“Coffee and Pie”

Coffee and Pie

By Tilsen Mulalley

Originally Published in Dark Moon Digest #32-33, 2018

Re-edited October 2025.

I.

Blue neon hung disembodied in the rain, flashing and hazy at the edges like an electric ghost.

24-Hour Food and Drink!

Off.

24-Hour Food and Drink!

Off.

24-Hour Food and Drink!

Off.

A cracker-box diner squatted below that lonely, blinking sign. It sagged in the rain. The parking lot was ditched-out gravel. It was deserted except for a couple of bigfoot-stomper trucks and a Volkswagen Beetle that had seen better days and better roads. To the young man who had pulled his little Honda with the busted heater into the gravel, it was an oasis.

Big, warmly lit windows beckoned longingly. He could smell the greasy sausage on the rain-soaked air. It wafted seductively to him as he sat behind the wheel of his rusted-out little shitbox. He had not really wanted to stop, but the rain was a cold and penetrating one. Even the pines along the freeway seemed to huddle together against the biting cold. His fingers had become so numb that they had begun to throb with cold pain. He’d decided that the next rest stop he came to, he’d pull over and sit on his hands until they regained some kind of feeling. Instead of a rest stop, he had found the diner.

He parked as close as he could. There were maybe ten steps from his car to the door. Not quite rockstar parking, but not bad either. Those steps left him soaked to the bone. His teeth actually chattered. The bell above the door tinkled, heralding his entrance. A couple of good ol’ boys glowered over half-eaten steak and eggs at the counter. An older gentleman buried himself deeper in the newspaper he was reading in the furthest corner booth. The waitress behind the counter had her nose in a book and was doing her best not to look at him. A sign at the podium instructed newcomers to “park themselves.”

 He took a booth near one of the big front windows. Raindrops raced down the grimy glass. He watched them and took odds. The sill was the finish line. His bet took it by a mile, and he made a hundred grand. The laminated menu stashed in the salt and pepper holder was greasy to the touch. Nothing looked especially good. All he really wanted was hot coffee to burn off the last of the chill on him. The waitress came over and fulfilled that dream. His hands closed gratefully around the cracked old mug she filled for him. She asked what he wanted to eat.  He asked for suggestions.

“This hour, it’s all gonna be shit. Eddie don’t give a fuck under the best of circumstances.” 

She flapped her hand at the server window. “I like the apple pie. Probably your only safe bet.”

She was pretty. Her voice was tinged with the exhaustion of small-town existence that sits on the tongues of everyone smart enough to know they were born somewhere too tiny for them. Her tired blue eyes were brighter than anyone else’s in the room. 

“I’ll take that then,” he said, “with vanilla ice cream, if you have it.”

“Sure,” she said, scribbling on her little yellow pad. She turned on the heel of her Doc Martens and headed back behind the counter. She ripped his order out of the pad and strung it up on the line in the serving window with a clothespin. A burly hand reached up and snatched it up with a snap!

Her nose was back in the paperback. It looked like some vintage thriller she got off the used rack in the grocery. A red-eyed shadow beast was carting off a terrified woman in white on the cover. Casually, she brushed away a purple strand of hair that had gotten loose from a messy ponytail. She was pretty, alright. He thought absurdly of taking her hand when she came back. He’d ask her to go with him to the coast. They’d ride out of here in his clapped-out Honda, away from all this nothing on the side of a freeway. Don’t be so cringy, he thought; but he thought it anyway. He’d always been a bit of a romantic. That’s why he was going to the coast, wasn’t it? Poet’s soul and all that crap. He needed things to write about, after all. Why not this mysterious roadside girl and her faded blue eyes?

That same burly hand reappeared with his pie and ice cream. It set the dessert down in the serving window and rang a bell. The waitress set the book open facedown, grabbed the pie and the coffee urn, and came his way again. She refilled his mug and presented the pie.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” he said.

“Enjoy it.”

“Enjoy your book.”

What a lame fucking thing to say. He was kicking his internal self in the ass before the words had even finished leaving his mouth. Still, she smiled at him. It was halfhearted and worn out, but genuine. She was more than pretty; she was beautiful. That tired smile was entrancing. He smiled back. He did not grab her hand. She left him to his pie. It was stale. His first cup of coffee had tasted burnt, and the second tasted torched. He drank it to the last drop anyway, letting its acrid heat chase the chill from his bones. The plate he cleaned of every crumb. As he sat in repose, letting the pie and coffee fight it out in his stomach, she brought the check by.

