英文&搬运｜英文原文：我在一家餐馆做服务生，我觉得我们的一个常客可能是魔鬼

I work as a waitress at a diner, and I think one of our regulars might be the devil

作者：Coney-IslandQueen

翻译：

I work at a rest-stop diner in a town people pass through as quick as they can on their way to something, or someone, better. It’s called Lucky’s, which is a little ironic because if you’ve ended up here you’re anything but. If you stay too long the dust settles. Working at Lucky’s you never see the same licence plates twice, or faces for that matter. I’ve lost count of the amount of times the answer to my “Where you heading?” has been “Anywhere but back.” The lights flicker more often than not, and the jukebox sometimes spits out songs that aren't on the index cards, but the coffee’s hot, and most people who try them say the pancakes are the best they’ll ever have, and I’m inclined to agree.

The embroidered name tag on my uniform reads Isabella, but that ain’t even close to my real name. It was my mom's. Lucky’s has been here a long time. I wear it because I like hearing her name said by other people. It’s like she’s still here, still coming up in conversation. Like she might walk through the door any second and isn’t buried in the cemetery just past the strip club.

Lucky’s is also always open. Always. Working long shifts serving drifters and truckers and runaways, those who have become impermanent out on the highways, you get to know how to read people pretty quick. When you move around that much, always on the road, you leave parts of yourself behind sometimes, lost between the miles. Sometimes, people are just driving because there’s nothing else left to do. Working at Lucky’s I’ve seen all sorts of lost things.

I once saw a man hit a deer with his truck and pull over to bury it in the red dirt, digging as the sun went down, tears a steady flow down his face as he fought the ground to cover up what he had done. I once had a man I recognised from the news leave me a blood stained $20 as a tip, sad-eyed in a denim jacket that barely hid the gun taped to his ribs. I once saw a one-armed girl no more than sixteen stand up on the roof of her car and sing, until a coyote came and sat in front of the hood, howling along. I once saw two women fistfight in the parking lot in the night outside, until one was spitting blood and teeth and then they kissed in the blue lights of the police car that happened to pass them by, faces lit up red and shining.

I’ve seen the highway on fire, lines of flames between tires as the asphalt set itself alight in the heat. I’ve seen roadside baptisms, preacher pulled up with a van and a kiddie pool. I’ve seen things walking out in the desert just beyond reach of the neon sign for the motel that don’t look quite like people, shifting out in the blue night. I met a woman who showed me a photograph of the place she was buried. I often meet people who you talk with a while until their faces start to flicker, can’t quite hold up the pretence that long. I’ve met people who have to be invited inside, before they can cross the threshold. I’ve met some lovely members of a sacrificial cult who tipped well and were oh so polite, even when they asked me if I’d consider letting them harvest me.

But this is a story about - well, you read the title.

It was a Friday and I was working a night shift. I prefer nights, because when I drive home I can pretend for a while that I’m going to follow the taillights of the car in front until I leave everything in my rearview mirror, until it gets light and the desert changes to ocean, like if I rolled my windows all the way down I’d taste salt on the air. That, and I’m one of the only waitresses, shall we say, qualified, to deal with the night customers. Besides, tips are always better when the moon is out. We only have three true regulars in Lucky’s, and only two had showed so far.

Rose-Marie, our first and most frequent regular, was sat by the window in her brown fur coat, always drawn about her shoulders come rain or shine. Not that it ever rained here. Her hair was long and white down her back, like the moon through a glass. She waved over to me, gracing me with a wink that made her crows feet deepen, all the more beautiful for it. Rose-Marie liked whiskey in her tea. Sometimes, she fed cake crumbs to the voodoo dolls she carried in her pockets. She was also a chronic insomniac and liked the company of Lucky’s when sleep was hiding from her.

She continued to shuffle through the deck of cards she had already set up on the table top. I watched her thumbs flipping over two jokers. Rose-Marie liked to divine the future, when she had the time. She used a frayed pack of hotel playing cards, and if she was in a good mood she’d read your coffee grounds. I didn’t ask her too much, because those coffee grounds had a startling way of coming true.

