I ran a dirty rag over the old Formica countertops about 20 times every night, but it never seemed to do much good.

Then layer of greasing to cling to every surface in the diner, no matter how much I tried to wipe it away.

Not that I tried all that hard, mind you, still.

I at least liked the illusion that the place was clean.

The night had been slow.

Hell, the whole month had been slow.

I'd do a small rush of business. Hell, the whole month have been slow.

I'd do a small rush of business around lunch and a small trickle around dinner.

But by the time the clock hit seven, the diner was silent as the grave. More often than not, I would

send Bruce home early. There wasn't much need for two cooks when there were almost no customers.

But on particularly slow nights I'd send Lucy home as well.

She had a couple of little kids she liked to put in bed.

There's no tips anyway when you don't have anyone ordering food.

And our last diners had left nearly an hour before,

and I let her head home about a half an hour later.

There are only three hours left before I would have to close the place up, and I could handle taking orders and cooking the food if

anyone happened to stop in. The last of the dishes had just come out of the

sanitizer when I'd started to fill the tingle of nicotine

withdrawal. When the diner was busy, I could go hours without a smoke.

But on nights like that, the craving was about my only company.

Sliding the plastic rack of white plates on the drawing board, I snagged my coat from the hook by the back door and

slid outside. It was a cold night and the wind was shredding through the trees.

...