“I am quite comfortable here,” Raymond said, his voice quiet but firm. “I will be leaving shortly. There is no need for all of this.”
This quiet refusal was seen as an act of war.
“Unbelievable!” Chad exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “The nerve! Henderson, are you going to do something or not? We’ll take our business elsewhere. I’ll make sure to mention your veteran harassment policy on Yelp.”
The threat of a bad online review was the final blow for the beleaguered manager.
His face hardened with a desperate, borrowed authority.
“Sir,” he said, his voice now sterner, “I am the manager of this establishment. I am asking you to vacate this booth. You can move to the counter, or you can leave.”
The diner had grown quiet. The clinking of forks and the low murmur of conversation had faded away.
Everyone was watching.
Raymond felt the weight of their eyes, the sting of a public humiliation he had not earned.
He slowly reached into his blazer’s inner pocket and pulled out a worn leather wallet, preparing to pay for his coffee and end the ordeal.
As Jessica raised her phone again to capture the moment of his defeat, she zoomed in on the row of medals.
“Seriously, what are those for?” she sneered. “Perfect attendance?”
She pointed a manicured finger at the one in the center, a silver five-pointed star.
“What about that one? Did you win it at the state fair for best pig?”
As her words hit him, the sounds of the diner seemed to warp and fade for Raymond.
The glint of the fluorescent light off the silver star on his chest suddenly became the blinding white flash of a mortar shell exploding in the snow. The smell of stale coffee was replaced by the acrid metallic scent of gunpowder and frozen earth.