Table 6 was empty, and spotless as usual. It was the only table without a salt shaker, and the only one I never placed cutlery on. Only one person ever sat there.

Our second regular, Jones, was sat in his usual booth, dregs of his black coffee held tight between his hands, badge resting on the table. He had his eyes closed, head bent down like he was repenting, steam curling off the lip of the mug and wrapping round his fingers. Jones was my favourite of our customers, not that I’d ever tell him. I walked past the booth and slid a bowl of sugar packets along the tabletop until it hit the mug with a soft clink. He jumped, reaching for his holster out of habit, until his eyes focused and he saw me.

He smiled, embarrassed, and it changed his face, dragging him back to life. When he smiled it was like a storm in a drought, made you want to stand and watch, and maybe stay out in it just a while longer. I wanted to put my hands over his where they had resumed their place on the mug, to feel the second hand heat through his palms.

Sometimes I can sense the sad in people just by the feel of their skin. They carry it around with them, bone deep, trying to hide it from the world. But sometimes you can lift it from them for a minute or two, if you have enough kindness spare. It doesn’t take much, most times. Jones was too young to be that sad. And yet.

“Tired today?” I gestured with the coffee pot to his half empty cup. Everyone knew about the little girl he’d pulled from the dumpsters outside the swimming pool last week. She was the fifth one missing in three months. I could tell from the shadows like purple thumb prints beneath his eyes he’d been dreaming about her. She’d been found without her shoes on. He’d carried her to the ambulance in her socks, pink with little daisies on ‘em, small in his arms like she was asleep.

Lou the fry cook had cried when I’d told him that the other day. I really liked Lou. He was almost too big to fit through the service door, and had a tattoo of his dog just below the one of the angel of death on his shoulder. Lou sheds a tear for most things. The dead racoons we’re always finding by the backdoor with their hands missing. Whenever there’s a new missing poster plastered over the cracked glass of the phone booth in the parking lot. Every time he hears I Will Forever Hate Roses when it decides to pop up on the jukebox. Big guy, bigger heart.

“Always tired,” Jones said as I poured. Another girl had gone missing yesterday. As I poured, I made sure to brush his thumb where it rested on the cup handle with the inside of my wrist, lifting out that sadness as far as I could. He smiled up at me, shy, and I smiled back before I could stop myself.

I walked on to the next booth, two truckers with faces that had seen too much sun. One was showing the other the photos of his new baby in his wallet. He had tobacco stained teeth, a scab on his cheek and wind-chapped lips - and his smile was the most beautiful damn thing as he talked about his kid, lit up like christmas morning. He showed me too as I refilled his coffee, and I stayed and talked to them a while.

The other trucker, with gold back teeth, told me how he’d used to drive pigs, but couldn't handle the guilt when he handed them over to the slaughterhouse. Said he’d look right into their pink faces through the slats and their eyes looked right back, bright and pleading like they knew what he’d done. Said he still dreamt about them. Now he drove freezers of seafood, specialty deliveries for fancy hotels. He’d never seen the ocean.

Lou slammed the bell from the depths of the kitchen and I got back to work, taking orders from a woman with a Labrador who ordered hot dogs for them both, and three teenage boys in their blood-stained varsity jackets in the corner, who had ten dollars between them and asked for as many waffles as they could get.

They often came in on full moons, leaving their bikes chained up in the parking lot. They were always hunting something, with their baseball bats, backpacks filled with bullets and their daddies’ guns, but they were nice kids so I always gave them extra scoops of ice-cream. Besides, I knew they needed the energy, because when they were hunting they had to run fast. Real fast. There used to be four of them.

I cleared the table from the two women at the next booth on my way back. They looked to be twins, both dressed in long silk skirts and hiking boots, red hair piled up messy on top of their heads.