“How was it?” she asked.

“Best coffee and pie I’ve ever had.”

She laughed. Musical.

“Liar. No diner has good coffee or pie. Bad food is the house specialty.”
“No, for sure, but I’ve definitely had worse.”

Another lame thing to say. But she was laughing again. She went to say something else, but the guy with the newspaper grumbled for coffee. She rolled her eyes and hurried off. 

He looked at the check, torn from the same yellow pad she’d taken his order on. There were doodles at the edges; little flowers, shapes, and patterns. In the bottom corner was a quick little sketch of James Dean.

He tipped big and left the booth. The bell jingled as he stepped back into the rain. Part of him wanted to throw a look over his shoulder at her. He wanted to see if she was maybe looking at him. He felt he must do this, yet he couldn’t. That was puzzling. He did not puzzle on this fact long. The rain quickly began to resoak him as he hurried to his car. He fell into the cab and heaved the engine to life with a turn of the key. As he readied himself to pull back out into the road, he was at last able to cast a final glance back at the diner. The waitress was framed in the window, reading her book behind the counter. She looked like a painting he’d seen once at a museum in Chicago. He couldn’t remember what it was called.

Then he was turning onto the highway, accelerating up to speed. He followed the yellow lines of the road as it cut through the thick trees. The wipers rushed back and forth across the windshield like victims in a game of monkey in the middle. The radio was fuzzed out across every station, leaving only the dull thrum of rain as his soundtrack. The miles drifted by slowly, and his attention drifted.

He rounded a corner, and where there had been nothing moments before, there was now a doe. She stood frozen in the middle of the highway, hide slick, big black eyes staring into his. Whoopsie, they seemed to say, Quite a predicament we’ve found ourselves in, hm?

 He swerved. The car skidded, fishtailing. The pines on the right side of the road had given way to a hillside a few miles back. No concrete barriers or metal guardrail lined it, only crooked wooden posts and shitty old wire. His car careened through without losing speed. He went sailing over the embankment, flipping end over end down the face of the steep and rocky hillside. His bones rattled with each impact as he was jerked about in his seat. The belt secured him from the waist down, but his upper half flailed like a ragdoll. His head bounced off the window and shattered it. The car rolled a final time as it reached the bottom of the hill, landing on its roof. He hung there, half-conscious, half in shock. He didn’t hurt, but he figured that was the shock. The pain would come soon enough. He reached for his belt, trying to undo the latch. His fingers were being stubborn and not listening to him.

“Come on, come–”

II.

The cold damp of the rain penetrated the car. His heater was busted, leaving nothing to beat back the cold, and the shabby interior of the diner looked warm and inviting. He hurried inside, a bell tinkling to announce his entrance. A couple of good ol’ boys glowered over half-eaten steak and eggs at the counter. An older gentleman buried himself deeper in the newspaper he was reading in the furthest corner booth. The waitress behind the counter had her nose in a book and was doing her best not to look at him. A sign at the podium instructed newcomers to “park themselves.”

He sat in one of the booths, watching raindrops race down the grimy glass to the sill. Looking over the menu, there was nothing that particularly appealed to him.

“What do you suggest?” he said to the waitress when she came for his order and to fill his cup with coffee.

“This hour, it’s all gonna be shit. Eddie don’t give a fuck under the best of circumstances. I like the apple pie,” she said.

“I’ll take that, then. With some vanilla ice cream, if you have it.”

“Sure.”

She wrote down his order and walked back to the lunch counter. His eyes followed her. She was pretty. He had a mind to ask her to come with him to the coast. Poet’s spirit and all that. She stuck his order in the window and stuck her nose in her paperback as she leaned on the counter. A hand put a slice of pie in the window and rang a bell. She marked her place, took the pie and a coffee urn, and brought them over.

“Anything else?”

“No, thanks.”

“Enjoy it.”

“Enjoy your book.”

Lame. Still, she gave him a halfhearted smile that lit him ablaze. He smiled back. She left and he set to the meal. The pie was stale and the coffee was even more burnt than the first cup, but he ate every crumb and drank every drop. As the last of the bitter liquid fell into his stomach, she came by with his check.

“How’d you like it?”

