Critique: "One Last Cup"

A short story by Robb Grindstaff

Here’s my critique submission to all the readers of A Writer’s Block. A short story (2,000 words) for your entertainment or amusement, but mostly for your feedback.

What could be better? What didn’t make sense? Any spots where you got confused? Or, of course, was there something particular about it you liked?

Before critiquing anyone’s work — even though you probably can’t hurt my feels — I encourage you to read this article on how to critique fiction.

Use the lessons from the past twenty-six twenty-eight weeks (starting here) to guide your analysis. That will help reinforce the topics we’ve covered.

There’s also that subjective gut reaction, which is how most readers will respond to anything we write.

Starting next week, the shoe will be on the other foot as I begin critiquing a few of your stories (available for paid subscribers only, so sign up to participate!).

To submit something for feedback, see instructions here.

ONE LAST CUP

By Robb Grindstaff

Photo by Daniel Norris on Unsplash

The man who knew no one approached the only sign of life.

The light escaped through the window of the last open business, painting a yellowish rectangle that danced on the wet, black asphalt. The surrounding darkness extinguished any spreading illumination, absorbing it into nothingness. All other merchants in the two-block strip of the small burg’s downtown were shuttered. The dead streetlights hovered, useless, the old-fashioned style the city had wasted thousands on to add to the nostalgic feel of times past.

Time had passed by this town where everyone knew everyone else.

The ‘open’ sign hung on the door at a desolate angle. A plastic square, red with white letters, struggled in the breeze.

The man twisted the worn brass doorknob and pushed. The creaking hinges rendered the bell above the door, dinging to announce a new customer, redundant.

A few spartan bulbs hung from the hammered-tin ceiling. Only three worked. One of the three flickered. On. Off. On. Off. The other two dimmed when the coffee grinder clicked on, then brightened again as silence resumed. Four ceiling fans sat still. None held a full complement of blades.

The clock hanging at a slight tilt behind the counter declared two a.m.

The thrum of machinery somewhere in the back provided the only sound other than one teaspoon clinking in a cup. The acrid odor of burnt coffee filtered through the air.

Half a dozen booths lined one wall, black vinyl seats, bits of fluff peeking through the rips. Ancient, dingy Formica tabletops. A customer in the back corner booth, nearest to the toilets, swigged from a mug the same gray-beige as his whiskers.

Another booth, midwall, contained a younger man and woman. Married, most likely. Dressed well for this time of night.

Two men, both of a certain age, had spread out along the lunch counter like social distancing at a line of urinals, taking spots and one and three of the four round, backless stools, also in black vinyl of various states of disrepair.

Every booth, every table held an unlit candle, as if it added some romantic ambiance.

“Grab a seat, Mister,” the waitress behind the counter said. Maybe she was the owner. Built like a truck driver, she sounded more like a drill sergeant barking orders than offering an invitation. She nodded to the end seat at the counter, next to the portly UPS driver in his brown uniform with permanent sweat stains that stretched from his armpits halfway to his waist.

She turned back to her work, shifting the grounds from the grinder to the filter on top of the machine. Random strands of salt-and-pepper hair escaped in all directions from her too-tight bun. Her once-white uniform contained the detritus of a busy week with no functioning laundromats.

No air moved, not even breath. The dank chill outside didn’t reach inside the café. The flickering light bulb added a strobe effect to the place, a most dismal discotheque.

He reached to brush any crumbs off the seat, but there were none.

“Coffee’ll be a minute.” The woman never turned from her task as she pushed the button on the institutional coffee maker with two burners. She placed a glass pot under the drip to catch the fresh brew. A second pot on the adjacent warmer, recently drained, held only a few dregs. “Cream all went bad last week. Sugar’s on the counter. No fake sweetener. I’d offer you a menu, but I tossed all the food a few days ago.”

No one else acknowledged his arrival, not even the UPS driver whose personal space he’d just invaded.

He glanced over his shoulder. The old guy alone in the corner booth averted his eyes, caught staring. The couple, who said nothing, sipped their coffees and made no eye contact. Not with the man. Not with each other.

He draped his windbreaker over the back of a chair at the table next to him, where it shed the remnants of the light drizzle into a small puddle on the floor.

The female half of the couple wore a vintage-style red dress, a splash of color in a gray room of gray people drinking from gray mugs.

Out of habit, he checked his phone. No service, as he expected. Low battery. As he expected.

He set his phone on the counter in case someone called. Or texted. No calls or texts in ten days.

The waitress set a cup of fresh-brewed coffee on the counter, sloshing a bit that left a skid mark when she slid the cup in front of him.

He reached for his wallet.

She waved him off. “Your money’s no good here, Mister.”

“Your money’s no good anywhere,” said the faceless man at the far end of the counter, hidden from the man’s sight behind the UPS driver.

He nodded his thanks, but she held her position, eyeballing him.

“Where you from, Mister? Haven’t seen you around before.”

“Just passing through.” Mister gave the cup a test slurp and flinched at the sharp bite of heat on his lip. He held the cup close and blew across the inky surface.

“Where you passin’ through to?” She was a curious one.

Mister had hoped for less curiosity. “Just driving. Ran out of gas a few blocks back. Saw your lights.”

“I can give you coffee, but ain’t got no gas to share.”

The UPS driver chuckled, the first sign of life from him.

“I don’t suppose there’s a gas station open nearby,” Mister said, hoping UPS would be familiar with any possibilities.

“Nope,” Waitress said. UPS didn’t say a word. “Never were open this time of night.”