Neither acknowledged me, not out of rudeness but because they were too preoccupied, packing up their bags, overspilling with maps and notebooks. I spied a roll of duct tape and a bottle of vodka in there too, along with some stakes and crucifixes. They were deep in conversation, waving their hands and I caught a little of it as I stacked their empty glasses, lipsticked round the rims.

“I know where I buried him Sylvia-,” “You don’t know jackshit! We dug for hours, and-”

My mom always taught me eavesdropping was rude, so I left them to it and headed into the kitchen. But I got the sense that wherever they had left, whoever he was, he certainly wasn’t there no more. I felt like telling them, but like my mom said, it’s not polite to listen to other people’s conversations. You never know what you’ll wish you hadn’t heard.

Lou was dancing to the radio, swaying his hips to Sugar Hill as Dolly sang down the wires. He waved at me with the spatula he was using as a microphone.

Carlos handed me a plate of pancakes.

Carlos had worked here so long he’d known my Mom, and was the only one who new my real name. He sometimes came with me on the weekends to change the flowers on her grave. He always brought her desert flowers, growing from the same earth she was. Carlos was also the only one who knew the recipe for the Lucky’s pancakes, and the only one that could cook them right. On days when he wasn’t working, we had no pancakes. Simple as. That was just the way it went. I’d learnt that the hard way, but that’s another story.

Along with the pancakes, came a warning.

“He’s back.” He gestured through the doors. “Table 6.”

Our final regular had showed. It had been a while since he’d been around. I hadn’t even seen him come in, but that wasn’t unusual. He moved in mysterious ways. I raised an eyebrow. Shit. Carlos raised one back. Oh shit. He tossed me the salt with a grimace, and I filled the pockets of my apron. Lou banged around in one of the staff lockers for a moment, until he emerged triumphant, waving a bible that had definitely seen better days. He placed in on the counter next to the syrup jugs and flipped to a random page.

We leant over his huge shoulders to read what it said. “Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked.” Lou shrugged and patted me on the shoulder.

I don’t get paid enough for this shit.

I took the pancakes to table 6, which had been empty the last time I’d looked. It was now very much occupied. The man sat at table 6 was smiling as I walked over. If you could call it a smile. It was more like rictus, lips straining deep red at the corners of his face. His eyes kept darting from side to side, too fast to count, like his pupils couldn't make up their mind where they should be. His hands shook as I got closer, hovering like flies on a carcass.

I tried to lean as far away from him as I could as I placed the plate on the tabletop, but as I pulled my hands away he darted his neck out fast, whipping his head up and tilting his face towards me. He sniffed in, hard, eyelids fluttering. He giggled, shrill like it was stuck on the roof of his mouth. I recoiled, trying to hide the urge I had to run back to the kitchen. There’s something about hearing a grown man giggle that makes the skin crawl.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked, faking bright.

“I’d take your name.” He gripped one of the pancakes in his fist, turning it to mush.

I tapped the name tag on my uniform. He shook his head, grinning, shoulders almost vibrating with this strange fluid roll as his smile slipped for a second, front teeth jutting suddenly, tongue sharply poking out. Filth was caked under his nails, red like the dirt on the sides of the road. Then he was smiling again, swaying slowly from side to side, feral, in his hunting jacket. His hair hung in greasy strings around his ears, like blonde rattails, and they swung with him, back and forth.

“Isabella, Isabella, Isabella. It don’t suit.” He suddenly slammed his hand up to his face, shovelling the crushed pancake into the gaping hole of his wide mouth. I jerked back, the movement was so sudden. I shoved my hands into my apron, reaching for the salt, and his eyes narrowed.

“There’s no need for that,” came a voice from behind me. It rolled across my shoulders, deep, to the bone. Mr Prince.

I turned to face our third regular, relief mixing with fear in a swirling pit in my chest. Kinda like that feeling you get at a fairground in midsummer, when you’ve been on a carousel too long, and part of you knows you need to get off, but the other part doesn’t want to leave because you know as soon as you stand still you’re gonna be sick. Mr. Prince had that effect on people.

