The Last Cowboy Western - A Short Story

Billy DiRienzo

October 24th, 2009

The Last Cowboy Western

There’s a level of tedium in breaking eggs that not even the keenest housewife has ever experienced. It may take three eggs to make an omelette, but by working at an establishment that serves breakfast until 11:30, my egg-breaking figures hit triple digits. With my clinically-accurate (and OSHA-compliant) touch, most of these eggs spill out onto the griddle to cook over easy. It’s the classic breakfast favorite, served with your choice of hash browns or home fries and two slices of toast sliced diagonally and saturated with butter. It’s a breakfast I used to enjoy until I started working at Brophy’s. Even back in high school when I was just washing dishes here, I couldn’t accept the complimentary employee breakfast anymore after my 2nd week. The food around you loses all palatability after you’re immersed in it for all 8 hours of your shift. Fresh-brewed coffee is noxious; even the smell of French Toast loses its novelty after overexposure. 

I’ve been working here for nearly a decade now. The other cook on today’s shift, Mikey, was around the corner, behind our undersized kitchen, smoking a cigarette in the propped-open doorway. He blew his smoke outside when he felt someone’s eyes on him, but most of the time he just exhaled where he stood. 

Don’t let that divert you from eating here though, there’s a guy like Mikey at every restaurant in the business. Even at that steak place you feel good about taking your wife and kid to on that special occasion... there’s a guy smoking a cigarette in the same room that your mushroom-garnished, medium-rare porterhouse steak is being prepared in. 

Today began like most days at Brophy’s did, with the exception of a post-it note tacked to the wall opposite the kitchen’s swinging door. It read: “Push eggs today, overstocked.” Notes like this one took me back to my days as a waiter, cleverly trying to emphasize the deliciousness of the bacon as it approached its expiration date. I’d call it nostalgia, but these aren’t fond memories. Nothing here was purely pleasant or negative, work was monotonous but neutral. These are the terms I came to accept. I didn’t hate my job, I didn’t hate my co-workers, I didn’t even hate eggs all that much (though I hadn’t tasted one in months). Life was copacetic.

And in my brief reflection during the downtime before our morning crowd, I thought about that last part a bit. And suddenly my hunger kicked in. I had a craving for eggs. Not just eggs, but an omelette. A fluffy golden omelette impregnated with a handful of pre-diced ham and green bell peppers onions, and cheese. Most restaurants call this a Western omelette. IHOP calls this a Colorado omelette. But here at Brophy’s this is referred to as an Aspen Omelette. Chalk that one up to innovation I suppose. I picked up and greased one of the pans from the griddle and eased my colorful mixture around to evenly distribute the vegetables. Being the first thing cooked today, it served to fill the room back up with that familiar haze. I started to regret my breakfast decision and cursed under my breath. The batter sizzled in response. 

“Flop two, whiskey down, spike on an oval,” exclaimed the youthful waiter as he poked his head through the swinging door. He must have been a new guy excited to use the lingo. I nodded as I lightly sprayed the griddle and cracked two eggs onto its surface. They hissed with delight. Without even looking, I twisted the temperature knob on the side burner to high and flipped my Aspen. With a crackle from the omelette, I retrieved a bag of frozen hash browns from the freezer. to throw on. It was so routine. 

It was about a half hour after eating on the job today that I realized I had food poisoning and minutes later when I knew I was going to throw up.  With the brevity of a man in need of a bathroom, I told Mikey I was sick,

“Sick of what, working here?”

“The eggs,”  That was all I could force my mouth open to say before swallowing and clenching my throat again.

“I mean, you’ve been here for like what... your whole life?”

The moment my hand touched the swinging door, I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the bathroom. My time-pressed logic convinced me not to get sick in the kitchen. I started visibly gagging right as I passed the booths and gagged again as I passed a family waiting to be seated. As I drifted through the front door I felt the relief of fresh air and the feeling subsided. I then hurried to my car.

I turned the key in the ignition of my hand-me-down Saab 900 and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main drag. First intersection, red light; I was in the middle of the morning traffic. The forward-moving momentum stopped and the fury inside my stomach returned tenfold. As the light turned green, I wrestled for the window crank, but it was too late. My throat swelled and an uprising of bile made itself known to my mouth. Instinct took the wheel as my sickness surged. I groaned and felt myself wretch something awful. My vomit splattered on the side window, mushy undigested hunks of cubed ham fell onto the floor as the runny, yolk-like emesis crept into the ridge between the window and my door. The view outside was sepia-tinged. 

