A Woman's Reality

I hadn’t planned on working that night. Molly asked if I would cover for her because her son had caught the bug and was throwing up all over the place. Normally, I would’ve said no, but I felt inclined to do her this solid with Christmas right around the corner. It was a time for giving after all.

The night had been fairly slow due to the small blizzard raging on outside. Most folks had enough sense to stay in, rather than risk running about the icy streets. Joe, the cook, was on with me that night and we spent most of our shift joking around and refilling ketchup bottles. Joe was a nice guy of fifty or sixty who always had some raunchy story to share about his youth. I liked working with him and he never tried to flirt with me or grope me the wrong way like some of the other guys there. In fact, sometimes he would even beat the boys that got a little too frisky with me after hours. Yeah, Joe was a real nice guy.

He was in the middle of one of his bawdy story about a broad from South Dakota, when three men dressed in all black walked in. They wore their cigarettes in their mouths like a prize and their hats shielded part of their faces. The guy to the left took off his hat, revealing a full head of brownish red hair.

“Hey sweet cheeks, table for four. We got another comin’,” he said. The way the words rolled off his lips, they almost sounded like a threat. Absurd, I know. The words themselves held no malice, but his voice was as sharp and cool as a knife.

So I seated them and do my usual cordial routine, attempted a little small talk and left them to their business. I was both afraid and intrigued by this group of men, and silently awaited the arrival of their forth companion in my corner with Joe.

Thirty minutes passed before their friend joined them. A man so tall, he’d be called a freak just for walking down the streets. He wore a clown suit of bright white that seemed to blend in with the snow from outside. His face was painted as a clowns usually is, but it was faded, slightly, as if he’d been wearing it for a few days. The red and white paints has begun to blend and the black around his eyes was smeared. This man looked rough, and like the sort of person you avoided. I definitely wouldn’t have trusted him around my children.

As the peculiar men sat around their table, not one laughed. They spoke in quiet, hushed voices and their tones were stressed and sharp.

When I came for their orders, the sketchy clown instantly began to grin. He grabbed at me and pulled me into his lap. The heathen smelled of gasoline and cigarettes and his eyes were a threatening black.

“I want to eat you up,” he said. “Screw the burgers, I want to eat you.”

I tried to pull away from him, but his arms held me to him. I was trapped. He put his hand over my mouth and began smelling my hair. I began to shriek. I bit down hard.

He threw me off of him and yelled some choice words my direction. Joe burst out of the kitchen and came to my rescue. But when all the men squared up, it was four to one. And I sensed the ones in black carried weapons. I reached for the nearest phone and began to call the police.

But by the time they arrived, Joe was on the floor, beaten bloody and moaning. The clown looked furious and tried to escape the ambush of cops, but he was too slow. As it turned out, these men were convicted felons, and had reeked a lot of havoc with women all over the country. They were rapists.

And I could have been their next meal.