Mr. Prince was dressed, as always, in his black pinstripe. His stetson was darker than the night outside, and his boots shone like they were wet. If you didn’t notice the upside down crucifixes embroidered daintily onto his custom lapels, you’d think he was just a man with money, maybe mixed up in something a little shady, like oil, or pharmaceuticals. He was handsome by the way of his jaw, with his bone white smile, but his black sunglasses were balanced on the bridge of his nose, silver rimmed and gleaming, hiding his eyes as usual. When he spoke it was a drawl, dragged up from the depths of the South.

“I’m sorry for my… acquaintance. He’s a little…” Mr Prince glanced at the man sat at table 6 as he panted with his tongue hung out, like a dog. “…over excited.” Mr Prince sat down and the lights above the booth flickered. He tilted his hat back on his head and the jukebox coughed and skipped, and suddenly Robert Johnson was on and singing about that damn crossroad again. Mr Prince popped a Marlboro Red between his teeth, and pushed the window open a sliver with the knuckles of his left hand. The silver pentagram ring on his wedding finger clacked against the glass.

Mr. Prince smiled, the way snakes do when they’re watching you from the grass on their bellies. The cigarette was now smoking between his teeth, although he hadn’t moved.

“Besides, Leroy ain’t the type for salt. He’s just a man.” He looked him up and down and his top lip curled. “Barely.” He turned to Leroy. “I see you started on my pancakes. But what’s the point of good food if it ain’t for sharing.” Leroy giggled that strange high sound that made me want to run, and shook a little. Everything about Leroy made me nervous, fight or flight getting ready to flood my system.

Mr Prince handed Leroy a menu. “Order whatever you want.” He leant forward and the lights flickered.

Leroy ordered four cheeseburgers, and glass of milk. “Well, if that’s all!” I managed. I could feel Leroy’s eyes clinging to my back as I left. Rose-Marie waved me over before I could get back to the safety of the kitchen.

“I wouldn’t worry about him, darlin’.” She crossed herself, and tapped the card on top of the pile. The Jack of Spades. It had its eyes scratched out. But not by Rose-Marie. It looked like it had been printed that way for years. “We won’t be seeing him again.” She wasn’t talking about Mr. Prince. She cupped my cheek and I leant into it, her hand rough with age, but warm. I could tell she thought I looked tired. She paid for her tea and toast, and walked out into the warm night waiting outside the doors.

I finally made it back into the kitchen and was immediately attacked. Cold water doused me in the face and I threw up my arms on instinct, trying to protect my hair. Lou aggressively squirted me in the face with the spray bottle we also kept in the staff locker, the kind you use for tending house plants. Ours was filled with holy water.

“Lou! Jesus fuckin’ Christ, get off I’m-“ I sputtered, and he sprayed me again. I spat holy water out, dripping down the front of my dress and wiped it from my eyes, makeup running a little. I grabbed the bottle from his hands. “I think I’m good.” I wasn’t really mad though, better safe than sorry, especially when it comes to possession.

“Sorry! Just checkin’.” Lou sheepishly handed me a dish towel. “Already did me ’n’ Carlos.” He looked down at his shoes, awkward. He was a foot taller than me and a decade older, and I hid my smile because he was twisting the toe of his boot back and forth like a little kid been kept after class.

Carlos kept his eyes firmly fixed on his hands as he started flipping patties, but I could sense him holding back a laugh, desperately clenching his teeth. I narrowed my eyes and aimed the spray bottle at him. “Maybe you need some more,” I threatened. Lou snorted and then Carlos was laughing and I was too, and that heavy feeling that had hovered over us since Mr. Prince had walked in lifted.

Sometimes when things get too dark, all you can do is laugh. Mom always said that when shit gets rough, you can either choose to laugh or cry. I never saw my mother cry.

