Ryan Bradford hasn’t published fiction in some time, so I’m thrilled to drag his ass back into the story game. “The Usual” is paired with art from Ryan Evans, making it a lot of Ryan’s around here at the moment.
🖤AV
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The Usual
by Ryan Bradford
“So tell me about you,” I say. “Goddamn. Twenty years.” I whistle a long and descending note.
“In ten seconds that waitress is going to drop a tray of glasses,” Bill says.
I laugh, but then there’s a quick yelp and a crash.
My friend Bill looks tired. Eyes ringed and sunken, hair unkempt, mouth flakey at the corners. Definitely not what I was expecting. His recent photos showed a vibrant man, shiny and affluent. A little heavier than he was in high school, but who hasn’t put on some weight?
But this isn’t the Bill I’d seen from those posts. This Bill looks like absolute dog shit.
He sits across from me, looking at the menu but not reading it. He’s hurried, impatient. I think it’s drugs. He must be on drugs. I try to steer the conversation to good memories, like the time Sandy Broadwater got so drunk off Curaçao at the homecoming dance that she fell over and someone called an ambulance and then they canceled every other dance that year. Remember that, Bill? As I’m saying it, I realize it’s not a good memory at all.
“That guy over there, the old guy in the hoodie, he’s the only one who will do anything.”
I turn and watch an older Black man kneel next to the prone waitress.
I face Bill again.
“How did you know?”
“How did you know?” he says at the exact same time. I try to speak again, but Bill keeps mirroring me. Our words, harmonized.
How are you doing thatHow are you doing that
What’s going onWhat’s going on
Stop itStop it
I stop. Bill sighs and absentmindedly taps his finger on the laminated menu. He looks out the window.
“I’ve been living this same day for I don’t know how long,” he says. His voice quivers. “Every day, we do this. We meet at this diner. You order the chicken fried steak. You tell me it’s your Achilles heel whenever they have chicken fried steak on the menu. I’ve watched you eat that steak so many fucking times. The joy on your face with each bite just pathetic.”
“What—”
“—do you mean,” Bill finishes. He takes his sweaty glass of water and downs it in three gulps, ice and all. Bill sets the glass right back on the wet ring, exactly. I wait for him to say something. “I just can’t do this today,” he says, finally. Bill stands, runs his palms down his shirt, straightens his posture. “See you tomorrow,” he says.
I watch Bill exit the restaurant and stand on the curb outside. He checks his watch before looking in both directions, and then he launches himself onto the street beneath the wheels of the 14 city bus.
It takes hours for them to clean up Bill.
I return to the diner the next day, and Bill is not there. There’s also a different waitress than yesterday. She’s cleaning up the breakfast rush. She sets down her tray of half-empty water and orange juice to take my order.
I ask her about the other waitress who, I now realize, might have been the last person besides me to see Bill alive.
“She got the week off,” the new waitress tells me, and then lowers her voice. “Emotional distress.”
“Huh,” I say.
“Don’t know if you heard, but yesterday—”
“I know, I know. I was here.”
Her eyebrows rise in concern. I wish I hadn’t said anything, just ordered my usual, except my usual is chicken fried steak and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat chicken fried steak again. I scan the menu, trying to find something that’s not chicken fried steak.
“I’m sorry,” I stammer.
“No rush. You’re the only one here.” She’s wondering why I’d return.
“I’m actually not really hungry. Just coffee, I guess.” She nods, doesn’t write it down. Before she turns away, I touch her wrist. “He was a friend,” I say.
“I’m so sorry. I bet he was a good guy.”
“He was.” And then correct myself: “Is.”
“I’m going to go get your coffee.”
“Okay.”
I watch her pick up the tray holding the glasses. The liquids lap against the rims, jostling in harmony. She balances the tray on her palm with grace. She wouldn’t drop anything.
Outside, a bus rushes past. The 14 is always on time.
I go to the diner the day after that. And then the next day. I spend the entire following week sitting in the same booth Bill and I sat. The waitress now brings a piece of pie every time I order coffee, but doesn’t charge me for it.
“On the house,” she says.
“Thank you.” She walks away, giving me space to look out the window at all the passing vehicles.
This is my new usual: coffee, pie, and staring out the window.
One morning, Bill is outside! He’s dressed in the same clothes as when I last saw him. I press my palms and face against the diner’s window, bending my nose, leaving a greasy stain.
Bill stands on the curb, facing away with his hands crossed behind his back, sometimes rising to his tiptoes. I’m about to stand, rush out there, grab my friend by the shoulders, bring him in for a hug, but then a man who introduces himself as the restaurant owner takes a seat across from me in the booth.
“I know what you’re going through,” the owner says. “My brother died in a car accident, and I know that’s not the same, but I just wanted you to know that my heart goes out to you.”