I needed to pull over, but had to fight my body to do so. I drifted over to the shoulder without a turn-signal and with my head now resting against the steering wheel, starting braking. That’s when a thunderous BANG came about, followed by a hollow clang. For a brief moment, my sickness went on hiatus as I brought the car to a complete stop.

After composing myself (and filling a Stop & Shop plastic bag full of post-processed omelette) I stepped out to inspect my situation. There, next to the dented and hanging front bumper of my car   sat a black microwave, completely unscathed. My language was as colorful as the Aspen-covered window. The fucking food industry. After kicking the microwave aside, I went to my trunk to fetch a wrench from my roadside tool kit to pull the dangling bumper off. Down on my knees, I no longer felt the horrible urge to turn inside out. In fact, this change from routine was strangely pleasant. I smiled as I worked to remove the damaged part.  Working on the car was much more satisfying than making breakfast for strangers. I had been unfulfilled at Brophy’s for far too long, 

The Fairmont Seekers - A Short Story

William DiRienzo   November 17th, 2009

The Fairmont Seekers

     In provincial northern Oklahoma, isolated roughly an hour from diesel bus lines and street lights, exists a tumbleweed town with a secret blight. Fairmont is a speck even on a county map, a blue-collar town of teachers, mechanics, laborers, and the like who live the typical routine of a morning commute out to cities with purpose. Farmers harvest their grains and bottle their milk and live their simplistic lives with inherent self-pride. Also, in an honest, hard-working fashion, every sweat-browed, family man and woman regularly attends the town’s church, The Congregation of the Fairmont Seekers.

     The sect had developed through discord over Biblical interpretation at the town’s previous Congregation. Henry Butler rose to become inarguably one of the most prominent members of the church. He initiated a movement towards the direct interpretation of the Bible. Butler and his followers argued that since “The Book” was the written word of God for the masses, that the language must be deliberately literal in order to be widely understood. He was adamant about the Bible not being a book of metaphors and abstracts. Butler’s interpretation was one that resonated absolute in the minds of Fairmont’s small population.

     Henry Butler quickly converted the majority of the congregation over to his ideals. Eventually, he began holding services in the attic of his white, rustic, Victorian-trim cottage that had worshipers packed to the gable. But he had the kind of charisma that could lead people through Egypt. All Henry Butler had to do was shake your hand with both of his, give you his earnest smile, and thank you for coming, and suddenly you felt like his disciple.

     He could make a Mount Carmel out of a cornfield.


     ***

     The circumstances of my involvement still trouble me. Being from Tulsa and keeping my nose out of small town business, it came as a complete surprise when Henry Butler called my office. The conversations still vivid in my mind. After introducing himself to me as Doctor Henry Butler, he asked if I would come down to his local office to ask me, a big city doctor as he said, for a second opinion on something. While reluctant, it wasn’t in me to decline a medical request, even if it had to be on the following day, my day off. My second opinion had never interested my colleagues before.

     The following afternoon I packed up my Volvo sedan with my medical bag in the passenger seat and made the hour drive from the skyscrapers through the flat scenic farmland, to the front porch of the Doctor’s office where he was sitting outside, reading a black leather-bound book with a flowing crimson ribbon bookmark. He was dressed in creased khaki pants and a black long-sleeved button-up shirt with his round head protruding. His dark brown hair had a perfect part and it was clear that he took great pride in his own self-image.

     “Casual Friday? Nice."

     “Well I can’t always wear my Sunday best,” said the man as he got up to greet me. He shook my hand firmly and in greeting me, welcomed me inside his house. We headed upstairs to where he said his practice was, but there were nothing but folding chairs. Rows and rows of them, from aluminum public school chairs, to vibrant beach chairs more suitable for camping or watching a parade. Definitely not a waiting room, this place smelled more like frankincense than antiseptic. Butler then led me towards a room behind the blue felt staging and a wooden lectern. I spotted an organ to the right side of the room, near the window.

     “What is this?” I asked him. “You’re not a real doctor, are you?”

     “My calling goes beyond physical medicine. I have been sent by Him, the Lord, our Father, to deliver a message to His people. Please, Dr. Bernard, I’ve got everything already set up. I just need to prove His love to my people. Can you help me?”

     Before I could say no, Henry Butler opened the door to reveal an operating room. He told me that recently, with large contributions to the offering plate pouring in, he was able to finance an operating table, two large tanks of anesthesia, and the bare essentials for basic surgery. I was equally impressed and concerned with his acquisitions.

     “God is inside my heart, between my left and right ventricle.” he assured me.

     “Impossible, it’s all been tested befo-”

     “I have been put on this Earth to prove to God’s people that He loves all of humanity.”

