Doomsday Warrior 05 - America’s Last Declaration (10 page)

The diner stood in the center of a blacktop parking lot as if it were still 1989, as if the war had never occurred, as if it were still the old America now seen only on crumbling picture postcards. It was all chrome and glass with black and white stripes running down the sides, giving it an almost zebralike appearance. Above it a huge red neon sign flashed out JOE’S DINER, blinking on and off every two seconds. Huge picture windows ran around the entire structure and the two freefighters could see, even from several hundred yards away, that the place was packed. They descended the gravelly slope and made their way through the parking lot filled with a bizarre collection of vehicles—VW bugs, schoolbuses, trucks and tractor-trailers, and huge tail-finned cars, all standing side by side like some sort of twentieth century automotive museum. They were rusted halfway through and many had missing doors, hoods, even roofs—but they obviously worked. Somehow the damned things had been kept in running condition. Both men had seen many strange things in their travels, but this was unquestionably a new peak of madness in the myriad twists and turns that American culture had taken in the postwar world.

They hesitated at the entrance, looking at one another with raised eyebrows.

“Hungry?” Rock asked Archer.

“Fooood,” the mountain-sized man replied, licking his lips as the odors of sizzling meat and thick rich stews wafted through the walls.

“Well, let’s sample the chow,” the Doomsday Warrior said, pushing open the glass door.

Inside it was like a time warp as Rock in his Russian military khakis and Archer with his cavemanlike fur vest and deerskin pants walked into the crowded diner. Bobby-soxed teenage girls were dancing near a jukebox with their young men in jeans and turtleneck sweaters, twirling them around. They rocked to the tune of “Beat It,” their bodies soaked with sweat. The clock on the wall said 12:30—but incredibly the calendar with a yellowed pinup of Raquel Welch said July 1, 1989. Rock, with Archer trailing nervously behind him, sauntered up to the pink formica counter and sat down on one of a row of red stools that ran along the front. No one seemed to give them more than a brief glance which was hardly surprising as the dinner crowd were all dressed in full-fledged regalia from the last century. It was like a fashion show circa the late 1980’s, with men in full suits and ties sitting with their families at booths, happily chewing away. Their wives wore white, pink or green sweaters, their hair tied back in little bows, while the children were attired in miniature versions of Mom’s and Dad’s outfits. Each booth seemed to be a microcosm of a particular subculture from the old world. One table was crowded with men in cowboy hats and gold-buttoned embroidered shirts, another group wore baseball uniforms complete with team caps. Along the counter sat everything from Indians with feathered headdress to Wall Street executive types, attache cases at their sides. Rock wondered if they’d walked into a madhouse.

A blond waitress on the other side of the counter wiped a greasy hand on a stained white apron. She wore a white paper hat and was chewing gum as she held a griddlecake flipper in the other hand. A glass-encased menu hung on the pink wall behind her with a list of everything from Snar-lizard Stew to Buffalo Burgers to apple pie to choose from.

“What’ll you have, bub?” she asked with a sexy smile that revealed poorly capped rows of teeth in a heavily lipsticked mouth that chewed furiously on a piece of gum.

“Well, er, what do you got?” Rock asked.

“Can’t you read? Menu’s right on the wall,” the waitress snapped back. “Wait a second, I got a customer down the counter. Be right back.” She eyed Archer as the giant gingerly settled down on the stool next to Rock’s, which creaked with a loud groan.

The two freefighters craned their necks as they went down the list. “I think I’m going to have some of those burgers,” Rock said to his compatriot, having read about them but never having experienced their culinary delights.

“Archeer want steeeak. Looottts steeaks.” The waitress walked back over to them and smiled.

“Ready to order fellas?” she asked. “You get french fries and salad with any entree.” She licked a well-worn pencil with the tip of her tongue. Rock noticed she had the word Shirley sewn in red over the right side of her cream-colored waitress jacket and the words JOE’S DINER, ROUTE 6, over the other breast. And breasts they were, straining in propped-up glory under her tight jacket. She smiled at Rock’s attention.

“Like what you see? Well, buster, it
ain’t
on the menu! Now what’ll the big fella have?”

“Nooo salaad—meeat, meeat!” Archer grumbled.

“Gotcha, bud,” Shirley said, scribbling with a quick twist of the pencil into a little tear-off pad. “Now you, handsome, what’ll you have?”

