PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

A friend of mine invited me to lunch in the new downstairs deli. He was friends with the family who runs it- two brothers and a sister- and he was all gung ho: "You're going to loove these people...they're really good cooks, they like food like we like- you know, good ol' normal American stuff." I couldn't make it, but promised to go there when I could.

So, I didn't go there for awhile, I like to let the kinks get worked out, you know the routine. One day, I decided to go have a burger. There was a short line, though it didn't take much observation to see that the woman taking my order was peculiarly unattractive; ratty hair, truly crooked teeth, and, yes, hairy lip, fat, sweaty. Standing there, mouth open, "Can I help yooou?"..."Is that aall?" There was this lip-tongue-tooth maneuver with a small clicking sound that had me mesmerized while I slurred out (feeling like I was facing Lurch, the Loch Ness Bessy) 'mushroom burger, please', sounding like a timid 2-year old standing in front of a bad breath machine. It didn’t take that much more observation to see who was doing the cooking…Bessy’s big brother Bork. He smiled the family scare into me with that piece of tongue between what was left of his teeth, and smiled even more, looking me right in the wide eye while he peeled the raw burger with two fingers, at the same time performing the spit-sucking family anthem. I was turning away to save myself when the meat began it’s sizzle dance, and I couldn’t help but think of all that hair on and in his nose. I had to look back, just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything, and he stopped the burger boogie by, eye-contact and big smiley pushing the thing into searville as if to say: ‘OOH HO Ho BoOy!- are you going to like this one!’. I looked out the window, thinking of things like cute little sparrow birdies and how pleasant the sun looked on the leaves outside, when a reptilian-sounding nasal hiss that resembled my name with a number of h’s randomly inserted into it got my attention; and there he was, bigger than steamy, sweaty life, handing me the paper-lined plate with the burger buger on it.

I had the comfort of the newspaper to distract me, and that lasted about half the sandwich, but the chips were small and greasy, reminding me of the beady eyes in and around me…themselves surrounded by oily, shiny skin. That was it, I didn’t like the way the thing tasted, the drink selection, or the fact that the Bad Hair Twins stood outside the window and smiled at me, watching me eat while they smoked cigar stubs and chewed tobacco at the same time.

So, no, I don’t think that’ll be a very popular lunch spot, at least not for me; but hey, it’s a big world, and if they were to open a similar place in, say, the Ukraine, or maybe Siberia, they might do just fine.