     “God ... in your heart?” I tried to reason with the idea. His wide, piercing eyes and genuinely divine love overwhelmed me. 

     “There’s no way to physically prove that He exists in your heart or any heart.”

     “By His grace, I promise you that this will change the world. You will be a hero for this.”

     “But, if you don’t mind me asking, why me?”

     “God foreknows and foreordains. Come, let’s have supper.”

     Entranced, I followed him back downstairs and around the living room, the to the kitchen to silence a buzzing oven timer. The open doorway to the kitchen exhaled scents savory and inviting. His appliances were 70’s harvest gold and the countertops had a cream-colored veneer. A noticeably antiquated set up backdropped by a dark-stained wood paneling. As I was scanning the time capsule of a room, Butler moved past me with a tray of meatloaf, fresh from the oven. With a sincere smile, he motioned his head towards the small, already set table where he placed the meatloaf. Then the gigantic wood-paneled monstrosity of a microwave went off. Gravy. With a glass water pitcher already on the white square table, he sat down across from me, still as pleasant as a historic housewife.

     “Please, cut yourself a piece,” he implored.

     “The conditions for surgery are too rudimentary for a safe operation.” I blurted out.

     “... green peppers, onions, homemade breadcrumbs.”

     “I’d lose my license if the medical board found out.”

     “You’ll bring salvation to the world. You will be canonized.”

     The meatloaf was surprisingly dry and crumbly. I forced it down with gulps of water, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

     He broke the silence, “They’ll begin showing up any minute now - the Seekers.”

     “I think I’ll just head back to Tulsa now. Thank you for the opportunity, but....”

     “Nonsense,” proclaimed Butler. “It’s your destiny to prove to the world the existence of God. I know you believe in God.”

      “Having faith is one thing, but actual physical proof... it’s unattainable.”

     “You will be successful.”

     As I raised my head to meet his eyes, his complete compassion and humanity engulfed me. I now believed that this man was exactly what he claimed to be. I became his, hands towards the cause - to prove God’s existence in the hearts of all men. He told me to go upstairs and prepare the operating room for surgery.

     Upstairs again, I took my time to explore Butler’s makeshift chapel. Aside from the eclectic medley of chairs, the room was absolutely church-like. An assortment of King James Bibles were stacked alongside the organ, a dented and paint-chipped. I was petrified and trapped so I went to the back room and started inventorying and prepping the IV.

     No more than twenty minutes later, the door opened and Henry Butler, now donning black cloth robes and a purple sash, came in. Not a bead of sweat on his forehead, not an ounce of apprehension. His revelation was about to be made to his people. Butler pulled the robes over his head to reveal a completely shaven chest, then laid himself down onto the operating table. He spoke, “Please, tell them to come inside,” as he pointed to the door. I stepped over and opened the door, and, behold, the room was bustling with all sorts of people. Sweaters, t-shirts, suits and ties, infants and adults alike. About thirty people in all, present to see this modern-day miracle. As I was urged, I led them inside.

     “My good people of the Congregation! This evening, you are going to experience something warmer and more comforting than life itself. For tonight you will bear witness to God’s love,” came his sermon, all while lying on the operating table. “This is a time to rejoice! Please, Dr. Bernard, continue.”

     So I did. I pinched the IV needles through his skin into the veins of his forearms and watched as the solution slowly dripped down into the tube. He looked at me and nodded. As I went to hook up the mask and tubing to the tank of anesthesia, he continued,

     “Today will be the happiest day of your life. Every single one of you will have an affirmation of faith today that cannot be swayed. You are the luckiest people in the world to see this. It’s true, God is in the heart of every one of you. I’m going to prove it to you all right now.”

     The preparations were made. Flashes from the cameras of the Seekers made this quite the spectacle. People were crying now, some were praying. Most were just murmuring to each other. I put the mask to his face and turned the valve of the tank. It was a mere ten seconds until Henry Butler was sedated.

     Looking at the crowd, I hesitated. Performing surgery in front of such a crowd, what madness! But the looks returned to me were ones of trust and endorsement. As I made my first incision through his chest, the Congregation began to pray to themselves.

     I exposed the heart with such grace and careful concern that I wished my superiors were here to see. Now, onto the exposition of God. As he instructed, I made an incision between the left and right ventricles. Blood squirted at me with a spitting vigor. His heart pumped furiously as my white lab coat spattered maroon. I probed around through his soft tissue, hoping to expose the truth and light of the world. And then, in a final spurt, Henry Butler’s heart stopped beating.