Chapter 2

Evan nearly collided with the smaller of the two old men. He probably would have walked directly into the middle of the confrontation if he had not been pulled out of his thoughts by the old man’s raspy voice, yelling at a fever pitch.

“If you don’t get in there and pay for my breakfast, I’ll pound your face right into the road!”

Evan blinked in surprise, halting in his tracks. The shouting man looked to be about seventy or so, his skin wrinkled and pocked here and there. He was wearing a plain white tee shirt that was littered with stains, and a pair of khaki shorts that revealed far too much of his old puffy legs.

The other elderly man was dressed in a tacky polo shirt and a pair of green and red checkered pants. He looked as if he might be headed to a golf course, although Evan couldn’t imagine a thriving golf community anywhere near Shinoe.

“I will not pay for you food, you crazy old shit!” the golfer said.

Evan knew that he should just walk into the diner and leave the two men to their skirmish. Not only was watching the argument embarrassing, but his stomach insisted that it was time to eat. But the entire scene was just too comical not to watch. Evan backed up a bit and was surprised when the man in the stained white tee shirt actually threw a punch at the golfer.

The punch was weak and easily dodged, even for men of their ages. This was followed by the laziest grapple that Evan had ever seen and he had to fight not to laugh.

"Pay my bill, asshole!”

“I won’t do such a thing! You should have kept your eyes to yourself.”

“It’s a free country! Aaargh.”

As funny as it was, Evan felt that he had to do something. As the golfer was attempting to throw an old callused right hand into the other man’s gut, Evan approached the two men and managed to push them apart. There was a sickening moment when he feared that he had been too rough with them, and he was sure that the man in the stained tee shirt was going to fall to the sidewalk and dislocate a hip.

With the two men separated, Evan stood his ground between them, hoping that he was hiding the amused expression he had been wearing moments ago. He glanced into the diner’s large window and saw that the scuffle had somehow gone unnoticed to the patrons. Everyone inside was eating and chatting, oblivious to what was going on outside.

“Calm down, now,” Evan said. “There’s no use in fighting.”

The old men temporarily looked shocked, but the man in the stained tee shirt took a single step towards Evan. “How old are you, punk?”

“I’m twenty-three.” Again, he fought hard not to laugh at them. The question was laced with anger and Evan wondered how he could ward off an attack by an old man without looking like the asshole in the situation.

“You’re a piss ant,” the golfer said, the old men now on the same side now that they were confronted by a younger man attempting to fix up their mess.

“Yeah, maybe,” Evan said. “But you two old farts were fighting in the middle of the street. I figured I’d break it up before you caused a scene and made fools of yourselves.”

The golfer seemed to understand this but the man in the short shorts and tee shirt was still clearly upset. “Well, this cretin spit in my scrambled eggs!”

Evan couldn’t stop the laughter this time. He bit his bottom lip in order to contain it, but he did a poor job. And once it was out it felt good, so he let it all out.

“Oh, is that funny?” the golfer asked.

“Well, it’s not something you hear ever day,” Evan said. He turned to the golfer as he managed to control his laughter and said, “Sir, did you spit in his scrambled eggs?”

“Hell yes, I did. He was ogling that poor pretty waitress and grabbing at her every time she walked by.”

Evan caught the laughter before it could escape this time. But he was so busy concentrating on that effort that he didn’t notice the approaching police car. It pulled up from behind them and Evan didn’t see it until it was directly beside him.

It pulled over to the curb slowly and stopped. The officer inside rolled down the window and looked at Evan and the two old men suspiciously. As was his nature, Evan started to panic at the sight of the police car and its driver and he wondered if Sam had maybe ratted on him and turned him in for having peyote in his motel room.

“Thank God, officer,” the man in the stained shirt said as Evan managed to keep his panic back. “This man has spit into my eggs!”

It was still funny to Evan, almost like a completely abstract moment in time, but some of the humor was lost now that there was a cop no more than five feet from him.

At the old man’s accusation, the cop looked directly at Evan. He slowly got out of the car and stood in front of the three of them. The cop was older but not nearly as old as the two quarreling men. He looked tired, distracted and rather pissed off. He looked Evan up and down with a frown.

“Son, did you spit in this gentleman’s eggs?”

“No sir,” Evan said. “I was walking down the street, coming to the diner, and saw these two men fighting. I broke it up but this one seems to be pretty mad,” he said, hitching a thumb at the old man in the tee shirt.

“That’s right,” the man said. “This young man only broke us up. But this ingrate right here, spit in my eggs.”

Evan saw that the officer was also clearly amused at the situation. He looked to the ground, cleared his throat and then looked at Evan with a knowing smile. The suspicion he had worn on his face only moments ago was totally gone.

“Thanks for your help, son,” the officer said. “Go on and get something to eat. I think I can handle these two from here.”

Evan nodded. He and the officer shared another glance that pretty much translated to: Have you ever seen anything this frigging funny? Evan gave the elderly men a brief nod and walked inside the diner as quickly as he could.

Once inside, Evan took a seat in the first booth he came to and let out a large hearty laugh. Everyone turned to look queerly at him but he didn’t care. He let it out and didn’t stop until the waitress came around to take his order.

When his food arrived, he took his time as he ate. He got the burger exactly like he wanted (the waitress clearly questioning his choice of having it topped with eggs and chili) and downed a few glasses of water. He order desert but really only picked at it. He did his best to pick up on bits and pieces of surrounding conversations concerning the hit and run and managed to obtain some valuable information. It was amazing how much a stranger could learn in a small town by simply listening in on the gossip circles.

According to the scattered conversations Evan was able to eavesdrop on, sometime shortly after ten o’ clock a pick up truck had jumped a curb, plowed through a single mother’s front yard and struck her twelve year old son. The kid had been carried to the hospital with several broken bones. Depending on the source of the gossip, Evan had heard several different outcomes concerning the boy’s condition. Some said he was in a coma, some said he had suffered a broken neck while others stuck by the several broken bones scenario. The police had not yet found the truck and would more than likely have the road checks in full force until the driver was found.

Evan assumed that, being a small town, the search would not last long. Happy with the assumption that he’d be out of Shinoe within the hour, Evan paid his bill and left the diner.

Outside, the cop had sent the old men on their way. The street was pretty much dead adn still unbearable hot. Walking the length of the block was enough to cause swaet to pop out on Evan's brow. When he rounded the corner and the motel popped into sight, he was frustrated to see that the road check was still in progress. He checked his watch and found that it was nearly noon. That made it close to a two hour search in a town roughly the size of a welcome mat.

Scowling, Evan made his way back to the motel. He walked to his door, fumbling in his pocket for the key and grimacing at the feeling of sweat trickling down his face. He retrieved his key and placed it in the lock only to find that his door was open a quarter of an inch.

He grew nervous in an instant because he was quite sure that he had locked the door behind him when he had left. He could even remember double checking the lock after the door was closed. Quietly, he jiggled the door handle and found that it had somehow been wrenched loose. Evan cautiously looked around the parking lot for any sign of cops or possible intruders and then threw his shoulder to the door, barreling in.

His room was practically the way he had left it. Nothing had been broken, no objects thrown about, nothing out of place as was the case with any room that had been broken into and thoroughly searched.

Of course, after a closer inspection, the one thing that Evan did notice that had gone missing was the briefcase full of peyote that he had slid underneath the bed.