“Two buffalo burgers, rare and some hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top.” He looked at her curiously, wondering if they were really going to get these archaic treats.

“Hey, George,” she yelled into the kitchen. “Two buffalo T-bones with the works and a pair of B-burgers—rare—lots of fries.” She smiled at the two of them as if taking them in for the first time. She tapped Archer on the chest and asked slyly, “You one of them rich trappers that blow by here now and then? You got dough?” Archer just stared at her, mystified. “What’s the matter with your friend here? He don’t talk much except about meat.”

“He’s shy,” Rock said with a grin.

“He got a lady friend?”

“Unfortunately he does,” Rock answered, sensing the direction the conversation was taking.

“Well, just my luck,” Shirley said, chewing her gum faster. “The rich ones are always taken. How about you, handsome, you’re a cute guy. But this trapper pal of yours has all the expensive,
and smelly,”
she added in a whisper, “furs. You must be the poor one of the pair, wearing those filthy khakis. People usually dress up when they come to Joe’s.”

“We’ve got enough to pay for the meal here.” Rock smiled. “Thanks to my trapper friend here.”

“I didn’t say you looked that poor, stranger. We trust people here. Lots of folks swear by our food. We’re just one big happy family at Joe’s. Ain’t we?” she half-yelled over to some of the customers seated on the stools.

“Yeah sure,” a couple of truckdrivers nursing their cups of steaming black coffee muttered back from a few feet away. Rock wanted to ask the big semi-drivers just what the hell they were hauling out here in the middle of nowhere and where it was going. But he didn’t feel like getting into a barroom brawl. Asking too many questions in a strange place when you’re outnumbered twenty-to-one by a bunch of anachronisms wasn’t a good idea. They’d just eat without questioning where the food came from and get out.

The waitress returned several minutes later with their steaming plates of food. She slammed them down on the counter and then handed them each a glass full of a dark liquid. Archer’s meal disappeared in six quick bites washed down by the bubbling beverage.

“Here’s your orders, mister,” Shirley said, looking askance at Archer. “The Coke’s on the house—comes with the dinner. Say, you guys got something to trade of course for your meals. We deal in barter here—tobacco, pelts, ammo, stuff like that’s OK. What do you got—before I order another round of T-bone for your hungry friend?”

“Well, we’ve got some gold coins,” Rock answered, taking a bite of the juicy burger and a sip of the legendary Coca-Cola which he had never tasted before. “Will that do?” Rock rolled a twenty-ruble gold coin from his Russian Emergency Pack across the table. The waitress’s face twitched.

“Put that away mister. Guys around here get plenty jumpy when they see loot like that. I don’t know if I have enough change for something that big.”

“We’ll be ordering some food to go—you have things to go, don’t you?” the Doomsday Warrior asked, taking a big mouthful of the deliciously greasy fries.

“Mister, for a double-eagle gold piece, you can have all the food in the place. Where the hell did you blow in from anyway?”

“From up north,” Rock mumbled between bites.

“North—incredible,” Shirley said, her eyes widening. “How far, Pritchyard Junction?”

“No, Lake Superior.” Rock said it a little too loud. The chatter stopped around the diner. A tree-sized man rose from his nearby booth and came walking over.

“You shitting liar, mister,” the tree said angrily. “There ain’t no north—not since the big tornados of 1989.”

“Tornados?” Rock asked incredulously. “You mean the all-out
nuclear
war?” Shirley gasped, dropping a plate on the countertop.

“Mister,” the tree said slowly between clenched teeth. “You start rumors like that—that there was some damned nuke war back then—and I’ll have your hide. Stories like that cause trouble around here. We call ’89 the year of the big tornados.” He squinted his eyes at both of the freefighters. “Get me?”

Rock was mad for a split second, but then thought better of it. “Yeah—we get you.” The big man smiled.

“Well now, that’s better—ain’t it, folks? The fella made a little mistake. Now it’s all right. Hey, folks, get back to eating. Anyone got a nickel for the juke?”

Rock remembered the anthropology lectures by Dean Keppel back in Century City. “Never buck a local superstition, Rock, it could mean your life. People like to be affirmed in their beliefs—no matter how bizarre it may appear to you.” So the folks around here didn’t even believe there had been a war. So be it. He slapped Archer on the back to relax him. The big freefighter was still glaring over at the table of the tree ready to have a go at it. But the second helping of steak appeared in the nick of time and Archer dug in.

