Well, maybe the bottled soda will be all right.
The great car squeals and pulls to a stop. The fat worried man helps his wife out.
Mae looks at and past them as they enter. Al looks up from his griddle, and down again. Mae knows. They’ll drink a five-cent soda and crab that it ain’t cold enough. The woman will use six paper napkins and drop them on the floor. The man will choke and try to put the blame on Mae. The woman will sniff as though she smelled rotting meat and they will go out again and tell forever afterward that the people in the West are sullen. And Mae, when she is alone with Al, has a name for them. She calls them shitheels.
Truck drivers. That’s the stuff.
Here’s a big transport comin’. Hope they stop; take away the taste of them shitheels. When I worked in that hotel in Albuquerque, Al, the way they steal—ever’ darn thing. An’ the bigger the car they got, the more they steal—towels, silver, soap dishes. I can’t figger it.
And Al, morosely, Where ya think they get them big cars and stuff? Born with ’em? You won’t never have nothin’.
The transport truck, a driver and relief. How ’bout stoppin’ for a cup a Java? I know this dump.
How’s the schedule?
Oh, we’re ahead.
Pull up, then. They’s a ol’ war horse in here that’s a kick. Good