He slides a gift certificate to his restaurant across the table. The amount is more than I could spend if I ate every meal here over the next year. He winks and raps his knuckles against the table, a cool sound effect. He then stands and shakes my hand before disappearing into the kitchen.
I look back at the street just in time to see the 14 bus sliding around a corner, disappearing from sight, and the man is gone.
My therapist says denial is one of the stages of grief, but I think he’s troubled that I’m not more sad.
“One of these days, he’s going to be there,” I say.
The therapist nods deeply and writes something on his notepad.
One day, there’s a father and son sitting in my booth. Our booth, I correct myself. The dad is middle-aged and wears a mustache surrounded by day-old facial scruff. He scrolls through his phone while his son, no older than eight, watches something animated on a tablet.
“Hi,” I say. The father looks up at me, alarmed. “It seems that you’re in my seat.”
“Your seat?”
“I usually sit here.”
The man snorts. “Buddy,” he says, “I don’t see your name on it.”
“Ask the manager. I come in here every day.”
“Daddy,” his kid says, finally looking up from his tablet. “Who is he?”
“It’s okay, kiddo,” he says. The man beckons me with his finger to come close. I lean down so we’re almost face to face, and he whispers: “Look, if you don’t walk away right now, I’m calling the manager.” He smiles, thin-lipped, and shoos me away with a flick of his wrist.
I take a step back. Does Bill ever have to put up with this asshole? I take a few deep breaths to calm myself.
“Well, if you’re not going to move—” I say. The guy keeps his eyes on his phone, ignoring me, so he doesn’t see it when I swoop in and grab his son beneath the armpits. “I’ll just move you myself.”
My back tweaks when I lift, but I’m surprised how easily the kid comes up. I’ve never hoisted a person before. Does Bill have kids? I can’t remember. It’s just as easy as lifting a dog. It’s a simple maneuver: I twist at the waist, float the kid over the backrest and plop him down into the adjoining booth. He doesn’t even scream.
“See?” I say to the father. “No big deal.”
The father stares, dumbfounded. I count the number of times his nostrils flare before he stands up. Three. He rockets up and is in my face so fast. Our noses almost touch. I can see the veins in his eyes. The man breathes hot air on my lips.
Do it, I think. Do whatever you’re going to do. Everything will be the same tomorrow.
Finally, the man backs off. He wrenches his kid—now crying—onto his feet. “Let’s go,” the man says, then he gets back in my face. “You’re going to be sorry.” They leave, dinging the bell above the door on the way out.
The kitchen staff gathered by the register and huddled together, watching me with big white eyes. One of the servers is on the phone. I raise my hands to show I mean no harm. “Everything’s cool!” I say, and force out a laugh.
I sit down and peruse the menu. Think I might do the chicken fried steak today. Out the window, across the street, I see the man with the kid talking to a beat cop. He’s pointing at me. Oh here we go again, I think.
The cop makes his way over, adjusting his hat as he crosses the street. The man and his son remain on the far side of the street. When the cop enters the diner, the kitchen staff all point at me and say, “That’s him,” even though he doesn’t ask.
“Sir, please stand up,” the cop says. He tells me we’re going down to the station to talk, and Mirandizes me while strapping on the cuffs. The cop holds me by the arm and leads me out of the restaurant. I go willingly because I know I can explain.
A police cruiser has pulled up, and a new cop is speaking to the man with the kid, writing in a notebook. The guy holding my arm clutches it harder, waiting for a break in the traffic to push me across the street to shove me into his buddy’s cruiser.
“Wait,” I say. “How long is this going to take? I’m supposed to meet a friend here.”
“Afraid you might have to reschedule,” the cop says, without looking at me.
“What time is it?” I ask.
The cop chews the side of his cheek for a moment—I see his jaw working through the skin. Then he pulls his phone from his pocket, and I see the time. With a quick motion, I twist out of his grip and shoulder him into the road. There’s a loud thump as he disappears under the wheels of the 14 city bus.
Always on time.
There are screams, and I know it’ll take a long time for anyone to clean up the mess.
I walk back into the diner, my hands still cuffed behind my back. I sit down at my booth. Our booth. The servers run outside. The line cooks watch me from their window, their mouths big.
I slam my forehead into the table. “Excuse me!” I call out. “Can a guy get some service around here? I think I’m going to go with the chicken fried steak! And a coffee!” I turn and look out the window again. A whole crowd, strobing in the red and blue flashing lights, stares back. I can’t be sure, but I think I see Bill out there.
“Wait!” I yell. “Make that two coffees!”
Ryan Bradford is a writer, journalist, and high school teacher in San Diego. His writing has appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Vice, Monkeybicycle, HAD, and New Dead Families. He is the author of the novel Horror Business and writes the newsletter AwkwardSD.
