Early morning, diner life in the big city, bottomless cups of coffee, minutes stretching into hours in the endless cold pre-dawn night as bored strangers smoked cigarettes and stared at plates of half eaten greasy eggs. I was pulling overnights as a hack, little money for long hours driving wasted drunks around. I spent my down time in this faded little greasy spoon, not hungry but not clean either. I was killing time like everyone else in here, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. My shift wasn’t over for another two hours, but most likely I was done. That was about when a small gaggle of strange looking kids burst in. They were multi-colored and full of life, splattering into the neon light of the pale diner from the crisp outside night air. They were drunk on life, not liquor. They settled into a booth across from me and I eyed them warily. They leafed through plastic wrapped menus and talked a hundred miles an hour. There was what appeared to be a very cute girl, at least she had been cute at one time before the peroxide and the circle tattoos on the arms had set in and taken over her body. She was full of life as well, you could see it in her eyes, but she pretended to be dour in her sheik gothic way. Someone had gone crazy on her, piercing large jewelry all over her body, piercing large jewelry in her earlobes in the form of plugs, piercing large jewelry in her exposed belly button beneath a green tattoo that said ‘his’, piercing large jewelry Lord knows where else on her body, but I wouldn’t have minded exploring it to find out. She still was an attractive girl even with all of the carnival accoutrements. She looked like a large jewelry box, like a walking artist’s palette. She had a small stud in her tongue, the one small piece of jewelry that was apparent on her body. For awhile the goofed around, finally ordering, very little food but coffee and juice, I had a feeling they were low on funds. Eventually after entertaining me and giving my mind a ride for about an hour, they began to stir. They rose and gathered their leather coats and cigarettes and scraped together a tip which they threw on the table.
“Need a ride?” I offered. They looked at each other doubtfully. The cute pierced to death girl definitely pleaded a yes to her boyfriend. He said no. “On the house.” I offered. “I have an hour to kill anyway.
The guy shrugged, the girl smiled, and we had a deal. I owed them that much. The piercings and tattoos had killed an hour for me.
