Armed Robbery and Some Sort of Complimentary Dessert

Bruce calculated the cost three times over in his head. He came to the same conclusion each time that one coffee, plus tax, left nothing else on the menu he could afford. So when the waitress came around again, asking what he’d like to eat, Bruce lied, “I’m not real hungry,” and simply slid the empty mug her way.

As she begrudgingly retrieved a fresh pot from the coffee maker, she cashed out a tall man seated at the breakfast counter and sent him on his way.

With the tall man gone, Bruce could see the cafe’s glass cake display staring him down with his own dirty reflection. The chocolate cake inside was nearly whole and looked as fresh as the coffee the waitress was now pouring into his cup.

“You know today’s my birthday.” Bruce said.

“No kidding?” asked the waitress.

“It is.” Bruce smiled. “I’m at the big forty, right there on the hilltop. But I don’t look a day over fifty, do I?”

The waitress pitied him one unconvincing, “Ha,” as she was obligated to by the politeness of her profession.

“Yeah, there ain’t much to look forward to from here. But not like there was much worth seeing on the way up, neither. Say. I’m guessing this place won’t do me the whole song and dance number, but if it’s not too much to ask, is there some sort of complimentary birthday dessert, like a slice of cake, or—?”

“You wanna order a birthday cake with your meal?” The waitress looked up and down his tattered slacks and his sweat-stained button-up and saw no obvious mound of a wallet in his pockets. “Or are you asking for a free slice to go with your two-dollar coffee?”

“Well, if there’s no inconvenience, I’d appreciate a slice of whatever’s available.”

“What day is today?” she asked.

“I said it’s my birthday.”

“I heard that part. So what day is this?”

Bruce scratched the tips of his fingers and looked around for a calendar. Finding none, he threw out his best guess. “July twelfth?”

The waitress took out her pad and wrote one item on the order ticket. She handed Bruce his yellow slip copy and said, “Enjoy your coffee, Sir.”

Bruce sighed and pulled out the change in his pocket. He laid all the coins out on the table and tried to count, but it was hard to concentrate with the sudden collective noise from the other patrons. Someone was shouting, but around Bruce, someone always seemed to be shouting.

He didn’t notice the active robbery until someone grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to the edge of the booth seats. They forced Bruce’s head between his knees and told him to keep his hands folded over his neck.

“Money!” they demanded, and Bruce told them it’s all on the table. The robber didn’t take the change, and instead asked, “Phone?” but Bruce explained he had none to give.

The robber let go of Bruce and walked down the line to the next occupied booth.

Bruce saw there were two robbers, both young men with large pistols. Other than the strong-armed booth wanderer, there was the thin-framed thief at the register counter, giving orders to the terrified waitress and an old man in a dirty chef’s apron.

“Don’t drag your ass,” he said, holding his gun to the waitress’s forehead, “but don’t start making any sudden moves.”

The waitress nodded and reached for the cash drawer.

“Hey!” shouted the robber. “Keep those hands up!”

The waitress pulled them up and began to cry.

The larger robber made his way back to the side of his friend. “Come on, ol’ lady. Don’t hold us up.”

The thin one scolded her again when she tried reaching for the cash drawer a second time.

Bruce could only see the tops of their heads over the corner counter, and when both young men were looking away, he tumbled out of the booth and crawled noisily across the floor.

“Who’s acting smart?!” called the thin robber.

Bruce carefully climbed a counter stool and put his head down on the counter top like the other patrons had been left to do, just as the man came waving his gun around the aisle.

“No heroes, everybody,” said the thief to the scattered customers. “Just be smart and hold still for a few short minutes.”

Through the corner of his eye, Bruce watched the man leave. From this stretch of the counter, he couldn’t see the scene at the register. He could only hear the contradictory commands from both robbers and the mounting anxiety in the waitress’s pleas as she tried her best not to get shot.

The cake’s glass display stand was within arms reach. Slowly, carefully, Bruce removed his hands from his neck and sent them searching for the handle of the cake knife that was held down by the display’s glass dome.

