Excerpt: Menglador

The pea rolled aimlessly across the residue of grease and ketchup, tracing a shallow path on the dinner plate. It came to standstill on the edge, then split apart as a shaft of steel pierced it from above. Rufus raised the last of his dinner to his lips, then tucked it away neatly behind a row of gnarled, browning teeth. A short burst of flavor registered in his mind, then dissolved away as he swallowed. Such was his life: insignificant by all measure, but something still to savor. It was all he had.
His fingers danced around the table, like the legs of a spider blindly following the tremors of its web. One of them reported a sudden chill and the presence of moisture. His cup, half-empty but still half-full of glistening cubes of ice and muddy brown tea, tilted back until all of its contents disappeared into the back of his throat. Rufus felt his throat contract with the surge of cool liquid rushing down and extinguishing the warmth of his meal, sending tingles through his spine and raising the many hairs that covered his arms and neck. He let his tongue trace the edges of his lips, determined to elicit every last bit of flavor that might have bypassed his tongue. With an irritated sigh, he turned away from the remnants of tableware and soiled napkins and began to assess the situation.
A glaring white sheet of note paper that lay to his left demanded his attention, and he was determined to ignore it. Even so, his mind deciphered the bright red handwriting and announced its findings with a joy he found rather disturbing: $7.86!
Seven eighty-six. Seven dollars and eighty-six cents. Seven whole dollars and eighty-six precious little cents for the right to have his first meal of the month, eleven days into the month. Seven dollars and eighty-six cents more than he had.
A blond-haired, blue-eyed wisp of a girl bounded by, flashing a smile that seemed to say both “Was it good?” and “How about a nice little tip, huh? I’m paying my way to college, and. . .” And nothing. He could care less what she was putting his money towards, because he couldn’t pay. Not that he wouldn’t pay; no, Rufus McCoran is many things, but a thief is not one of them, no sir, he would pay, pay to the last little cent if he had it. But he didn’t, and a twinge of shame rattled him as he wondered if he ever would have anything again. He could feel his toes tapping the floor, ever so ready to push him towards the restaurant door and away from that accusing piece of paper and the waitress that wrote it. He bolted.
It was almost a clean getaway. None of the other patrons bothered to turn their heads as the small, mishapen lump of a man suddenly sprang from his table towards the door like a starved dog released from its kennel. His gait, though awkward and halting, was nearly silent. But the hat, perhaps taller and straighter in the past, but now crumpled and clinging on by the virtue of his matted gray hair, slipped off in mid-stride and planted itself into a bowl of rice and gravy. The gravy splattered, the room froze, and all eyes descended on the beefy, blue-uniformed (with a smattering of white gravy) man with thick, red jowls and look of forming indignation. He stood to his feet, turned to the quivering creature that stood halfway through the front door, and tapped the silver shield affixed to his breast.
Rufus could hear the officer bellowing at him, could feel the air expanding and compressing rapidly around him, could even taste the scent of rice and gravy that wafted towards him in waves. But his eyes remained transfixed on his hat, foundering like a ship on rocks of rice in an sea of gravy. Why the hat? Why not his whole head? Maybe the lawman would prefer brain of hobo, stuffed with years of heartache, regret, and sprinkled with generous amounts of despair?
The cold air outside mixed dangerously with the warmth of the diner, spinning and twisting violently, beckoning him to run away, leave the filthy hat as a token of repentance, and live to starve another day. His right foot crunched atop snow, edging forcefully into the bitter cold. His left planted itself on the carpet, sounding the age old adage: no man left behind. Or hat. Suddenly, the hat disappeared from view, replaced by the far too close vision of a man in the throes of anger.
“YOU WANNA SPEND A NIGHT IN COUNTY! DO YOU! I SAID ANSWER ME!” The officer pushed his fat finger an inch deep into Rufus’ neck. Rufus forced himself to speak, as much as his suddenly malfunctioning brain allowed at least.
“N-N-No, sir! I’m-m, uh, I’m sorry!”
Rufus felt his feet leave the ground and his body float, almost weightless, back into the diner, up against the wall, and away from the safety of the outside world. As the man’s hand closed around Rufus’ throat, the sleeve of his shirt pulled away to reveal a rippling bicep and stone-hard forearm.
“You gonna pay for my shirt to be cleaned? My wife don’t take well to extra work! You gonna pay for my dinner? You gonna pay, chump?”
To his horror, the waitress reappeared, her eyes twisted into derision and a scowl etched across her lips. She held up the red-marked slip of paper that Rufus had done his best to ignore, and shoved it an inch away from his face.
“He’d have to pay me first, Eddie. This creep was set to bail on us.”
“No!” Rufus pushed the ticket away, tears welling up. He put his hands on his uncomfortably cold head, and started to pull nervously at his pale thinning hair.
“Please, I’m sorry, I was just going outside to get my wallet from my car,” he said, then broke into a fit of coughing as the fingers around his neck tightened.
By this time, every person in the diner had forgotten all about the reason they were there, preferring the delight of watching this hobo get arrested very publicly, and with a little luck, perhaps violently. Rufus felt a pang of anger flash through him, not at the thought that everyone in the room was excited at the prospect of him suffering, but that they would ignore the food in front of them. They probably ate every single day, three wonderful times a day, probably even more by the looks of a few of them.
The officer began to move, and his motion suddenly grabbed every part of Rufus’ attention: his free hand balled into a fist the size of a beachball, and the arm it rode on swung back in a long, deliberate arc.
“Maybe a knock upside your head’ll learn you something ‘bout paying your bills.”
Rufus closed his eyes, and felt the man’s weight shift forward, pushing him harder against the wall.
“Stop!”