This is the third part.
The first part is here.
The second part is here.
So first there were 2 different stories. One thing about working far away from where you live is that you have a ton of time to think. Your mind wanders. Then when you get to work and your job sucks and people are annoying, there's plenty to write about.
One day on my way to work, I imagined a guy kind of like the slingblade guy. He was kind of brain damaged or something. He called "ketchup" "ketchemup sauce." This word "ketchemup" came to me as I was driving to work and noticed all the pickup trucks in the parking lot of Builder's Supply near 72nd and Q.
I remembered that when I was a kid, some people used to call pickup trucks "pick-em-up trucks." I wondered if anybody still ever said pick-em-up truck. Then I wondered what other words could be enhanced in the same way as pickup.
Ketchup was the obvious choice to me. So I envisioned the sort of person who might use the word "Ketchemup." He was kind of like Carl (or is it Karl) from Slingblade. I started writing a little story about him. It is below.
Around the same time, I wrote a story about a woman who always leaves hot coffee sitting on the counter at work. That story was so poorly written that I could not post it, but posted the "precis" called "Tragic" recently. But Cube, what the hell is "precis?" How the hell should I know? The word spilled out of my head just now, but I think it's right. Look it up. I don't know.
Anyway - At one point, I realized that the man that Mary (Dawn below) was waiting for was Phil. Yeah - Phil was the guy working his way to the diner. I lied about Jerome. I was trying to be funny. Surprise!
Mary's story was called "Save me a Cup" and Phil's story was called "Ketchemup Sauce"
Here is what I wrote about Phil when I wasn't writing about Mary before I knew it was two sides to the same story. Thankfully, this writing is nowhere near as terrible as Mary's story so I can just post it "as is".
~~
Philip did not know how many days and nights he had been walking along the highway. He did not know which direction he was going. He was just walking. His work boots and coveralls were coated in the white dust from the crushed gravel of the road.
Philip was lost in a confused array of memories. There was Dawn. Always Dawn. Philip's one true love. She had promised to wait for him. He remembered that. He didn't remember why she had to. Where did he go? Where did Dawn go? What Happened?
He didn't even know her face. Just her name and her hair. Her big brown hair.
In Philip's dreams, Dawn always came to him wearing her golden gown. He tried every night to get a glimpse of her face. He knew if he could remember her face, he'd remember everything. Who he was. Where he came from.
But her face was always obscured by her big brown hair. Hair the color of coffee.
How long had he been walking, he wondered. Days? Weeks? Years? Months? Philip was confused. He needed to sit a while and rest. He curled up on the gravelly shoulder of the highway and slept. Just inches from the myriad 18 wheelers that would pass by every few minutes.
With the sleep came the dreams of Dawn. Gold and lace. Coffee colored hair. But her face. Her back was to him and he reached for her. Philip felt the warmth of her shoulder as he pulled her to face him. She turned and he saw her bright red lips. This was a first. The farthest he'd ever gotten in the dream. He glanced up to look into her eyes, but then her mouth opened wide enough to cover her whole face as she screamed at him "Haaaawwwwnk!"
Philip awoke confused to see a semi swerving back to it's lane. Philip was partially resting on the highway. "That was close," he thought, referring to almost seeing Dawn's face.
Philip looked down the road he'd come from to see the rising sun. "So I'm heading west. Hmm."
A couple of hours later, Philip was seated in a diner at the side of the road.
Fill up.
What?
Fill up. My cup. reaching into his coveralls, Phil wanted his cup filled.
I'm sorry mister, I can't just ...
Sam was a little annoyed by this smelly vagrant trying to get free coffee from him. Not that he was heartless or anything. It's just he could barely keep his little diner going. If word got around that he was giving out free coffee to hobos, he'd be done.
But there was something about this particular smelly vagrant. Sam knew the story too well. Everybody in town knew Dawn's sad tale. How her fiance had been killed overseas. The body was never found. That was the tragedy. Dawn would never have closure. Sam had listened time and time again to Dawn. He felt sorry that she'd never give up.
Now Sam was looking at a man with a dirty old cup.
When Phil went off to war, Dawn had given him a cup from the diner. She told him he had earned free coffee for life. She told him to protect the cup with his life or the deal was off. They all laughed about it at the time.
Whenever she told that story, Dawn always smiled as tears ran down her face.
Phil had tried to get free coffee from roadside diners for months. He'd always present his own cup. Free refills, he'd say. For life.
It never worked.
Sam excused himself from Phil and went over to the phone. As he picked up the receiver, Phil got scared. He jumped to his feet and shuffled toward the door.
"You there. Hang on!" called Sam.
Phil didn't slow down. He'd had the police warn him enough. He'd been beaten more times than he could count.
"Sit down son. I'll get you your cup. But let me wash it off first."
Phil considered this. What's one more beating against the promise of some nice hot coffee? He stood at the door for a few seconds then turned back to the counter.
"I'd like a burger too. With plenty of Ketchemup sauce, please."
Sam didn't believe this drifter had the money for a burger, but if Phil was who Sam thought he was, he wouldn't need it.
Sam took the cup from Phil and washed it off. The turned it over to see the scrawled message on the bottom. No question. This was the cup.
Sam tossed a patty on the grill and picked up the phone.
~~
Dawn could not catch a break. She worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Even then, she could barely make ends meet. She could definitely use the cash.
So when she saw that Sam was calling, she almost picked it up.
But no. She could not work today.
Today was the anniversary she never had. The war saw to that.
This was the only sacred day of the year for Dawn.
Sam could find somebody else to sling hash today.
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