Sunday, January 15, 2017

9083. THE CIDER KING

THE CIDER KING
So, I  sullied your house in 
the worse Carteret way  -  
sitting there at the Bus Stop
Diner waiting for nothing 
at all while counting my split
eggs and cat-spent cargo  
of nickels and dimes. And,
yeah, I once knew all those
guys too  -  Jimmy, with the
hot dog place across the way.
I think the last name was 'Lane.'
And the old Marine guy, he'd come
nearly everyday, like a saint or
some iconic God or something  - 
As it all turned out his son was 
the Governor. Everyone apparently 
knew but me, and no one told 
me either. McGreevey; oh well, 
that's over, and the old guy's
dead now anyway, as is the
wife I'd sometimes see with 
him. The mother, I suppose.
The diner guys, I never could
tell, were Greek, or Lebanese,
or something -   the owners, 
I mean, not he help or the 
waitresses. The cooks were
always Spanish know-nothing
guys, and the waitresses were
just older women. If not that,
any of the young girls taking
orders were just Carteret's finest,
a product of the schools, real 
hunks of junk, always busy
with nothing at all and just
not worth a second look.
People would come in, a 
lot of regulars, the everyday
crowd type that you see anywhere
in any really crummy, small, 
and poor town in the east. All
mumbly-pegs, losers, the whole
nation of disenfranchised souls
who came to sit and eat. I
went there a lot myself.



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