FREE REFILLS

 

Roy Dorman

 

        Today’s going to be Johnny Brady’s last day.

        He’s recently lost his job, and then this morning, his apartment. The ability to pay his gambling debts to some really bad people is out of reach.

        He’s going to end his life before somebody else does it. And does it violently. But before he kills himself, he’s going to have a last breakfast.

***

        Johnny walked from the apartment that used to be his to a section of the Bronx he hadn’t been in before.

        After about an hour of aimless walking and heavy thinking, he stood in front of a diner.

        The windows of Dottie’s Diner didn’t appear to have been washed in a while. No lights were on in the diner, but a faded cardboard sign in the window next to the door said “OPEN.”

        The diner called to him. And it didn’t just beckon, it insisted.

        As he stepped into the gloom, a little bell over the door jangled. There were four other customers in the place, all were facing away from the door, and none turned at the sound of the bell. 

        A tall, slim woman behind the cash register had her back to the door, and she didn’t turn around either. Maybe Dottie?

        Johnny stood for a minute, just inside the door. Instead of the diner smelling like bacon, eggs, and coffee, it smelled like…, it smelled like somebody’s attic. And it was dry and dusty. Really dry and dusty.

        He went in and sat at a table, his back to the door, and looked at a greasy laminated menu. The prices were right; Johnny only had a few dollars left to his name.

        The floor was littered with dozens of dead cockroaches and there were also a couple of dead ones on his table. So much for the city inspectors.

        A thin, weathered hand with a mug of coffee appeared from behind him. The hand, and as much of the arm he saw, looked mummified. 

        No cream, no sugar, just coffee.

        But compared to the rest of the diner, the smell coming from the coffee was very rich. And there was a hint of whiskey there too.

        Johnny was about to turn and order, but sensed the waitress, or whoever, was already gone.

        Sipping his coffee, Johnny looked at the man who was sitting a table ahead of him and to his right. He could see the side of his face, and if the man wasn’t dead, Johnny thought he would be soon.

        He shuddered.

        “Ya had that look on ya when ya came in,” drawled a woman’s voice from behind him. “Yer welcome to stay.  Free refills.”

        Johnny found he was unable to turn to acknowledge her.

        The withered hand with the coffee pot added more coffee to his cup, and then a little more whiskey.

        Johnny relaxed. Wasn’t this what he wanted? He’d stare at the back of the diner with the other customers. He’d stare for an eternity.

        And there were free refills. An eternity of free refills.

THE END

​

       Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 70 years.  At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer.  He has had flash fiction and poetry published in Black Petals, Bewildering Stories, One Sentence Poems, Yellow Mama, Drunk Monkeys, Literally Stories, Dark Dossier, The Rye Whiskey Review, Near To The Knuckle, Theme of Absence, Shotgun Honey, Punk Noir, The Yard, and a number of other online and print journals.  Unweaving a Tangled Web, published by Hekate Publishing, is his first novel.

​

      J. Elliott is an author and artist living in a small patch of old, rural Florida. Think Spanish moss, live oak trees, snakes, armadillos, mosquitoes. She has published (and illustrated) three collections of ghost stories and three books in a funny, cozy series. She also penned a ghost story novel, Jiko Bukken, set in Kyoto, Japan in the winter of '92-'93. Available in  Paperback and eBook on Amazon.