If you go to Casa De Biftec at 5 am on a Friday night, there prob-
ably ain't much anyone can do for you. You turned your back on Las Vegas
just as it would have shown you its best side, and then you stopped for
cheap food instead of gettin' the hell gone. The Casa welcomes you when
you're in-between, but they have bills to pay. You'd best not take it per-
sonally.
	Take Jason. Last Friday he opened the door with both elbows, like a
football player hoping to make his big play and get a soft spot on the dis-
abled list all at once, but he didn't look like he spent his time wearing
numbers and following orders. The kid also couldn't have gone to restaurants
much, considering how far out his ribs stuck. He introduced himself around.
The staff likes that, getting to treat you as a guest.
	Jason ordered a new breakfast every fifteen minutes. Putting away
bacon strips like that ain't healthy; imagine matching them one-for-one with
the other pieces of a Biftec Special. Nobody could watch.
	I think it was when Pearl went to refill the kid's OJ that she ask-
ed him how long he planned to stay. "Parking a problem?" he asked. She
shook her head. "Long enough for lunch, then."

	Instant pancake mix's got a few chemicals to make it taste better.
They don't smell until you get to such-and-so ounces all cooking in the
same place, but the morning rush at Biftec generally exceeds that quota, so
the cooks and waits and regulars take a break around 7 for some air. The
crossroads out front has three or four accidents per year and at least that
many close calls every day. This Saturday brought a Cadillac that, cross my
heart, actually went up on two wheels taking the left turn toward Califor-
nia.
	"How many rabbits gotta die so Mr. Spielberg can make his early
meeting?" Truck asked.
	Pearl figured them for newlyweds.
	Gangsters, said DB.
	The Caddy swerved onto open desert just before we lost sight of it,
wheeled around, and tore back the same way it came. DB smirked, "Definitely
gangsters."

	Back inside, Jason was taking advantage of his bottomless coffee to
down a row of vitamin pills. "Them a cure for staying up all damn night?"
You could see from Truck's eyes he really wanted to know.
	"That and gin," Jason said. He hoisted a bottle of Bombay Sapphire.
"Once I get straight enough I'll be off your hands. You have Thursday's
paper anywhere?"
	Always helpful, Pearl brought over the paper and a Bic pen. "I did-
n't take you for a crossword man at first," she said.
	He waved off the pen and flipped straight to the obituaries. Column
after column, he ran his finger down the line of names. At the end, he turn-
ed around and went over them backwards. After that, the whole thing over
again from the start. Over and over and over.
	DB sidled over towards me and whispered, "You know anybody stopped
being dead since the first time YOU read the Thursday Herald?"

	"I need you to pack me a couple big lunches," Jason told Dean after
the shift change. "I can pay." What the hell, Dean gave him some big fatty
cuts and a whole box of onion rings. We watched out the window as he sat in
his car, just staring at the highway for a while. Finally, he went north.
Reno, maybe.
	Pearl got a nice new $100 bill as a tip for that one. I told her
there wasn't no way she could get in trouble for spending it, but she's
superstitious sometimes.

written for Susan Groppi in my living room 10/19/01

I keep writing stories where the backstory is intentionally vague or inconsistent, so I'm happy about this one, where the details are unclear but the narrator has the big picture, as does the reader. (Hopefully.)

The tone's pretty consistent all the way through, I think, but the dialect may be less so. I grew up in the Midwest, then moved to Boston, where my primary exposure to southern and western varieties of English is through players on reality TV game shows. (And, uh, the President of the United States.)

DB's last line seems like a worse idea than it was due to being clumsily assembled. I'm starting to revise these stories, and I'll be posting the results, so you can expect to see me bitching less and fixing more when it comes to things like that. The originals will still be up too, to keep me honest.

Tired. More comments later, or not.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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