“Best coffee and pie I’ve ever had.”

She laughed. “Liar. No diner has good coffee or pie. Bad food is the house specialty.”

“No, for sure, but I’ve definitely had worse.”

She went to say something else, but the jerk with the newspaper called for more coffee. She hurried off. He admired the doodles she had left on his check, flowers and shapes and a sketch of either James Dean in the bottom corner. He tipped big and left, hurrying through the rain to his car with his arm over his head to keep from getting too wet. He wanted to look back, started to turn his neck to do so. Then, he just… stopped. His legs kept propelling him to the car, and his neck wouldn’t listen to his command to look back at her one last time. Puzzling. Puzzling, but now he was in his car again, and he was looking at her through the window as he made to pull back onto the road.  She was framed in the square window of the diner like a painting, her nose still in her book. He should have asked her to come with him.

 He accelerated out onto the road. The radio was fuzzed out across every station, leaving only the dull thrum of the rain to for music. His attention began to drift, and when he turned a corner in the road and caught a doe in his headlights, he swerved hard to miss her at the very last second. The Honda fishtailed, smashing through the wooden posts on the side of the road where the pines had fallen away to a hillside. His car flipped and rolled down the hill. His head smashed through the window, letting in the rainwater. He only had a lapbelt. He stayed in his seat, but from the waist up he was a flailing, bloody ragdoll. The car came to a sudden stop that should have slammed his face into the steering wheel, but it didn’t. The world was silent. Even the rain seemed to have gone quiet.

He stared straight ahead. Everything was dark. It was hard to make out the details. The pressure in his head told him that he was probably upside down. He tried to move. He couldn’t. Not even his eyes. Even blinking seemed to be off the table. It wasn’t as if he was jammed by the seatbelt. His muscles refused to listen to him. It dawned on him that he may very well be paralyzed. He tried to scream.  His lips refused to part. I must have broken my spine, he thought, I’ve broken my spine and paralyzed my lungs. Soon, I’ll suffocate. Soon–

Despite their inability to move, his eyes focused on something just in front of his nose, cutting off his spiraling inner monologue. It hung suspended in the air, jagged and sharp enough to poke at his corneas even from a distance. It was a shard of glass. Attached to nothing, it did not dangle. Yet it was as still as he was, refusing to adhere to gravity. Other little gems seemed to glimmer beyond the shard, past the gaping hole where the windshield had been. They were softer, smaller than the frozen glass. It was pitch black out there, and hard to tell if it was real or just a trick. He forced his eyes to maintain focus. The realization dawned gradually on him. Some of it was indeed more glass from the windshield and the window his head had smashed. The other things were raindrops. The rain had stopped falling. The world had frozen.

III.

“I like the apple pie,” the waitress said.

He looked up at her, not sure what she meant. He felt groggy, his mind clouded. Hadn’t he just been somewhere else? He went to ask her to repeat herself.

“I’ll take that, then. With some vanilla ice cream if you have it,” he said.

She wrote down his order and walked behind the lunch counter, stuck his order in the window, and picked up her book.

That wasn’t what I wanted to say, he thought. He looked around the diner, observing the other patrons. All seemed absorbed in their own business. He tried to stand up, and he couldn’t. His brain commanded his body to move. His muscles stayed lax. He looked over to the waitress, who was coming over with his pie and an urn of coffee to refill his mug. She set the pie down and poured from the urn.

“Anything else?”

Why can’t I move?

“No thanks.”

“Enjoy it.”

He wanted to grab her arm and ask for help.

“Enjoy your book.”

She smiled at him. It was halfhearted. It was also beautiful, and it calmed his racing mind. His own lips curled themselves into a smile. He almost believed he’d curled them himself. She walked away, and he set to his meal. The pie was stale, and the coffee was burnt. Their comforting weight on his stomach chased the suspicions from his mind. When he’d finished, she brought his check by. 

“How was it?”

Have I been here before?

“Best coffee and pie I’ve ever had.”

No. No? No.

She laughed. “Liar. No diner had good coffee or pie. Bad food is the house specialty.” 

Her warm smile further calmed him. I’d remember that smile, he thought.

“Guess I just got lucky tonight, then.”

She laughed and went to say something else, but the newspaper guy in the back called for more coffee. She hurried off. He admired the doodles she’d left on his check, shapes and flowers and a sketch of James Dean in the bottom corner. He tipped big and stood to go. His legs obeyed, and he was delighted. See, your legs are fine. You panicked for nothing. 

