Leroy's (part 23)

Mungo opened both the double doors to Leroy's Family Diner, found a menu and turned to the side orders. A middle aged skinny Korean waitress, Lee, asked, "Just to-go this time?" Mungo said the order would be a sausage pattie. He waited quietly in the booth nearest the till and paid the $4 given to him by his hungry drunk roommate, Julie. Driving it home to her, the smell of the sausage in his passenger seat was slowly driving him mad.
Mungo parked in the driveway, left the car running and went into the Romanzof Half where R.J. had fallen asleep on the kitchen floor. She told him to put the sausage in the fridge and refused to be moved from where she lie. He did as requested and not caring too much for his roommate at the moment, left her as she asked. He returned to Leroy's where he hoped to get some writing done.
Mungo's book, Highway 9, was coming along slowly. He had recently finished past all his old notes and was now writing from raw memory and an outline, albiet, a crazy-detailed outline. Lee was working as the second waitress of the night, it being a weekend graveyard and the bar rush was anticipated to be high volume. The first waitress, PrettyLiz, saw Mungo sitting at his typical counter stool and asked him to move into her section, which he did, finding a seat next to the big screen tv showing old war movies on AMC. He wrote a scene inwhich he teaches his friend, code-named Hannah, how to take pictures with a manual camera, specifically covering the mechanics of depth of field, one of Mungo's favorite aestetic photo phlavors. He related D.o.F to life in a way he first thought to be meaningful, and then realizing it was a lame attempt at depth of literary theme, scribbled it out in the name of good taste.
Four or five hours into his stay at Leroy's PrettyLiz refilled his coffee and dropped off a napkin saying, "Here, you got a note." Mungo read the note which was written in black ball point: "Erik- You are a BOOB. Come sit with us. We have boobs too. Liz." The note was from BlondeLiz who was sitting on Lee's side of Leroy's. Mungo wrote a note back which said, "Liz- Yes, I know you have boobs. I stared at them when you came in. I'll be over after a while, I'm almost done here. -Erik (BOOB)" He handed the napkin to PrettyLiz on her next pass of the counter and went back to do some final revisions of the flash forwards he had outlined to sporadically drop between the multiple chapters of his book. The flash forwards pretained to a road trip he took with Jill the last day they ever saw each other and it was important to have the time line correct, it was quite detailed and filled quite full of errors in it's present state. While reviewing the notes a second note from BlondeLiz came to him which said, "Erik- The time you have to spend with our boobs is severely limited. Get over here! -LizAgain." Mungo decided that his outline could wait, packed up his notes, and joined Roxy and BlondeLiz at their table, choosing to sit on Liz's side of the table.
Roxy shared her food with Mungo, no-doubtedly seeing how hungry he was and certainly knowing that he was broke and unable to buy anything other than coffee, and Mungo at the last half of her Monte Cristo ravonously. When Roxy left, she paid for Mungo's coffee, very sneaky-like. BlondeLiz and Mungo talked, for an hour, about her past and how it has led to her present and how it will be soon affecting her future. Her future is in San Francisco, but Mungo insisted that she not go, her past is too ugly and that her present is far healthier. It was strange advice for him to give, never having spoken to BlondeLiz in such length before hand.
Hamilton Hamilton came in around 6:00 a.m. and was introduced to Mungo. H.H. told Mungo about the 33 states he has visited, that he has been sober for 6 years and his life as a hobo, beach bum, bouncer, and para-trooper is over and has resigned himself to live clean as a drafter, electrician, and general carpendter. Mungo was impressed with his life story and was facinated with the poem Hamilton Hamilton had written about his life.
BlondeLiz told Mungo another facinating story, a disturbing one, and detailed beyond recollection, of Stacy, the day time waitress at Leroy's. It involved a counterfit $20 bill that arrived at the register one night last week and during the backround check of all Leroy's employee's, it was discovered that an 8 year old DUI had gone unresolved on Stacy's end, a warrent was immediately issued for her arrest, and she was apprehended soon after while waiting tables in the middle of the day.
PrettyLiz was relieved from having to pull an 18 hour shift by the owner, Mrs. Wan, and asked Mungo for a ride home, which he agreed to. Before he left he exchanged zilla's with BlondeLiz and told her to call him the next time she had a story to tell.
Driving PrettyLiz home proved to be a continuation of the night's theme, which was story telling, and her stories were fast, broad, and screamingly interesting ones. Exboyfriends, exroommates, cats, houses on fire, and all kinds of other topics. She left $3 in the center console of Mungo's car and said, "See you at work tonight," laughing.
Not knowing what to do with the next few hours before Mungo needed to be at work, he decided to stop back at Leroy's to see if BlondeLiz was still there, talking to whomever would listen. She was not and suddenly, Mungo's night was over. He decided, against his deepest wishes, to return to the Romanzof Half and write to his friends.
At the Half, he discovered no sleeping roommates on the floor and the uneaten sausage in the fridge, quagulated grease sitting solid in one corner of the styrofoam to-go dish.
After writing about his night, Mungo decided to nap for one hour before going to work, though, he's worried he'll over sleep, so he's setting two alarm clocks.

Peace and Love,
Mungo

Song of the day: "Neighborhood 2" - Arcade Fire