Malcolm Kane
The waiting… oh the waiting seemed so god-damn endless and it sure as hell didn't make it easier to see all those trays coming past him… and none of them were his. Real torture it was. Smells of oregano and garlic literally sprang from every table around him, causing him to drool like a fool. He felt his warm spit on his lib, running down his chin. He quickly wiped the spit off with a quick stroke, trying to be as discreet as he could. He looked around, making sure nobody had seen him. But the place was almost empty, and everyone seemed to mind their own business anyway. A few families sat scattered across the boring black and white tiles. Their faces looked burdened and all were hanging over the tables, closing in on each other, as if they were bent over in disgrace. What a world. He wondered how the place used to be before the crisis. Aye, he had heard it was a real paradise. The atmosphere would probably have been very different, filled with the emotions this place seemed to lack… such as joy and happiness. Now, it all seemed so very different.
"Aye, what a world," Malcolm muttered.
"Pardon?" Cross asked.
Malcolm grunted. "Just deaf it."
He turned his attention to the kitchen doors, eagerly awaiting the much-appreciated arrival of his food. It could be any second now. The inner drumroll started drumming, the countdown continued its counting… and then it happened! The doors slammed wide open and voila, out came a glorious tray with two lavishly prepared dished. Sure as hell, it was about time.
"Finally," Malcolm said, practically devouring the meal with his eyes before the waitress had even set the plates on their table.
"It's only been fifteen minutes," Cross said, calmly waiting, his hands folded.
The waitress, a young pretty one with black hair and a glare of innocence surrounding her gently placed the plate before him. Her gentle movements made it seem like she danced around them. Oh, but the meat was paradise. The grilled lamb skewers were covered in a thin layer of sliced tomatoes, onions and garlic. He didn't care much about the veggies, but he had never seen pieces of meat grilled more perfect. Actually, he had, but one shouldn't be choosy. All meat is love and the rest… the rest is just filler.
"You know what warm climates do to me," Malcolm said, already starting his feast.
"It turns you into a ferocious carnivore?" Cross grinned and started to season whatever type of rabbit fodder he had asked for. "I bet you won't even touch your tomatoes."
Malcolm didn't answer the cunt. He was too busy covering chunks of his meat with tzatziki. His stomach was still growling like a hungry beast. They had been driving around like crazy to find a place… bloody impossible it had been. Taken them quite some time to find a place that was still open. Had the location been closer to the sea or a place of tourism, it would have been easier, but this was out in the middle of fucking nowhere. It was actually surprising, to see people here. Never would have guessed.
"Where the hell is my pop?" Malcolm asked, just now realizing his drink had not been served. He made eye contact with the waitress, who had just turned around.
"Excuse me, can you tell me what happened to my pop, please?" Malcolm asked her.
"Sorry, your what?" the waitress asked, her thick accent pouring over her words like a thick lamb-sauce.
"His drink," Cross added.
"Did you order a drink?" the waitress asked.
"A pop," Malcolm said.
"Sorry, what is a pop?" the waitress asked, sounding confused as hell.
Cross responded with a facepalm and a cheeky grin behind his hands. Yeah, yeah, he got it. Birmingham and all that. Wasn't like the high and mighty Adrian Cross wasn't without accent and tongue-talk too.
"Just… bring me a coke please," Malcolm said, trying not to be a tad bit annoyed.
"I will," the waitress said with a smile and turned around. Damn, that arse was a sight alright, even if he felt a bit guilty for staring. He could only guess if she was above or below twenty and he didn't know the laws here. But looking never hurt anyone.
"I told you to drop the Brummie dialect," Cross said, still with that cocky smile on his chin. "People don't understand your third-world English here, nor anywhere else in the world."
"Aye, I know," Malcolm said. "It's almost gone."
Cross tipped his hand from side to side, basically telling him eh, not so much. "You also need to drop the accent," he said. "You sound silly."
"I sound exotic," Malcolm said, trying to force an extreme Brummie accent. It didn't go well.
"Exotic is just a synonym for weird," Cross said.
Malcolm wanted to have a comeback for that, or just something to add, but his stomach had a mind of its own and he needed more meat to fuel its desire. He carved the lamb to pieces before devouring the pieces one by one. It was good… but then he remembered lamb was not really on his top three… or five even. Although, meat is meat…and he took another chunk.
"It's a shame they don't have steak on the menu," Malcolm said. "I´d kill for some red ox."
Cross shrugged. "Some other poor lad would have actually had to,"
"Na-ah." Malcolm grinned and pointed his fork at his face. "I know you're not like that."
Cross laughed satisfied, munching on his veggies like a sleek rabbit. "Took you a while to realize that though."
"Thought you had lost your bloody mind," Malcolm said.
"I am a pretty convincing liar," Cross said.
"One of your many virtues," Malcolm said. "That, and your hippie shit."
