The Crest Hill Diner

On the corner of 3rd and Wilson, sits the Crest Hill Diner. It is a long-standing single room joint that always buzzes with life. The area used to be the picture of affluence. However, the once glistening new buildings, are now cracked, abused, and crumbling.

The Crest Hill Diner serves as a border for a tent city. Beyond the restaurant, there are clusters of people living on the streets. Addiction runs rampant on 3rd street, and everyone has empty eyes. Most people avoid the area; it was left behind when the city became a popular place to live. The tent city residents were forgotten with it.

The stench of trash and urine sags in the air, but the faint smell of coffee and fresh pancakes laces throughout. From time to time, a scream will wail out, from pain, joy, or madness- from life on that corner.

On this morning, the main waitress, Patricia, who we call Pat- is making her way into the building in the darkness of the morning. She's wearing her starchy uniform. Her hair is pulled back and damp from her morning shower.

It's 5 am, and presently the street is silent. Pat steps on glass and keeps walking. Cars are broken into every night, and she's used to the familiar crunch of a broken window.

A man meets her at the door wielding a rifle. He looks tired, and his face strains under the weight of age. The man is known to the locals as Jones, and he owns the diner. He is from the area and fought to keep his business, riding the waves of gentrification as they came. Jones is a proud man who refuses to move his restaurant or close his doors for a safer occupation. He had started there, and couldn't afford to move the shop anyway.

Jones hands off the rifle to Patricia, and she turns to keep watch while he pries a wooden board off the back window. In the distance, two blaring circle lights approach the diner and catch the attention of Jones and Pat. Pat cocks the rifle, and Jones clutches the crowbar he had been using as a tool.

"They’re starting earlier and ending later every day," Pat says with a half-hearted sigh.

The cold morning air whips past their faces as the familiar black El Camino rolls into the parking lot and corners them near the back. Jones props open the back door with his foot, signaling for Pat to go. She remains still and stiff while the sun peaks over the horizon.

The driver wears a mask that covers everything but his eyes. Customary for any member of the 3rd Street, Madmen. The world hated them, and they hated the world.

The Madmen had recently started to put pressure on the local businesses, demanding payment for protection. The gang controls the drug flow in the neighborhood, a position that comes with power.

Jones could see the silhouette of an M4 in the passenger seat. By instinct, he steps in front of Pat and calls out to the stranger, "Good morning, fella, how's it going?" Pat can't help but smile.

The visitor tilts his head and climbs out of the car. Both Jones and Pat notice the machete in his fist, draped in old blood. He approaches them and lets the blade drag across the concrete; the scraping sound pierces the silence and causes some stirs from nearby tents.

"Jones... Jones... Jones. I'm getting tired of coming here asking nicely for my money. I don't want to pay you a visit with my friends. They're not as negotiable as me." He stops a few inches from Jones’s face and looks him up and down, the machete swinging at his side.

"I’ve lived here long enough to know the difference between someone I should be scared of and someone I shouldn't son," Jones replies, he seems serious. Pat moves the rifle to point at the attacker, who had started to laugh.

"At least you got pride, playa." The Madmen member taps his bloody knife to Jones's chest and drags it softly down his torso. "I got patience; I'll have you soon enough." he trails his sentence off and pushes the blade sufficient to break the skin. A warning that sends Jones, doubling over and gasping. He then hit the rifle's barrel, popping Pat in the forehead and sending her flying back. She hits the door, and her face flushes with embarrassment. "And, get that gun out of my face. I'll see you both tonight. I expect a better greeting." With these parting words, he gets back in his car and roars down the street in a puff of grey pollution.

Pat throws a slew of apologies at Jones while she helps him inside. He just shakes his head and reassures her while clutching the hole in his stomach. Blood seeps from in between his fingers, and he grits his teeth. He tells her it's okay once more before he disappears inside his office. Pat lays the rifle outside the door. The room used to be a closet. Now it was an office, a shelter, a place to sleep. It just depended on the day. She straightenes out her uniform before rounding the corner to the main dining area.

There were already people filing in and taking their places at the counter. She smells fresh coffee, and it feels strange to pour a cup and slide it to Terry.

Terry is addicted to speed and never sleeps. He comes in every morning for a coffee and dispels the news of the previous night. "The pharmacy got raided last night. Owner’s dead. He refused to pay the Madmen. I saw people go in to the vandalized store and take what was left. They even took the change out the man's pockets."

