The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe R. Lansdale Page B

half-eaten bag of generic-brand potato chips clutched to their chests.
    Then again, here I was judging people I didn't even know. I was starting to be just like the people I despised. They were probably a couple of nuclear physicists on vacation, stopping in here to soak up the homey atmosphere.
    I had to quit judging. Quit being unfair. And I had to face what I was really worked up about. Knowing I'd probably see Florida and have all the old feelings again. And it was cold, and I didn't like it. And I had fewer future prospects than the smallpox virus. In final analysis, I had a hard-on for the world and no place to put it.
    I noticed one of the physicists had turned in the booth and the other was leaning out on his side, looking not just at me, but past me. I looked where they were looking, and I could see through the plate glass window, between the fly specks, Leonard's car. He was visible behind the wheel, his head back on the seat dozing.
    I began to have those prejudgment thoughts again.
    I took a deep breath and let it slide. I tried to remember and paraphrase a comforting Bible verse. "Judge not others, lest ye be judged.” Something like that. I also remembered a verse my daddy told me. "You end up havin' to hit some sonofabitch, don't just hit him once, and don't just hit to get his attention."
    A fiftyish lady who might have been pretty if she'd had enough energy to hold herself straighter and her hair wasn't oily and stuck to her cheeks, came out of the back wiping wet flour on her apron. "What can I get you?"
    "Couple hamburgers and large coffees to go. Some potato chips."
    "It's early for hamburgers," she said.
    "I missed breakfast. Got any fried pies?"
    "No. We sell some candy at the register. Peanut patties, Tootsie Rolls, Mounds, Snickers, Milky Way. That's it."
    "All right. Couple of peanut patties."
    "That nigger out there will want more'n a couple of them patties," said one of the men in the back. "A nigger likes a peanut pattie. Next to what a woman's got, and a watermelon, ain't much they like better."
    "And loose shoes," said the other fella. "And a warm place to shit."
    "Boys," said the woman, "you watch your language in here."
    I looked at them and smiled sadly. I began to understand why so many clichés persist. Too much truth in them. I gave them a real looksee for the first time.
    Big motherfuckers. Not physicists. They looked like human bookends for the Adult Western Novel shelf. Both rednecked and stupid. The one talking almost had a mustache, or maybe he just hadn't quite got shaving down yet. I wished, just once in a while, the guys wanted to harass me or whip my ass would be short. Kind of small. Weak even. In business suits. Yankees. That would make things a little more all right.
    Better yet, I wished those dudes would just leave me alone. What was it about me that I was the one always stepped in the doo-doo? If I walked ten miles around a cow lot to keep the manure off my shoes, I'd manage to find a fresh heap of dog shit to put my foot in.
    "Better give me a couple creams to go with that coffee," I told the lady.
    "Nigger working for you?" said the other man. This one was not a bad-looking guy, but he had a tavern tumor that was threatening the buttons on his paisley shirt, and a kind of smirk like he'd been corn-holing your wife and she'd told him to tell you so.
    The lady said, "Boys, y'all ought to go hang out somewhere else.” Then to me: "I'll just be a minute. You want those well-done, don't you?"
    I spoke so only she could hear. "Actually, I'd like them about as quick as I can get them."
    She smiled. "They don't mean no harm. They just don't like niggers."
    "Ah."
    Now I felt better.
    I glanced out at Leonard. He was really snoozing. In fact, he might have been hibernating. Great. Here I was with the hippo twins, and the Smartest Nigger in the World was tucked in for the winter.
    The boys came over and sat on stools on either side of me.
    "I ain't seen you before," said Paisley