“Calm down and get the fucking lead out!” shouted one of the men.

The waitress just kept repeating, “Please. Please. Please.”

Bruce risked lifting his chin from the counter and, at last, he found the cake knife. He carefully lifted the glass dome with one hand and picked up the serving knife in the other. Another patron down the counter locked eyes with Bruce and gave him a wary, wide-eyed shake of the head. When Bruce stuck the knife deep into the cake, that stranger’s expression changed to one of pure confusion.

Bruce cut a large wedge out of the chocolate cake and dropped it lightly to the counter-top before him. Then he returned the knife and delicately set the glass dome over the remaining cake. He had no fork, so he ate with his hands, and the frosting smeared all over his fingers.

The strong-armed robber shouted in frustration towards the waitress. He kicked the counter to illustrate how close he was to losing his patience. In the small silence immediately following the kick, the clattering sound of a cake knife falling from its display rang through the cafe.

“What was that?” asked the smaller thief.

“Move it down, you two!” commanded the other.

Then Bruce set his head down and watched the quartet shimmy along their respective sides of the cafe counter, rounding the corner to gawk at the mess of chocolate frosting around his face.

The first thief began to laugh. “What the hell is this?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said the larger one. “Are you really eating cake right now? Didn’t I leave you over there in that booth?”

The cook and the waitress were both absolutely still, looking down with abject horror between Bruce, the cake knife, and the two pistols, and the cake.

The two young men were cracking up. One waved his gun to the rest of the cafe patrons and asked, “Would anyone else like some refreshments before we finish up here?”

The other asked Bruce, “How’s it taste? Is it to die for?”

“Well, it’s drier than it looks,” answered Bruce.

Someone on the other side of the cafe began laughing uncontrollably, and this set off the two robbers as well.

“Goddammit, dude,” the thin one said. “You need some milk?”

“Hey, ol’ lady!” said the other. “How’s a guy s’posed to choke your dry-ass cake down without milk?”

“Yeah, bring him some fucking milk!”

Sent off with the wave of the pistol, the waitress ran around the wall off the kitchen station and opened a little door beside the meat cooler. She circled back toward the kitchen door, but stopped short at the cook’s pass-through window.

Interrupting the two laughing thieves was heard by all the unmistakable, “Eh-hem,” of a shotgun’s pump action.

Before either could react, a stroke of thunder sent the strong-armed robber flying into the booth where Bruce had sat. He spilt the two dollar coffee all over the pleather seat cushions.

The other robber turned tail and ran for the glass doors. From the edge of the cook’s pass-through window, a long metal barrel followed his path and sent him sprawling through those doors in a rain of glass shards and red mist.

Nobody moved for a while.

The cook eventually ducked under the counter door to check on the two young men and he called out to no one in particular that they were both clearly dead and, or, dying. Many of the patrons then left as soon as they could, stepping over the body and shards of glass on their way out. Some of them convened in the parking lot to discuss whether they should rifle the men's pockets themselves or wait for police to come and sort out all the stolen property.

The waitress stepped out of the kitchen with her gun still leveled to the dead man in the booth. She made her way to Bruce and stared him down with an inquisitive disgust.

“Did you bring the milk?” he asked.

She lowered the shotgun and laughed coldly. At least this time it was not an obligatory politeness, but a genuine laugh, thought Bruce.

She reached under the counter and pulled a large bottle of milk from a mini-fridge. "The cake is stale,” she said, “that’s why it tastes dry."

“Well it’s good enough for me.” Bruce picked a clump of the hard sponge from the mess before him and washed it down with the milk.

Red and blue lights came flashing into the parking lot and the waitress took another look over the robbery scene. The gun that had been pointed at her forehead was lying in a pool of coffee on the booth table.

She decided to set her own gun down along the counter, then she took the glass dome off the cake’s display stand. She slid the knife along the plate and plopped the rest of the cake onto the counter-top's chocolate frosting mess. Then she got Bruce a fork and wished him a happy birthday.