All the Importance of Breakfast

 “The omelette, it’s good?” Paul asked. 

 “It’s good.” The waiter offered a scant smile. The type that wouldn’t lead anyone in any meaningful direction, just a lifting of his mustached lips. 

 “Good like I’ll like it?” 

 “Most people seem satisfied.” The waiter looked to his left at another table. Some small family trying to flag him down, ask him a question, demand more bread, and in return offer a larger tip. And as the waiter entertained Paul that tip grew steadily measlier. 

 “Do I look like most people?” Paul asked. The waiter turned his eyes to look straight at the portly man. 

 “I don’t know, I suppose so.” 

 “So like most people, I would be happy with the omelette.” 

 “Could you be happy with it, yes. Will you?” The waiter shrugged his shoulders. “So is life.” 

 “And if I do buy it.” Paul lifted his menu and stared at the omelette with the frilly name and laminated picture next to it. “If I do pay $12.74 for three eggs and ham and a little bit of spinach, I could be happy?” 

 “Maybe.” The waiter shook his head, disinterested. 

 “Happier than if I were to say, buy a short stack of buttermilk pancakes with syrup and a half slice of orange as a garnish?” 

 “What a man can be happy with, I can’t say. I could be happy with a box of crackers and cold water. And maybe I’d be happier with tinsel between my teeth but I don’t know because I haven’t eaten a Christmas tree.” 

 “Ah so that’s the riddle.” Paul turned a page of the menu. “So focused on food I forgot to consider there might be a trick answer.” 

 “A gimmick answer to what’s for breakfast?” The waiter crossed his arms. 

 “You asked me what I’d like.” Paul looked up at the waiter with big, bloodshot eyes set in his too wide face. “I said I’d like to be happy. You told me breakfast would help.” 

 “Sometimes it does.” The waiter looked away. 

 “That table over there.” Paul waved his menu at the table behind the waiter. “They look content. What did they get?” 

 “Food that we serve.” 

 “Looks like a waffle, would that be something I’d like.” 

 “Maybe a man like you would like it, as for you, specifically, I don’t know.” The waiter turned back to Paul and leaned an inch closer over the table. “I don’t know you.” 

 “She got a parfait, parfait for breakfast. Wow, haven’t seen that in a while. Just like 2006. Feels like an 06 thing, no?” 

 “I was twelve and rather unbothered with the world at the time so I couldn’t tell you.” The waiter turned back to look at the parfait. When the family saw him looking they waved and he was forced to raise his hand in a small gesture to acknowledge them. “I’ll be there in a moment.” He smiled at them before he turned back to Paul. “Please, my friend, your order.” 

 “We’re friends?” 

 “At this point we must be.” The waiter placed his fingers on the table, splayed across the cloth. 

 “If you’re my friend, what would make my day?” Paul asked. The waiter licked his lips. 

 “You’re indecisive, it’s the nature of man. I myself enjoy steak and eggs, sometimes I do opt for the short stack. Always been a benedict man myself. Love eggs. Chilaquiles.” The waiter shook his head. “Just eggs and bread and sausage. Can’t go wrong. That’s what I like.” 

 “But what would I want?” Paul asked. The waiter just stared, stared long enough to blink a couple of times. “It’s a serious decision.” 

 “No, I'm sure.” The waiter raised himself back up to his full height and pinched the bridge of his nose, placing his fingers just next to his closed eyes. 

 “Can’t be undone.” 

 “We’ve never had a dish sent back, so true.” The waiter ran his hand from his nose over his closely shaved scalp. 

 “I can’t be the first then.”  

 “What a shame it would be.” The waiter put both of his hands atop his head and stared at the dull white ceiling. Paul picked up his menu again. 

 “Of course, biscuits and gravy is inoffensive. Hard to mess up. Cheap.” Paul rubbed his chin. “Is that a good choice?” 

 “Yes.” 

 “Good like it’ll change my life or good like it’s your job to say everything’s good.” 

 “I enjoy my job most of the time.” The waiter rolled his eyes. 

 “Moreso now that I’m here?” Paul gave the waiter a toothy grin. 

 “You believe in tipping?” 

 “I spent a week abroad in 09 and I’ve felt very European since.” Paul beamed so wide that his eyes shuttered as part of the look. The waiter just stared, he didn’t even bother to hide any part of his feeling from the man. He couldn’t stand him, and that exhaustion wore into apathy across his face. 

 “Where’d you go?” the waiter asked. 

 “Vermont.” 

 “You from Canada at least?” 

 “Cincinnati, go Bengals.” Paul grinned and pumped his fist. 

 “I can’t help but notice that you’re stalling.” 

 “I’m thinking.” Paul laughed and turned his attention back to the menu. 

 “You don’t know what you want.” 

 “I’m getting there.” Paul looked up. A bead of sweat broke free from his forehead and traced a salted line along the orbital bones of his face. 

 “No you’re not.” The waiter shook his head. He held out his arm. “Your menu if you’re not going to order.” 

 “I am.” Paul nodded. “I swear, I just, you ever heard of Dan Silverman? Good friend of mine. Now he swore by a bowl of cereal and an orange every morning.” Paul put his menu down and leaned on it with his elbow. “Would that be something I could get?” 

 “That’s what you want?” 

 “That’s what I want. No take backs. That’s my decision.” Paul made a cross with his arms and broke it to affirm his choice. 

 “Terrible choice, Sir,” the waiter said. Paul started to blubber, waving his arms, promising that he would pick something better. Shaking his hands in prayer. The waiter didn’t look at him, not this time, not the time before, he never did. He just reached back into his waistband, grabbed the familiar grip and swung around his pistol, firing just once. Nothing else was necessary. Just one pop and Paul’s world broke apart. 

 Sometimes he felt like he could experience every part of dying. He’d shut his eyes real tight and feel the bullet entering his skull. The warmth of it making contact with his skin. A dull burrowing sensation. A droning, never ending scraping scream. Until at some point in the process the pain, the splitting pain of his skull being forced apart by hot metal, would stop. 

 As it did again. The noise that filled his ears so far beyond the brim that he couldn’t think, it was gone. And Paul opened his eyes to the same diner, the same family gnawing away at their waffles and yogurt, laughing. The same waiter with the shaved head and the dark moustache standing over him, pen and pad in hand.    

 “Good morning Sir, what would you like?”