That drew another chuckle, not only from the driver, but the other gentleman at the counter as well.

Mister tested his coffee again, ready for the burn this time. “Then I suppose I’m not passing through anymore.”

“No,” she said with a smirk. “Looks like you’ve reached your destination.”

She left it at that. She wandered down the counter to top off the cups, then raised the pot for the booth customers to know it was ready. If they wanted a refill, they could come get it.

No one moved.

She poured one for herself, then returned to stare at the man. She glanced at his phone on the counter next to the coffee streak. “Any news on that thing?”

“Nothing.”

“Hear anything in your travels?”

“Cowboys made the playoffs.”

“We know how that would’ve ended,” she said.

The man in the corner booth grunted. Maybe it was a laugh. Maybe it was a groan.

Waitress took a slug of her own bitter coffee. “Where you from? Dallas?”

Mister took another drink. He didn’t want to answer any more questions. He came here for coffee and gas, he’d hoped, not an interrogation. The less he said, the less anyone said, the better.

“No. Other direction.”

“You gonna make me guess?”

The man sipped again, a little deeper drink after ascertaining the temperature had faded below scalding. “Los Angeles.”

He could almost hear every head in the place swivel his way. More than mild curiosity. Disbelief. He should’ve said El Paso.

Red Dress floated up beside him and held out her cup for a top-off. She didn’t leave after her cup was filled.

He didn’t acknowledge her presence.

“Mister,” she said anyway, “how’d you get here from California without running out of gas until now?”

He hesitated as he thought through what to divulge. “I hitched rides a few times. When those dried up, I, um, borrowed a car. Downloaded some fuel on occasion.”

Red Dress looked confused. “Downloaded fuel? Is there an app for that?”

Waitress cackled, the loudest voice he’d heard since he’d hit the road. “Downloaded with a hose and some pucker power, I’d imagine.”

Mister held out his cup since Waitress stood there with the remaining half pot in her hand.

“You stole gasoline?” Red Dress acted like this was a concern. “Car too?”

“They’d have just gone to waste otherwise,” UPS answered for him.

Red Dress’s partner cleared his throat to get her attention. She excused herself and came back with his cup. She took the refill to him and didn’t return.

Mister was grateful for small favors, then burned his lip on the cup he’d already forgotten had just been replenished.

Waitress hadn’t budged. “In your big adventure, you hear anything at all? See anything? Anybody? We’re curious, ya know. We’re all stuck here dyin’ to find out something.”

That brought another grunt from the corner booth.

UPS man made a sound, more a suppressed moan than a laugh.

“Nothing at all. Nobody since Tucson.”

UPS cleared his throat. Twice. “We’ve narrowed it down to three possibilities.”

Waitress rolled her eyes, but he continued.

“It was either nuclear war, climate change, or the Rapture.”

“We already eliminated the Rapture, remember,” Waitress said. “If it had been the Rapture, there’d still be a lot more people around.”

The guy at the far end of the counter held his cup aloft for another, then said, “I read that nuclear winter would solve global warming.”

“Anything that wipes out humans would solve global warming,” said the man sitting with Red Dress, his first words of the evening.

“Ain’t no such thing as global warming,” said Corner Booth, punctuated with another grunt.

“I don’t figure it matters none one way or the other,” Waitress added. “It is what it is.”

“What it was,” Red Dress corrected.

Corner Booth figured it was an alien invasion. Nothing else explained the disappearance of nearly all the townsfolk, the collapse of the grid, and loss of all telecom services. No dead bodies lying in the streets from radiation. No piles of uninhabited articles of clothing left behind from those snatched into the arms of their Lord.

The weather hadn’t changed at all, he added. Rained a few days, as it was prone to do this time of year. Sunshine most days, as bright as if nothing were different.

But everything was different.

Corner Booth ceased his monologue and sauntered to the counter for a refill.

Waitress rolled her eyes at him.

The flickering bulb went out and the other two dimmed to about half their lumen potential. A clank reverberated from the back room, and the whirring thrum shifted to a struggle.

“I’m making one last pot of coffee for anyone interested. We’re about to lose power, unless Mister here wants to go download some more gas for the generator.”

“None to be had,” UPS said. “I already checked.”

Mister nipped gingerly from his coffee. He knew the answer but asked anyway. “Any place to stay the night around here?”

“Might as well stay with us,” Waitress offered. “After I get this pot going, I’m heading upstairs to bring down some blankets and pillows for everyone. We’ll hang out here until daylight.”

“We don’t know this fella,” Red Dress said. “As the only woman in a room full of men, I’m not sure I feel safe with a stranger.”

Waitress harrumphed with a dramatic arm wave. “The only woman here? What d’ya imagine I’m packing under this skirt?”

Mister glanced over his shoulder. Red Dress’s face flared the same shade as her frock.

“I didn’t mean... I meant...” She trailed off and focused on her coffee.

A heavy blanket of silence descended, followed by utter darkness. Cigarette lighters flicked across the room as candles lit, casting eerie glows upward onto faces. Waitress set a candle in front of Mister and lit it for him. Then she grabbed a flashlight, which she slapped a couple of times to get it working.

“I hate to break the bad news,” she said, “but looks like there’ll be no more coffee. Savor that last cup.”

Corner Booth grunted. “All my life, all the apocalyptic movies I seen, not once did they address the dire emergency situation of no more coffee.”

Red Dress sobbed quietly.

“Life as we knew it is well and truly over,” said UPS.

Mister drained his mug and pondered the truth of it all.

END

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