“Eat hearty, my friend—we have lots of credit here.” Archer did—and then ordered again.

Seven

W
hen they’d finished eating as much as they could possibly stuff into their stomachs, both men felt exhausted. Rock wished he could get a bath and just sack out for the night—without half-naked panther women tying him up, or flaming balls of lightning on his tail. The waitress noticed Rock’s weariness and suggested the Three Little Bears Motel just down the road about a hundred yards.

“You have to watch carefully,” she said. “The neon sign’s been out for years. But they got good clean rooms and—” she leaned forward so as not to be heard by the other diners—“back behind the office is a little room where a gambling man and his friend could find some high-stakes players. If there’s more where that twenty piece came from.” She winked. “Just tell ’em, Shirley sent you. After you check in and all.”

“I’m afraid,” Rock said, “we’re dog-tired. We’ll probably just get some sleep and—”

“Game goes on twenty four hours a day,” Shirley continued, wiping the counter with a peculiar white towel made of bubbly white paper that seemed to absorb any spills quickly. “You can go in anytime. Someone will be there to take your money—or give you his. The game’s fair. The motel owner, Morrie Maliber, won’t have it any other way. It’s good for biz.”

Rockson thanked her kindly and the two freefighters slogged back out to the road. Archer had been given some pink liquid from a tablespoon by Shirley that seemed to have cured his indigestion after all those steaks and fries and donuts. Now all he complained about was, “Sleeeep, sleeeep.”

“Yeah, me too, pal. You and I will rent a nice soft bed for ourselves. Maybe three—two for you and one for me.” They walked down the dark road and easily found the motel deep set in a grove of pine trees with its paint peeling off and its sign—three bears sleeping in feather beds—half hanging from its hinges. The filthy khaki-clad Rockson and the pungent beaver-fur-jacketed Archer made quite a pair as they rang the bell to the office.

“Door’s open,” a voice yelled out from inside as a table lamp was switched on. The motel manager, dressed in a red lumberjack jacket, his head as devoid of hair as an egg, was yawning loudly. He eyed them suspiciously. “Can you pay?” he asked. “Up front.”

“Shirley sent us,” Rock said, rolling a shiny gold piece across the wood counter. The motel keep snagged it and quickly bit into the coin.

“Damned if it ain’t real.” He smiled broadly. “The name’s Maliber, Morrie Maliber, hospitality chief of the Three Little Bears. I got a nice double—big beds, shower and everything. And you probably know about our . . . parlor.” He pointed to a door which was open to the back room just a crack. Cigarette and cigar smoke drifted out amidst the sounds of cards slapping down on a table.

“Yeah, thanks,” Rock said. “But we have to clean up and get some shut-eye. Maybe later.”

“Well, sure, any friend of Shirley’s a friend of mine,” the manager said. “I’ll ring for the bellboy.” Maliber pounded a little bell on the counter, put a small round red hat on and came around the front. “If you’ll follow me this way, sir.” He led them outside and down a few yards to one of a row of small bungalos. The room inside was big and comfortable-wood panelled with pictures of seagulls hanging on the walls. It even had an ancient television set inside. “Sheets, towels, everything’s all ready,” Maliber said, waiting by the door with an expectant look on his face.

“Oh yeah,” Rock muttered, remembering the etiquette of old. He took out the smallest coin he could find, a five-ruble silver piece and handed it to the man. Maliber’s eyes lit up like pinball bumpers.

“Thank you, thank you very much, sir, and I hope you have a pleasant night.” He gently closed the door but they could hear him laughing out loud as he walked back to the office.

Rock tested the bed—soft as cotton and then walked over to the TV set. He knew it had to be dead but couldn’t resist turning the knob. It lit up—with a picture of John Wayne, lit from behind by a light bulb, staring out at him. A voice on some kind of record spoke out from the speaker. “Reach for it, pardner, or I’ll blast you to the sky. Reach for it, pardner, or I’ll blast you to sky.” The recording played over and over, skipping slightly on a scratch. Rock turned it off. Somehow he doubted that ancient TV had been quite like that.

He heard noises from the other room. Archer was already in the shower, humming his version of “Home on the Range.”