the buffet and passed several rows of booths and tables, my eyes set intently on Cindy, ready to reveal my true feelings to her, regardless of the consequences.
"All right everybody, hands up! This is a robbery and I don't want any trouble!"
The loud, booming voice snapped me out of my thoughts as I turned around to see a middle-aged guy waving a hand gun around in one hand while standing by the front door dressed in jeans and a leather jacket with a woman's nylon stocking pulled over his head in an attempt to obscure his face. It wasn't until Charlie spoke that I realized he'd been following me towards Cindy's table and was now frozen in his tracks, staring at the gunman just as I was.
"Awe, crap," Charlie said out loud to no one in particular. "Guess we ain't goin' home any time soon."
With a guy waving around a handgun and standing by the entrance, I had to agree and every nerve in my body went on edge. I would have expected the sight of a gun to cause the customers to go ballistic like in a movie with screams and shouts followed by a mad dash towards the exit, but the response was muted as I realized everyone was still trying to wrap their mind around what was taking place.
After a few seconds I noticed Shannon was only about five feet away from this guy, her eyes locked on him as she stood behind the front counter, a stack of customer receipts in her hands. In a heartbeat, the robber turned the gun towards her face and began to speak in a forceful, impatient tone.
"You! C'mon honey, open the register, pronto!"
Shannon stood there in a daze, not moving.
"Do it now!" the robber shouted, flicking the gun slightly upwards for a moment with his wrist and that seemed to snap Shannon out of her daze, moving herself over to the cash register and opening the drawer. The robber tossed a small gym bag on the counter that had been slung across one shoulder.
"Put the cash in quickly. I don't have all day."
Shannon's hands moved like the wind as she pulled the money out of the drawer and stuffed it into the bag and as she did, I could see the skin around her eyes growing puffy and red with tears.
"That's all," she finally stammered.
"Where's the safe?" the robber asked. "I'm sure you guys have got one. Most places do. Where's it at?"
A look of exasperation crossed Shannon's face and I could tell she was about to break down.
"Excuse me, sir," I said out loud, amazed my voice sounded more confidant then it should have. The robber instantly swung the gun from Shannon's face towards mine.
"What do you want, buffet boy?" the robber asked, a bit of mockery in his voice. Instantly I didn’t like the name, knowing it was an insult and although my mind was focused on the weapon being pointed at my face from about twenty feet away, I could've sworn I heard a snort from Charlie.
"I'm in charge of this restaurant and the safe is beneath that counter you're standing next to."
"You got the combination, buffet boy?"
"Yes, I do. I'll open it for you right now. Take what you want, just don't hurt anyone."
"How diplomatic," the robber said sarcastically, as he motioned towards the counter, signaling for me to come forward and open the safe. His features were obscured behind the nylon stocking over his head and as I came closer, part of me wanted to break out laughing at how ridiculous he looked, but being shot for the sake of a little humor didn't seem like a good cause to embrace at the moment. As my fingers turned the combination lock, I chastised dad for being too cheap to buy a time-lock drop safe like many gas stations did, so much for saving some extra money.
After hearing the final click, I swung the door open, grabbed the wad of cash sitting towards the back and stood up, dumping it into the open gym bag.
“That’s all we’ve got,” I said, noticing the robber’s nose was twitching up and down as he sucked in several gasps of air.
“Are those French fries I smell over there?” he asked, motioning towards the set of buffet counters on the other side of the room.”
“Are you serious, dude?” Charlie mumbled and the robber rolled his eyes as he took another sniff.
“Buffet boy, run over there and grab me a box to go. Some macaroni and cheese, French fries, corn and string beans.”
“They’re out of string beans!” Grandma-lady yelled from out of nowhere across the dining room.
“Shut up!” I shouted, not bothering to look in her direction. “I just put out a fresh tray.” As if I wasn’t feeling stressed enough already, I didn’t need that old bag getting involved.
“Hurry up!” the robber said and I walked over to the buffet counters, picked up a Styrofoam container and scooped up the requested food. “Thanks, buffet boy,” the robber said, flashing a grin as he grabbed the container and made for the door.
“Kiss my ass,” I said, surprised at my boldness. Whether he heard me or not as he exited the restaurant I couldn’t tell and there was a collective sigh of relief across the dining room as I turned around to check on Shannon. The moment was short-lived as the ear-piercing shriek of a police car’s siren began to wail outside in the parking lot and I glanced over my shoulder to see the robber come running back into the restaurant, gym bag slung over his shoulder with the gun and Styrofoam container still in hand.
“Son of a…of all the times I have to hit this place, a pair of pigs decide they want to get something to eat,” I heard him mutter to himself and I began to chuckle. “Something funny, buffet boy?” he said after hearing my laughter. The gun being pointed at me again cut short my moment of glee and I stared at him, annoyed that this idiot was bothering us again. Every time he called me that name it felt like my blood wanted to boil and if he hadn’t possessed a weapon I might be tempted to slug him in the face.
“You got a back door to this place?” the robber asked, glancing around.
“It’s in the back by the kitchen,” I responded.
“Let’s go, quickly,” he said, motioning with the gun.
I led him across the dining room and through the double doors, making our way into the kitchen. As we passed through I turned to see Miguel and the other two cooks sequestered in one corner, chatting, each with a half-finished cigarette hanging from their lips. “No smoking in the kitchen!” I would have yelled at any other moment in my life, but for now I contented myself with their wide-eyed reactions as they watched me lead a stranger with a gun towards the back exit door.
“Loco, man,” I heard Miguel mumble as I reached up with both hands and pushed open the door. I have to give the police credit for a quick response because one of the officers from the car out front must have figured there could be an escape route and was rounding the nearby corner of the building. Instantly, I felt cold metal pressed against the side of my head as the robber dropped the Styrofoam container of food and wrapped his arm around my neck in a headlock.
“Don’t move!” he shouted at the officer. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot him!”