32
After a few minutes of talking and getting to know one
another, Abraham Lincoln Panim and Ariel were approached by Charley, who
brought them their order.
“Here is the coffee and the cheese Danishes, just like you
like them, Ariel, and here is something for Snuff,” Charley said as he bent
down and gave the dog a biscuit. “Nothing is too good for my friend Ariel and
her new boyfriend.”
“He is not my
boyfriend!” Ariel exclaimed, but she did it with a smile on her face that
Abraham Lincoln Panim noticed right away while he continued to primp himself.
Ariel reached out, found the bowl with the individual
creams in it, opened one up, and poured it into her coffee. Abraham Lincoln
Panim drank his coffee black as he took the first bite into his cheese Danish.
It had absolutely no effect on him, and he even kind of liked what he was
eating.
“I have to tell you, Ariel, that when I was younger, I was
very allergic to cheese,” he said, as he bit into the Danish, “but now, I guess
I am over it. I kind of like cheese!”
The two continued to talk, and one conversation dovetailed
into another.
“I know that you teach at the school … tell me something
about yourself.”
Abraham Lincoln Panim took his hands out of his hair, took
a long drink of coffee, and said, “Well, there really isn’t that much to tell.
I grew up right here, have really never been anywhere out of this area … I was
pretty much home schooled by an older lady as my mother went to work as the
principal of the school that I teach at.”
“What about your father? What happened to him?”
Abraham Lincoln Panim tensed up a bit. “I really don’t know
what happened to him. It’s one of those things … I really don’t want to talk
about it.”
“I understand, sorry I brought it up.”
“No, that’s all right. My mom and that older lady, Mrs.
Stottle … I had a nice childhood,” he replied, kind of gritting his teeth when
he said “a nice childhood.”
“I mean, it was as good as it could be … I would rather
look forward, not back, to tell you the honest truth. The best is still ahead
of me, I really feel that.”
“I am so sorry I brought up your father … I did not know
that he wasn’t in the picture for you.”
“No, don’t worry about it. What happened happened. It’s not
important.”
Ariel and Abraham Lincoln Panim continued to converse and
get to know each other, but they, and everyone else in the diner, were
interrupted by a commotion up front between Charley and someone who had just
entered the restaurant.
“Charley, is Ariel here? Is she here with that rat face?”
yelled the man who had just entered the diner.
“You have to keep your voice down. You are scaring everyone
here,” Charley replied.
“I don’t care. Where is she?” he yelled, and as he looked
out at the rows of tables and chairs and the diners in the restaurant, he saw
way to the back, and skirted all the tables and chairs and people to get to his
destination.
As he got closer, Abraham Lincoln Panim could see that it
was Brandon Hartung.
“What are you two doing here?” snapped Brandon as he
approached the table where Ariel and Abraham Lincoln Panim were sitting.
“We are having a nice chat.” Ariel said, “This has nothing
to do with you.”
Abraham Lincoln Panim saw that all eyes of the diners were
on what was happening between the three of them, and not solely on him anymore.
Even Snuff stopped eating his biscuit, and started to snarl.
He stood up, and looked right at Brandon.
“Look, Ariel and I were just talking,” Abraham Lincoln
Panim said. “Nothing more. This does not include you. This has nothing to do
with you.
“It has everything to do with me. Ariel and I—“
“Look, I would suggest that you move on. All you are doing
is causing a commotion here.”
“And what are you going to do if I don’t move on?” Brandon
asked as he moved closer to Abraham Lincoln Panim.
People began to move from their tables as the two got
closer to each other. Snuff tried to pull Ariel away from the table as his
growling got louder.
“I am asking you for the last time to leave us alone,”
Abraham Lincoln Panm said as Charley ran to the table.
“You two, you want to settle this, go outside and do it,”
Charley said. “You don’t do it in my diner.”
“And what are you going to do if I don’t go away, rat-face
boy?” Brandon asked as he cocked his right arm, the hand of which Abraham
Lincoln Panim saw was covered with some type of crude glove, as if to prepare
for a punch.
Almost instinctively, Abraham Lincoln Panim punched Brandon
right into his jaw, knocking him on the floor. Brandon fell so hard that the
covering came off of his right hand, to reveal that Brandon had a claw like a
lobster instead of his hand.
Ariel bent down to Brandon as Snuff turned the attention of
his snarling directly to Abraham Lincoln Panim.
“My glove, my glove!” Brandon screamed, and Snuff brought
him the glove as he lay on the floor. He quickly put the glove on, still
smarting from the punch.
“How could you do this? How could you cause such a scene?”
Ariel screamed out to Abraham Lincoln Panim.
“I was just … I was just protecting myself. He was ready to
throw a punch at me with his hand … his claw, whatever you want to call it.”
Charley put his hand on Abraham Lincoln Panim’s shoulder.
“Young man, I never want to see you again,” he said to
Abraham Lincoln Panim. “The door is over there. Use it right now, and never
come into this diner again!”
“But I was only—“
“Abraham Lincoln Panim, I never want to see you again,” Ariel
shrieked as she continued to attend to the fallen Brandon. “You have
embarrassed me, you are not my type of person. Get away from me right now.”
As Snuff continued to growl at Abraham Lincoln Panim, he
weaved his way to the front of the diner as people stared at him, but not in
the way he had been accustomed to.
He left the diner, walking home quickly through the park.