Pat tries hard to focus while he gives the morning news. Terry places the quarters for the drink on the countertop. She notices the same familiar rust color on the coins and swallows hard. When she meets Terry’s eyes again, she examines his face. Deep scars where old sores had been. Fresh oozing puss where new ones are.

She wonders who he had been before addiction took him over. She knew he had a daughter. She lived with her mother on the other side of town, which may as well be in a different state. He never saw her.

Pat turns away from him and makes her rounds to each of the tables. The sun was up now, and a mother came into the diner with her sleepy toddler trotting behind her. Pat got them orange juice, and they settled into a booth. The mother opens a textbook.

Eventually, Jones returned in a fresh shirt and had his usual warm smile on his lips. He began his routine of talking to every table and telling stories, giving life advice.

The day went well; it almost always did. The sun kept the darkness at bay. Everyone paid their tab, and there were smiles and laughs.

The diner stays open for 24 hours by necessity. The place is all Jones’s has, and he would die protecting it. The Crest Hill Diner was the light of 3rd street, and he intended to maintain the safe haven.

Still, the Madmen’s threat rang in his mind, and he found himself calling friends to help him guard the place that night. They agreed and remained in the dark corridors of the restaurant. The men guarded the entrances and exits. They applied the protections when it was time and lay in wait for a war.

Just when dusk was beginning to break, and the crowd was dying off, a disturbance could be heard down the street.

Jones sprung into action, he knew it was for him, and he rushed to grab his weapon. Pat bent down and retrieved a pistol from under the counter.

Jones came back with a gun in hand and went to lock the door. Before the lock could click into place, a young woman collides against it and yanks it open. Blood trickles from her brow, and the group circles her unsure what to do.

Jones could see a group of Madmen on foot chasing close behind. With his back to his small militia, he props up a wooden barricade against the door and brings an old walkie talkie to his lips. "Trouble coming from the north, look alive."

The gang saw where she went and were quick to bang on the glass and shout through the layers of material. "Give us the girl, or we’ll come in and get her."

The group joins Pat behind the counter, with the girl cowering and shaking at their feet. Jones touches the top of her head lightly and places his gun on the shelf. He then aligns his view on the scope and aims at the door. The other men follow suit. The Jukebox plays the same songs that it always does quietly in the corner.

No one speaks because they do not have to. Soon a shot cracks outside, they know why. The sniper on the roof, tucked behind the restaurant's sign, has found his target. Bullets fly after that. The moonlight penetrates the diner from the holes they create.

Casualties happen on both sides; people run in all directions on the street to avoid the carnage. No police sirens can be heard, no ambulance wails approach.

One of Jones’s friends from the military catches a bullet to the chest and shatters milkshake glasses as he falls.

With the diner's protection, Jones's side was able to get the best of the fight. Everyone was wounded, some worse than others. Jones praises his friend's bravery and embraces them.

The girl introduces herself as Lauren. She had stolen a pack of cigarettes from one of them. Cigarettes were a hot commodity, anything that took the sting off reality was.

Pat swept the shattered glass off the linoleum, and the one's who still could replace wood in the empty spaces where windows had been.

Jones, leaning down and speaking in soft whispers consoles Lauren but warns her that more Madmen would surely come, and she needed to go, to run. The rest of them could not bear to succumb to the evils of desperation.

Lauren stays, she is there when the El Camino roars up outside the back door. She hears the banging and orders to open up. She even holds a weapon, and it shakes in her grip. They were outnumbered this time, and they knew it. From the peephole in the door, Jones could see a machine gun positioned in the back of the El Camino. A gunman let shots echo through the air, and then the group hears an unmistakable thud. Jones’s sharpshooter is splayed on the sidewalk.

Jones moves away from the door with tears welling up in his throat and collecting on the rim of his eyes. He urges his friends to run because he knows the fight is futile.

Unbeknownst to Jones, the neighborhood residents are creeping through the darkness to his aid. The Crest Hill diner is their safe haven too.

They fling rocks and use needles, old bike parts, and pipes as weapons. The people threw themselves upon the Madmen and caught them by surprise in the cover of the night.

Lauren sees the gunmen get snatched from his perch and pulled into a blur of people. The mob was relentless, and by dawn, nothing was left. Someone even steals the car and goes screeching down the barren streets, leaving a red trail in their wake.

It's now 5 am, and presently the streets are silent. The sun will be out soon to keep watch. The Crest Hill Diner’s open sign is still blinking in the stillness. The smell of blood and battle sags in the air, but brewing coffee and fresh pancakes is laced throughout.