Moose Cafe
By By David McGrath

Moose Cafe in Hayward, Wisconsin. An old building with black and white asphalt floor tile, plastic pink tile on the walls, red vinyl upholstered benches and chairs, and Formica counters and gray table tops.

An old man who had come in and nodded to the cashier, went directly to a booth adjacent the window facing Iowa Street. He had dark, creased alligator skin and wore a western style hat, and he set a chunk of carved wood on the table, next to the salt and pepper shakers and the chrome napkin holder. The only other occupied table in the dining room was against the wall on the opposite end, where two men hunkered across from each other, drinking coffee.

One man in the booth was large, over six feet, around 260 pounds. Not sloppy fat, but beefy. Hatless, short black hair, dark skin, a pock-marked face, a wide grinÑhe was not shy about his missing front tooth. He bulged through a Green Bay Packers tee shirt girdled by a black leather vest, jeans cinched up under his belly, and brown, pointed cowboy boots. He leaned forward over the table, his swollen right hand around the coffee mugÑnone of his fingers would fit through the handle. His tone to his smaller friend was confiding.

"Man, I am starving," he said. "I don't remember if I ate last night."

The big man smiled at his coffee. The other with his back to him, nodded. He appeared slight, maybe 100 pounds. Visible above the bench seat was his yellow baseball cap behind which drooped a rope of black hair, bound with a thin leather strap into a pony tail about eight inches long.

"You seen her, I know," the big man said. "Skinny, big brown eyes. She come over from Minneapolis, had this baby with her. Little baby."

The waitress brought them their food: a stack of toast for the smaller man, and two plates for the otherÑeggs and hash browns, and an order of biscuits and gravy. The talker shook the vial of hot sauce over his eggs.

"She asks me to take her out, show her around. That was, you know, when I just started at the lumber mill, and I tell her I ain't got a check from Weyerhauser yet. She says no problem, she'll ask some body else."

He grinned at his friend, and they both laughed. Not loudÑchuckling acknowledgment of a shared insight.

"We have some ketchup?" he called to the waitress. She delivered ketchup for his potatoes before taking the old man's order. The big man glanced across the room toward the old man, whispered something to his partner, and they both laughed.

"So we go to the Rez Bar that night, you know, on County E, and I ask what about her kid, and she says she's got a baby-sitter. And I ask who, and she says Sandra. So she's here only one day, and she already knows Sandra and Nancy Nightsky and the 'Weasel.' You know that group."

The old man raise his head after "Nightsky," and looked them over.

"Yeah, yeah. We're talking and drinking, and, you know, it's cool. Then she goes from Old Style and starts on vodka and grapefruit juice, says"Ñand here he mimicked in falsettoÑ"'how the fuck do you think I keep my girlish figure?' and I'm thinking, holy shit, man."

The small one shook his head, and the big man went on.

"Wayne and Mickey from New Post, they come in there and sit down at our table. We're all partying, man, and she, you know, she's like the fucking princess."

The waitress poured more coffee for them, and they were silent. She swished away in her running shoes and came back to take the old man's order.. He looked past her shoulder. The big man was eating.

"Shit, man, maybe we should lay off tonight," and they laughed conspiratorially.

The old one asked for coffee, black, for the advertised homemade beef hash with two fried eggs, over hard, and a double order of homemade raisin toast. The waitress went back to the kitchen.

"It's getting that time, you know, and I tell her let's go."

The old man put down his fork and sat perfectly still.

"She says not yet. I tell her, what about your baby, an' she says don't worry, it's not your fucking baby. So that's it, I say, 'Let's go now.'"

The old man's eyes were on his blue coffee cup. There was a crackle and squeak of the big man's red vinyl bench seat from across the room.

"She starts in with 'pussy,' right in front of everybody, and then 'faggot,' and I kinda laugh it off. Then she says, 'I'm staying, cuz I want to fuck these two. And I'm going to fuck them right in front of you.' So I'm like to knock down the door on the way out, but I stand up and shove past her, is all. And that's what the sheriff calls 'battery.'"

"They arrest you?" said the smaller man.

"Nah. Just hasslin' the redskins, is all it is."

The waitress came back, but they wanted no more coffee, so she gave them their check. She circled to the old man's table, but his hands were over his cup.

"So I am staying at my Auntie's house. They come by once more, I think, you know? After that, forget about it. What's it say in the treaty, there?"

The smaller man read the guest check.

"Leave her the twenty. Don't look like she's getting rich this morning."

They slid out of the booth. Their laughter dissolved as the door closed behind them. The old man sat like stone.

Slowly the old man rose and moved towards the cashier's stand, keeping his eyes on the floor. The cashier was penciling something on the top of a stack of green and white guest checks when she noticed him.

"That was fast, Louis," she said, taking his money. "Say hey to the girls."

He murmured something back.

"You have a great day," she said, going back to her pile of checks.

The old man turned and walked slowly out the door.

The waitress went to clean his table, and she found a wood carving of a miniature bear that the old man had left on the table. Its ears weren't yet finished.