He made to take a step toward the door. His leg did not listen. He tried to look down and figure out what the problem was. His head remained straight, his eyes glued to the front door.

What? He couldn’t move a single muscle; he was a statue in the middle of the diner. The waitress was directly in front of him, pouring coffee into a customer’s mug. The coffee’s flow had stopped in midair just above the mug’s lip. It hung there, suspended, its steam stalled mid-rise– and then it wasn’t. If he had been able to blink, the coffee would have been gone in one. The waitress was no longer at the customer’s table. She was back behind the counter, grabbing the coffee pot, frozen in her spot. He himself felt lower, and his field of vision had changed; he had gone from standing to sitting back in the booth. The waitress was visible in the corner of his eye now. As he watched, she put the coffee pot down and made her way backwards, around the counter, and back towards him. Her movements were jerky, as though she were an animation that was missing several frames. When she reached him, he saw that his empty plate and mug were with her. She set them down in front of him. His vision had changed again, and he was now staring directly at her. Her mouth was jerking, vomiting up backwards sentences while she smiled down at him. He wanted to scream, but his mouth was busy doing the same.

What the fuck is going on?

 He willed himself to say it, willed himself to do anything, but he could not. She left him, walking backwards again, and as he sat there, an odd feeling took over his stomach. He watched his hand pick up a fork in the same jerky way the waitress had been moving, and bring it to his mouth. He felt something climb up his throat, cold and hot and desperate not to be in his gullet anymore. When the fork came away, a chunk of pie and a daub of ice cream sat on its prongs. He deposited them on the plate, came back to his mouth, and repeated the same process over and over, his hand occasionally trading the fork for the mug and letting coffee slither up his throat like a hot, burnt snake. Before long, his entire meal sat before him again. The waitress was back at his side, frozen and staring down at him. He heard a click.

“Anything else?” she asked.

He looked up at her. What the fuck was that? Did you not notice that the world went backwards?

“No, thanks,” he said.

“Enjoy it.”

Are you fucking insane?

“Enjoy your book.”

She smiled at him. He tried to keep himself from smiling back, tried to scream and shout and demand that she acknowledge that he had in fact just become the first man to eat pie and ice cream backwards, tried desperately to derail whatever kind of track he was on.

He smiled back. She left, and he started on his meal. 

The pie was stale, and the coffee was burnt. It disgusted him, but he couldn’t stop. By the last bite, though, it wasn’t that bad. It tasted right. He couldn’t remember why he’d been so disgusted. He did remember he was glad that he’d made the waitress laugh. She had a nice laugh. A nice–

You can’t stop eating this pie.

–Smile. He thought he might ask her to come to–

Try it. Try to stop eating the pie. Throw your fork.

–The coast with him. Poet’s spirit and all–

THROW THE FORK.

Why would he do that? Why would–

You ate it BACKWARDS, man.

He tried to smack himself in the side of the head. His hand only continued shoveling pie and ice cream down his throat. There was maybe half left–

None. There was none left. Hadn’t there just been half? She was standing next to him now, and he wanted to demand that she tell him what in the hell was going on in this diner. What had Eddie laced his pie with? What had she put in his coffee? But he could not say a word, and she only stood frozen, three steps away from his booth and in mid-stride, his check in her hand. 

What is going on here?

Suddenly, she was at his table table, and he was looking up at her. Part of him couldn’t get over how pretty her tired blue eyes were. Most of him just screamed words that his mouth refused to say.

“How’d you like it?” she asked.

I fucking hated it. I fucking hated it but I ate it anyway because I can’t seem to do anything else.

“Best coffee and pie I’ve ever had.” he said.

“Liar-”

I know I am! I’m lying out my ass because you’re pretty! 

“No diner has good coffee or pie-”

What the fuck is happening?

“Bad food is the house specialty,” she finished.

“I guess I just got lucky tonight, then,” he replied with a smile. 

The scream in his head didn’t even get close to the teeth of that grin, but it was loud. For a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of something behind the waitress’s eye. Fear? Confusion? Her lips were smiling back at him but her eyes– 

The waitress went to say something else, but she was frozen again. So was he. Nothing moved; the world was silent. But inside his head, he screamed.