It was coming up on 3 in the morning as I took the burgers back to table 6. Leroy visibly drooled and clapped his hands as I walked over. I put the plate in front of him as quick as I could but as I pulled back, his head darted forward and he licked the inside of my wrist. His tongue was long and wet against my pulse. I recoiled like I’d been bitten and he laughed, shrill and manic.

“You taste better than they will,” he said, grinning and gesturing to the burgers. Mr. Prince watched this unfold, calm and unreadable like the sky before summer lighting burns down a tree. I frantically wiped my arm on my apron, but I could still feel that tongue on my skin as if I’d left my hand in his mouth. I fought off the tears that suddenly burned at the corners of my eyes, because something told me Leroy would enjoy them just a little too much. I shuddered, and cleared Mr. Prince’s plate.

“Tell Carlos the pancakes were… good as hell,” he said, from behind his sunglasses. Then he chuckled, low and raspy, as if something he’d said was funny. He popped another Marlbro between his teeth and it started to glow, as Leroy shovelled meat down his throat. I tried not to gag as I watched it clog beneath his long nails.

I walked by Jones on my way back. He waved me over, eyes creased with worry. He ran a hand over his face, as if he was trying to wipe all the bad things away.

“Is he botherin’ you?” He gestured over to Leroy who was rocking back and forth drinking his milk. Jones suddenly looked so tired, uniform creased as his face, looking fifty instead of his twenty two. “Nothing I can’t handle,” I shook my head and thought about Rose-Marie. “We won’t be seeing him again.”

It felt like hours waiting for Leroy to finish. I took the order of a man with a butterfly tattooed on his neck, and some truckers pouring Jim Beam into their coffee. They asked me for an extra cup which they placed at the empty seat on their table, for absent friends, they said. I cleaned down the counter top, restocked the sugar packets, and took out the trash, ignoring the man in the rabbit mask that often waits out by the dumpsters. As long as you don’t look at him, he doesn’t bother you. I refilled coffee cups, and took the orders of the large group of biker girls that came in, leather clad and road weary.

At 3:03am, Mr. Prince stood. Leroy had licked his plate clean and was sitting still, staring up at him with his teeth bared in a smile, hands gripping the table top so hard his knuckles were going white as milk. Mr. Prince handed me a roll of bills wrapped in black plastic that I knew better than to count. He tipped his hat.

“See Leroy. We all gotta pay eventually,” he said. He leaned in and spoke softly. “For I will not acquit the wicked,” he smiled. He held out his hand to Leroy, palm flat, waiting. Leroy’s hands shook as he reached into his hunting jacket and pulled out a pair of shoes. A child’s shoes, small enough that both could fit in one hand. Little pink sneakers, dirty, with brown stains on the toes that I knew could only be one thing. Mr Prince considered them a moment, under the lights, and shook his head.

He seemed like he was sorry, before he handed them to me. “For your man over there. Tell him to dig deeper where they looked last.” He nodded to Jones, who was watching us, his badge gripped in his hand. But Jones knew better than to come over.

Mr. Prince turned to Leroy and grinned around his cigarette. “We’ve got a ways to go, the road we’re takin’. They say it’s paved with good intentions.” He chuckled, and I felt sick to my stomach. He took Leroy’s hand, like a child, and they walked out into the night, warm and waiting. The doors swung shut behind them, even though nobody had touched them. The jukebox sputtered, and Chris Rea was on, singing about that road again.

I placed the shoes on the table by Jone’s empty coffee cup, and passed on the message. He sat still for a long time after, just watching them on the table top, trying not to cry or scream or punch a hole in the plaster. All I could do was refill his coffee, because when someone is trying to hold themselves together like that, there’s nothing left to say.

My shift ended, and I drove myself home, following the taillights in front of me. I knew when I woke up it would be dark, and it would be time for my next shift, but for now, I just drove, dreaming about the ocean and watching the sun come up, like it always does, despite everything.