from concrete sidewalks as suitable for the frying of eggs as the griddle that I would soon be attending.
The air lacked the energy to move. Trees hung limp. Birds either retreated to leafy roosts or flew higher than they had at dawn, far up where thinner air held the heat less tenaciously.
In this wilted stillness, between Mrs. Sanchez’s house and the Grille, I saw three shadows moving. All were independent of a source, for they were not ordinary shadows.
When I was much younger, I called these entities shades. But that is just another word for ghosts, and they are not ghosts like Penny Kallisto.
I don’t believe they ever passed through this world in human form or knew this life as we know it. I suspect they don’t belong here, that a realm of eternal darkness is their intended home.
Their shape is liquid. Their substance is no greater than that of shadows. Their movement is soundless. Their intentions, though mysterious, are not benign.
Often they slink like cats, though cats as big as men. At times they run semi-erect like dream creatures that are half man, half dog.
I do not see them often. When they appear, their presence always signifies oncoming trouble of a greater than usual intensity and a darker than usual dimension.
They are not shades to me now. I call them bodachs.
Bodach is a word that I heard a visiting six-year-old English boy use to describe these creatures when, in my company, he glimpsed a pack of them roaming a Pico Mundo twilight. A bodach is a small, vile, and supposedly mythical beast of the British Isles, who comes down chimneys to carry off naughty children.
I don’t believe these spirits that I see are actually bodachs. I don’t think the English boy believed so, either. The word popped into his mind only because he had no better name for them. Neither do I.
He was the only person I have ever known who shared my special sight. Minutes after he spoke the word bodach in my presence, he was crushed to death between a runaway truck and a concrete-block wall.
By the time I reached the Grille, the three bodachs had joined in a pack. They ran far ahead of me, shimmered around a corner, and disappeared, as though they had been nothing more than heat imps, mere tricks of the desert air and the grueling sun.
Fat chance.
Some days, I find it difficult to concentrate on being the best short-order cook that I can be. This morning, I would need more than the usual discipline to focus my mind on my work and to ensure that the omelets, home fries, burgers, and bacon melts that came off my griddle were equal to my reputation.
“EGGS—WRECK ’EM AND STRETCH ’EM,” said Helen Arches. “One Porky sitting, hash browns, cardiac shingles.”
She clipped the ticket to the order rail, snatched up a fresh pot of coffee, and went to offer refills to her customers.
Helen has been an excellent waitress for forty-two years, since she was eighteen. After so much good work, her ankles have stiffened and her feet have flattened, so when she walks, her shoes slap the floor with each step.
This soft flap-flap-flap is one of the fundamental rhythms of the beautiful music of the Pico Mundo Grille, along with the sizzle and sputter of things cooking, the clink of flatware, and the clatter of dishes. The conversation of customers and employees provides the melody.
We were busy that Tuesday morning. All the booths were occupied, as were two-thirds of the stools at the counter.
I like being busy. The short-order station is the center stage of the restaurant, in full view, and I draw fans as surely as does any actor on the Broadway boards.
Being a short-order cook on a slow shift must be akin to being a symphony conductor without either musicians or an audience. You stand poised for action in an apron instead of a tuxedo, holding a spatula rather than a baton, longing to interpret the art not of composers but of chickens.
The egg is art, sure enough. Given a choice between Beethoven and a pair of eggs fried in butter, a hungry man will invariably choose the eggs—or in fact the chicken—and will find his spirits lifted at least as much as they might be by a requiem, rhapsody, or sonata.
Anyone can crack a shell and spill the essence into pan, pot, or pipkin, but few can turn out omelets as flavorful, scrambled eggs as fluffy, and sunnysides as sunny as mine.
This is not pride talking. Well, yes it is, but this is the pride of accomplishment, rather than vanity or boastfulness.
I was not born with the artistry of a gifted hash-slinger. I learned by study and practice, under the tutelage of Terri Stambaugh, who owns the Pico Mundo Grille.
When others saw in me no promise, Terri believed in my potential and gave me a chance. I strive to repay her faith with cheeseburgers of exemplary quality and pancakes almost light enough to float off the plate.
She isn’t merely my employer but also my culinary mentor, my surrogate mother, and my friend.
In addition, she is my primary authority on Elvis Presley. If you cite any day in the life of the King of Rock-’n’-Roll, Terri will without hesitation tell you where he was on that date and what he was doing.
I, on the other hand, am more familiar with his activities since his death.
Without referencing Helen’s ticket on the rail, I stretched an order of eggs, which means that I added a third egg to our usual serving of two. Then I wrecked ’em: scrambled them.
A “Porky sitting” is fried ham. A pig sits on its ham. It lies on its abdomen, which is the source of bacon, so “one Porky lying” would have called for a rasher with the eggs.
“Cardiac shingles” is an order of toast with extra butter.
Hash browns are merely hash browns. Not every word we speak during the day is diner lingo, just as not every short-order cook sees dead people.
I saw only the living in the Pico Mundo Grille during that Tuesday shift. You can always spot the dead in a diner because the dead don’t eat.
Toward the end of the breakfast rush, Chief Wyatt Porter came in. He sat alone in a booth.
As usual, he washed down a tablet of Pepcid AC with a glass of low-fat moo juice before he ordered the mess of eggs and the home fries that he’d mentioned earlier. His complexion was as milky gray as carbolic-acid solution.
The chief smiled thinly at me and nodded. I raised my spatula in reply.
Although eventually I might trade hash-slinging for tire sales, I’ll never contemplate a career in law enforcement. It’s stomach-corroding work, and thankless.
Besides, I’m spooked by guns.
Half the booths and all but two of the counter stools had been vacated by the time a bodach came into the diner.
Their kind don’t appear to be able to walk through walls as do the dead like Penny Kallisto. Instead they slip through any crevice or crack, or keyhole.
This one seeped through the thread-thin gap between the glass door and the metal jamb. Like an undulant ribbon of smoke, as insubstantial as fumes but not translucent, ink-black, the bodach entered.
Standing rather than slinking on all fours, fluid in shape and without discernible features, yet suggestive of something half man and half canine, this unwanted customer slouched silently from the front to the back of the diner, unseen by all but me.
It seemed to turn its head toward each of our patrons as it glided along the aisle between the counter stools and the booths, hesitating in a few instances, as though certain people were of greater interest to it than were others. Although it possessed no discernible facial features, a portion of its silhouette appeared headlike, with a suggestion