"I wouldn't call myself a hippie," Cross said on the defensive.
"No-one likes to be called a hippie," Malcolm said. "Doesn't change the fact that you are one, and a cunt one at that. You stink too."
Cross merely snorted. Ah, the mocking of Cross was one of his many highlights of the day. But everything in moderation, that was what people always said.
"I've been grinding your gears quite a lot, haven't I?"
"You wouldn't be you if you hadn't," Cross said. "But you may actually have been the most supportive. In your own, unique, Malcolm-ish way of course."
"Can't imagine that." Malcolm chuckled. "I'm an arse."
"I remember the day I began adding organic meat to my meal plan," Cross said, twirling his fork around. "You had found an all-you-can-eat place that served organic pork and poultry."
"Never have I ever paid so much for food in my entire life," Malcolm said, taking another satisfying bite of his lamb, trying his hardest not to think of the bill he had received that day… or of how much normal meat he could have bought instead. It gave him the shivers.
"I think it was the last time you ever paid a meal for me," Cross said.
Aye, it was. He remembered when Cross had first started his organic-part-time-vegetarian-something-he-didn't-care-much-for dietary habits a few years back. He had decided to try to live more… sustainable or some shit. At the beginning, he had thought it to be a bit over the top, but he couldn't help but admire his commitment. Today, the cunt was a full-time vegetarian. Malcolm himself could never give up meat. Some compromises just couldn't be made. Meat, TV and beer… the essentials are what makes life worth living. One shouldn't compromise where compromises couldn't be made. He wasn't sure if it was a saying or not, but it sure as hell should be.
"You should try a vegetarian meal sometime," Cross said.
"Eh, I did try it," Malcolm said, grimacing. "It was as if… something… was missing."
"You should try this," Cross said and put a forkful of vegetables close to his mouth, like an annoying mosquito dancing around his face.
"I ain't eating out of your fucking hand," Malcolm said and batted the fork away. "Not since that Covid19 incident we swore to never talk about."
"Ah," Cross said dreamingly, looking at the ceiling with nostalgia. "The memories."
Cross then forcefully stabbed the edge of his fork into the dried tomato on Malcolm's plate before returning the fork to his mouth, swallowing it all.
"Thieving bitch!" Malcolm exclaimed.
"Told you that you wouldn't touch them," Cross said, his words choked by the veggies in his mouth. Aye he had… and in truth, maybe he was okay with it. Malcolm then once again turned his attention to the other people in the room. He liked spectating others and how they went about with their lives. Once, he had been sitting at a train station for four hours, just watching people walk past him. Cross had called him a creep, but his purpose had not been to stalk anybody. He wasn't a fucking stalker. But seeing how hundreds of people were going about with their day… aye that was something. All from different walks of life playing out their own life stories. An ethnographical study in the humanities so to say, as he himself was a part of that study. Bloody brilliant idea it was, and damn but he felt smart and deep and shit.
A midst all the bleak looks, one family stood out. A small boy and two women. The boy was staring at him… at his throat, to be specific. The kid didn't hide it very well. He'd gotten used to it. The looks… the scornful looks and glares of people who made wild presumptions about what kind of guy he was. Not a damn freak, that's for sure. The wings and the blood… they were there for a reason. To remind himself every time he stood in front of the bathroom mirror. But the reflection rarely served as a reminder, but more often as a tormentor of past actions done wrong. Yet had he known, he'd probably still have gotten it. Aye, he would have.
The two women didn't pay him any attention, but merely looked at their dishes and the movement of the hand to the mouth. He wondered what relationship they shared. Friends? Lovers? They looked like they were on vacation. Relaxed clothing, stuffed backpacks and a camera hanging loose around one of the women's neck. Malcolm wished he too was here on vacation. He turned his attention towards Cross, who seemed to be completely enraptured by his smartphone.
"You never told me how you persuaded Miller to let us have two weeks off," Malcolm said, looking curiously at Cross.
Cross shrugged. "Stress."
"And how did you convince him to make the department pay half the expenses of our trip?" Malcolm asked.
Cross hesitated for a bit. "… Stress?"
"And let me guess," Malcolm said. "The excuse you gave for calling him at that outrageous hour was…"
Cross looked up, guilt painted on his face.
"Stress," they both said in unison.
Malcolm shook his head. "You´re just an incredibly big pile of human trash."
"Hey!" Cross exclaimed. "If that imbecile Tom Davies can use it as an excuse to get a month off work, I can damn well use it for… well, whatever this is."
Malcolm glowered at him. He was concerned. Very concerned. Concerned that Cross and his imagination had taken too great a hold of him. A voice during the night? A marked position inside his head? It all seemed so damn surreal. How the hell could shit like that even happen? He had already thought of a dozen possible reasons, but the conclusion was the same. It was practically impossible, or at least unrealistic to some extent. Stress was to blame, he knew that. The mental cancer of the 21st century. The seven-week field assignment could have shaken the bolts in his brain. It certainly seemed like the most likely reason, at least to him. It was the only reason, really.
