The rain was beating down on the roof like bullets. It sounded like any moment they would break through the meager tin roof and kill the meager humans huddled protectively inside. There was a car parked less than fifty feet away but the curtain of rain hid the vehicle sight even when flashlights were used. Even if the vehicle had been close enough to see the water in the parking lot was ankle deep and since the lot was elevated above most of the roads it was a safe assumption that the drive home would have been at least waist deep it not worse than that. The inhabitants of Joe's Diner were trapped for the duration of the storm and likely for a while after that.
There were only two people who'd stayed behind to watch the diner. The six foot seven Vietnam Veteran had stayed behind because he didn't have any place else to go. The truth is that America doesn't take care of her veterans and like many others he'd been cast, literally, to the side of the road when his country had been done with him. It didn't help that he was African American. The dreams of the jungle hadn't let him have a full night's sleep since he'd returned and that fact had robbed him of his wife and child as well as every job he'd tried to hold down. The only thing he had left was his training and his physique which had somehow survived the years between. He practically lived at the diner, helping out with odd jobs when he could and the rest of the time telling stories for spare change. No one was sure where he slept normally but everybody knew that he was one of the people that slept under the diner when it rained.
That was part of the point though. It wasn't raining though. Calling the deluge of wolves and lions rain was to elevate the word above and beyond anything it had ever been assigned to. It was positively pouring like God himself had opened a dam over New Seras without a single thought to the people who might be living beneath his private toilet. The amount of water dropping from the sky was blocking out all cell phones, not that cell phones are really that reliable in anything other than perfect weather, but radio communications were knocked out to. For the Vietnam vet it wasn't really that terrifying to be out of communication. The twenty something waitress though was terrified.
Tiffany was trying her damnedest to pretend like this was the kind of weather she was used to. She hadn't mentioned to the Vet that she was the only person was still in the Diner other than him. He either knew and was staying to keep her company or he didn't and there was no reason to scare him. Not that he looked like the type to be scared by a little rain. By California standards where Tiffany had been born there was no such thing a little storm. There was normal and oh my God we're headed to Oz and this was a few steps beyond that. Tiffany didn't know what lay beyond the wonderful world of Oz and more important she knew how to get home from Oz so she didn't trouble her blonde head with trying to figure out exactly how hard it was raining lest it take her farther than any land she'd heard of.
"You know miss you don't have to stay here for me. You can go home and I'll find my own way if you like." His name was Jim. Jim said she could leave and Tiffany almost jumped at the invitation until she remembered why she'd stayed. Her car had stalled out before she got out of the parking lot. Since the parking lot had been almost empty then she hadn't even bothered getting back into a proper spot.
The beautiful brunette smiled at him. "Nah. I wouldn't make it home in this weather. Since we're stuck here I can get you something on the house." Jim returned the smile but shook his head responding his cup of coffee was plenty for the moment. "You mind if I sit?" He motioned evenly to the seat across from him. "You know you come in here everyday and I never got your name."
"That's cus I don't give it out often." Jim waited a moment see her face sink. There was just something entertaining about fucking with the younger generations. "Jim. Jim Harris." He reached across the table to shake her hand and found she had a surprisingly strong grip. "So you're not from here. What brought you out here to Mobile?"
"A man." Tiffany's eyes shot out the window for a moment but she couldn't even see the sidewalk much less her car. Maybe it had already floated away or one of the wind gusts had taken it to Oz. That wouldn't be so bad it if was true, it was an old junker and the insurance money would buy something better and on the off chance the dinner took her to Oz then she wouldn't have to walk the Yellow Brick road. "My husband. Well ex." Jim didn't even open his mouth to speak. He took a sip of his coffee and waited. "He's a jack ass. Piece of shit Marine just like all the military men." Jim's eye brow rose just slightly if Tiffany noticed she didn't so much as pause. "We'd been dating since we were sixteen, high school sweethearts and everything. We got married just before he went to war, that was about three years back. Now he's stationed out of Pensacola Florida as an instructor. We'll I went to surprise him the other day. You know like a good wife-" Jim knew exactly what she was going to say before she said it "-and I found out he was drilling two of his students."
Jim listened in silence as Tiffany told the rest of her sad tale. She'd tried to forgive him but he wouldn't stop. That she'd given him everything she could imagine in bed. Watched porn so she could learn what those girls did and let him live out every fantasy, let him use her body and still he tossed her to the side without so much as a second glance. He was the one who'd actually started up the divorce proceedings. As pathetic as it sounded she would have lived on her life as his dog if he'd let her. She didn't have anyplace else to go. No friends, no family that she was on speaking terms with. So when the divorce had become official she'd left the base and stopped at the first place with "Help Needed" sign and that had been six months ago.
There wasn't anything for Jim to say to her. An apology from him wouldn't mean anything so he'd simply listened and sipped at his coffee until it was gone. Then he'd told her his own story about how he'd been drafted into the Marines at seventeen to fight the Vietnam. He didn't bore her with the stories of social injustices. He didn't tell her about his younger brother who broken his arm when police turned a fire hose on him at an equal rights rally. He told her about his then girlfriend Tara. He was in the jungle huddled beneath a piece of canvas in a rainstorm that made this one seem like a light drizzle. He'd been saving her letter for a day like this because it always brightened his day to know that someone out there was in love with him. That was how he tried to remember it anyway. There was another memory though where he'd avoided reading it until a day was finally dark enough to mirror what he knew was inside the envelope that so light he could barely feel it. Either or neither could just as easily have been the truth it was so long ago.
"I'm sorry." Tiffany whispered. "Let me get you a fresh cup." She stood up just in time to escape as a branch shattered the window and landed right where she'd been sitting only moments before. The glass exploded inward luckily neither of them were badly cut but Tiffany was paralyzed.
