tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6531553.post8558741616503094065..comments2023-06-27T01:34:35.359-07:00Comments on Ted Burke LIKE IT OR NOT: There is little else but ill will circulating through the tubes of the internetTED BURKEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16610296721891201100noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6531553.post-15938961649072142582012-01-17T17:24:50.910-08:002012-01-17T17:24:50.910-08:00Scad was feeling rangy, packed tight as a can of s...Scad was feeling rangy, packed tight as a can of sardine insect, ready to squeeze forgotten pimples through sheer bottled-up will. He was trying to finish a 2 am breakfast at the Silver Gristle Diner, sitting in a booth across from Bobo, who he was escorting cross country to serve a life sentence for aggravated manslaughter with unextenuating bad taste.<br /><br />He flipped the metal prongs on the booth’s jukebox, looking for just the right tune. “How ‘bout ‘Deck of Cards?” he said to Bobo with a hysterical smile.<br /><br />“You play that and I will in fact kill you,” Bobo said with the calm of a great frozen sea. “No kidding this time.”<br /><br />Scad finished his meal. His bacon and eggs tasted like the final hours before Rowe v. Wade. The coffee was left over from a cancelled production of Macbeth. The fork had a bent tine and the salt shaker indicated that time had just about run out.<br /><br />Velt the waitress approached their booth with a huge steaming pot of coffee in her grip. She looked happy enough to pour the contents all over them. It was that kind of night.<br /><br />“You boys traveling,” she said?<br /><br />”I’m taking this fellow to prison to pay for a horrible crime,” said Scad with an incandescent gleam in his eyes. “We’re enjoying all the great food along the way.”<br /><br />Velt raised her pot higher in self-defense. “What??”<br /><br />“He’s a paranoid with homicidal tendencies,” said Scad as he glanced at Bobo. “I am too. That’s why I was hired to do the job – I NEVER sleep!”<br /><br />“But he’s not even in handcuffs…!”<br /><br />“Don’t need ‘em,” said Scad. “Where’s he gonna run – this whole diner is full of homicidal paranoids!”<br /><br />“Where would I run?” Bobo repeated, looking at the waitress as if she were a shovel or a piece of foam rubber.<br /><br />Velt glanced around and noticed that everyone else in the place looked brittle and flaccid at once, like faces on a hunk of Silly Putty. They picked up their knives and forks behind the beat, as if guided by electric shocks administered from a satellite. One old man put down his change on his table, moved the pennies and dimes around to form a Masonic symbol, then looked straight at Veld and grinned until his face trembled. <br /><br />“This is the safest place in the world,” said Scad. “As least as long as we’re here.”<br /><br />“Got any toothpicks?” said Bobo.<br /><br />Velt poured the scalding hot coffee in a wide arc in front of her. Good thing her shift was almost over.Arno Hotel Literary Clubnoreply@blogger.com