He had already tried to talk him out of this odd endeavor of theirs, multiple times. But Cross seemed more determined than Malcolm had ever seen him before. And if he needed his help, he would damn well help him. Another, far more unsettling possibility, could be that, for reasons unknown, Cross was losing his mind like a damn lunatic turning to the bin-yard. It was a disturbing and unpleasant thought and Malcolm quickly tried to shake it off. There was no reason to worry about it now anyway. They were in Greece now, so the best option was to end this and hopefully get some answers… or some bloody peace.
Suddenly, Malcolm could feel the edge of a tray bump into his shoulder. He barely managed to get a look at the waitress before he was doused with meat sticks, veggies and sauce, followed by a glass of ice cold soda, which poured over him before the glass hit the ground and shattered, covering the ugly floor with small pieces of glass and flooded it with dark soda. It was gross as shit, sticking to him like glue. He tried to brush off as much as he could, but the tzatziki and soda stuck. Ah…shit…
"So sorry, sir!" the waitress exclaimed and quickly reached out for some napkins.
"It's alright." Malcolm was calm and raised himself from the spot trying to determine if any of the glass pieces had hit him. The waitress feverishly tried to rub Malcolm's shirt with the thin napkins, but the paper just dissolved without getting much off him. Sure, that'll help. He put his hands put between them, signaling her to stop.
"It's fine, really," Malcolm said. "Got spare clothes in my truck."
The waitress nodded lowly. Her eyes were watery. Her aura of innocence had turned into pure sadness. For some silly accident? Malcolm found that a bit off. She then returned to the kitchen, with heavy footsteps, seemingly on the brink of breakdown.
"You need a hand?" Cross asked, wiping his mouth with a cloth.
"Nah, I'm good," Malcolm said. "Be back in two or so."
"Wait," Cross said and quickly finished the last of his salad. Meanwhile, a man dressed in a black polo and an apron rushed towards them. The look on the man's face was somewhat confusing, as he couldn't tell if the man was sad or angry. His small arms didn't really match with the way he moved. His head was almost bald, yet not shaven, so he looked like a damn nerve-wreck. An insecure one, that was for sure.
"I want to apologize for the incident," the man said with a heavy Greek accent. Definitely the manager of the place. "Is there anything we can do for you?"
"Aye, I need to use your restroom," Malcolm said.
The man bowed his head. "Of course."
Malcolm took a long gaze at the entry to the kitchen, expecting that the waitress would come out of there. But no one come. He wondered…
"One more thing," Malcolm said and looked deeply in the eyes of the man in front of him. "Don't blame her… we all make mistakes. All of us."
The man looked surprised at him, but then nodded and gave him a polite and warm smile. Fake as fuck that's for sure.
"She has been… clumsy over the last few weeks," the man said. "But yes. We all make mistakes."
"How much do we owe?" Cross asked and took out his wallet.
"It is on the house," the man said, still with his overly polite smiled glued onto his face. Bloody hell, how could his arms be so short? It annoyed him more than it should.
"The house will pay?" Cross asked. "Or her?"
Cross had a point. He didn't know the customs in this country, but there was no way this waitress should pay so much money for such an insignificant error. It was probably a lot more to her than it was to them anyway, even if he was a poor sod. Malcolm looked at the man, who was struck silent. He then began adding up the numbers in his mind.
"Believe our bill is 19.50 euro," Malcolm said.
"This will suffice then," Cross said and placed a 20-euro note in the man's hand. "And call for the waitress, please."
The man was speechless for a few seconds, then yelled out the name of the waitress. An exotic name, nothing like Malcolm had heard before. It was pretty too. He had to remember that name for some day. The waitress came out, her eyes red and teary. Poor girl. She walked up to Cross and Malcolm, seemingly very insecure of herself.
Cross grabbed a 5-euro note and placed it firmly in the small hand of the waitress, then clenched her fist around it and looked deeply into her eyes.
"As my friend just said to your manager… we all make mistakes."
The girl's eyes opened wide, and a large smile formed on her libs. She wiped off her tears and looked at Cross, then at Malcolm.
"Besides, I finally got my pop." Malcolm grinned, symbolically brushing off some of the soda that had stuck itself to his shirt. It was fucking gross to say the least.
"Thank you," she said, almost choking on the words.
Cross smiled. "Just don't make it a habit. I hate seeing good food go to waste."
Malcolm chuckled for himself. Typical for him to say shit like that. He then turned around and headed for the exit, hoping that when he returned inside in a few minutes, the smile on the waitress's face would still be there. Cause it sure as hell was pretty.