By Jeff Strand
o I'm sitting in Harvey's Diner, okay? It's me and Joey, and it's about eleven-thirty at night, and there are... I dunno, maybe ten other people in the restaurant. The waitress is hot but she's pretty much incompetent, and we've been waiting for almost fifteen minutes just to get a cup of coffee.
You know Joey, he's all like "Let's just go!" but that's stupid. Even if it takes her another fifteen minutes to bring us our coffee, that's still less time than it would take to find another place that's open this late. And you know Harvey's – their food is borderline poison, but they make great coffee. None of that $3.95-for-a-small-cup-with-fifteen-words-in-the-name nonsense. It's hot, black, and they'll refill it all night without complaining. Good stuff.
Anyway, we're sitting there waiting, and I forget what else we were talking about. Movies, I think. Some romantic comedy his girlfriend made him see. No, it wasn't that one. He didn't see it in the theatre – I think it just came out on DVD. No, it had that one chick from that sitcom, the one where they're at work. The redhead. She was in that other movie that won the Academy Award. No, it wasn't that. Ah, it doesn't matter.
We're sitting there talking, and then the chef pushes through the swinging door from the kitchen. He's wearing this apron that's got streaks of red on it, and he's holding – I swear – a meat cleaver. Not a bloody meat cleaver, but it's a frickin' meat cleaver, and he's holding it up like he's ready to whack it into somebody's head! And he walks down the aisle, stomping his feet, and he goes "Who sent back the goddamn turkey sandwich?"
No, it definitely wasn't Julia Roberts in the movie. She was never in a sitcom. I'm trying to tell you about the chef with the meat cleaver, okay? Yeah, I know she was in one episode of Friends, but that's not what I'm talking about. No, it wasn't Sandra Bullock. You're missing the point of my story.
So the chef is holding this meat cleaver and he wants to know who sent back the turkey sandwich. And Joey is all tensed up and looking like he wants to bolt, but at this point I figure we're okay, since neither one of us ordered a turkey sandwich. And the chef starts walking past the tables. He's this bald guy with a really big gut, but he looks strong, y'know? Like, you have to assume that if he did bring that cleaver down on your skull, it would crack through a couple of inches of bone, easy.
And we see this one guy looking really nervous, and there's no question at all that he's the poor schmuck who sent back the sandwich. Have you ever had a sandwich there? I've never had the turkey, but the roast beef was rubbery and the tomatoes were all slimy and the bread was stale. So I don't blame the guy one bit for sending his back. He just picked a really bad night to do it.
Jesus, I'm sorry I brought up the romantic comedy! It's not important! Just forget I said anything about it and try to focus on – yes, that was it! No, I didn't see it, but Joey said it sucked.
The chef walks right up to the guy's table. This lady is sitting across from him – maybe his wife, I'm not sure – and she's staring at the chef with bugged-out eyes and her jaw hanging open and a milk mustache. And here's the part that's gonna mess with your mind. The chef screams "How do you like this turkey sandwich?" and then – thwack! – he slams the meat cleaver right into the guy's face!
I'm not lying, I swear! He whacked it into his nose! Joey and I, we're all like "Holy cow, the chef's gone berserk!" and the guy's wife or girlfriend or whatever is screaming and crying and people start jumping up from their tables and freaking out. The guy with the cleaver in his face, he's not dead. He's hollering "My nose! My nose!" but it sounds all funny because he's got a cleaver in his nose, y'know? You can't really blame the guy for being upset.
Then the chef yanks the meat cleaver out, and... you wanna hear something gross? This is really nasty. The guy must've had a bad cold. There's this big string of snot on the blade along with all the blood, and it stretches out like cheese on a pizza. Oh, man, I thought I was gonna puke!
So now I'm thinking, what do I do? Should I call the cops? Should I run? Should I try to save the poor bastard?
What? I don't know why he didn't put his hand up to block the cleaver. Yeah, I guess it should've been instinctive, but he didn't do it. I didn't get a chance to ask him! It wasn't the kind of situation where I'm going to stroll over there and say "Excuse me, kind sir, but if I might borrow a moment of your time, I'd like to know why you didn't elect to use your hand to deflect the meat cleaver." I don't care if it doesn't make any sense – I'm just telling you what I saw, okay? He was dead in the next few seconds anyway.
Damn it, now you're making me get ahead of the story.
So the chef swings his arm back, and then whack! Slashes the cleaver right across the guy's throat! Joey and I are both like, no way did that just happen! And then I start to think that maybe the whole thing is a publicity stunt, y'know? Like maybe Harvey's is trying to cater to edgier clientele, so they're faking homicides. But then I realize that there's just no way. The guy is spraying blood everywhere, his wife or girlfriend is shrieking, and most of the other people in the restaurant are running for the exit.
Joey looks me right in the eye and he says, totally calmly, "Dude, this is really messed up."
What do you mean, how could I hear him over the other noise? Are you trying to be a jerk? I've got this great story, and you just want to sit there and poke holes in it. Well, screw you. I've got better things to do than talk to you if you're going to act this way.
Oh, that's real mature. What a class act you are. I don't care if you ever hear the end of the story or not, so that doesn't bother me a bit.
Okay, look, could you at least let me tell the next part without interrupting me? You're not gonna believe what happened.
People have made it to the door, and they're trying to push it open, and this lady screams "It's locked! It's locked! Oh my God, they've locked us in!"
Can you believe that? A chef storming out of the kitchen and attacking a restaurant patron I can maybe understand, but they locked us in! How demented is that?
The turkey sandwich guy is all flopped back in his seat, gurgling and clutching at his throat. The chef grabs the guy's wife/girlfriend by the hair, bashes her down on the table, and slams the meat cleaver into the back of her neck. I don't think she even ordered a turkey sandwich! Now the chef is a big guy, but he couldn't get all the way through her head in one blow, so he does it again and again and again.
Finally I turn away, because there are only so many times you can watch somebody try to chop somebody's head off, y'know? And people are trying to grab chairs and tables to break through the windows, but the chairs and tables are all bolted to the floor at Harvey's, so people are just shouting "Oh no! The tables and chairs are all bolted to the floor!" I think at this point Joey and I are the only ones left in our seats, if you don't count the guy and girl that the chef already killed.
People start kicking and slamming their fists against the glass, but it's not glass! It's plastic. Or maybe that's not actually plastic... it's just the clear stuff you use that doesn't break. I'm not a restaurateur so I'm not sure. But these people have now gone completely out of their minds. It's nuts, man.
I look back at the chef, and he finally got the woman's head off. And my stomach gets all twisted up because I think he's gonna do something completely disgusting and flat-out wrong with the head, but he just knocks it off the table. It bounces a little.
At this point, I'm disturbed but I'm not too concerned about my own personal safety. I mean, yeah, the chef has a meat cleaver, but it's not like he can chop off all of our heads, right? If the crowd would've rushed him instead of getting all bent out of shape over the locked door, we probably could've saved the headless woman.
Then the other chef walks out.
He's got a frickin' rifle!
Now even I'm starting to question the motivations that are going on here at this point. I start to think that it may not be about that turkey sandwich.
Bang! A guy who was pounding on the window gets the back of his head blown open. No multiple whacks with a meat cleaver
for this guy – he's dead.
Bang! Another guy dead!
Bang! This old lady gets it in the back!
Now, if this were a made-up story, I'd talk about how brave I was and stuff, but I'm not making any of this up. So Joey and I, we got our butts right under that table, and we did it quick! And I can hear the rifle going off: Bang! Bang! Bang!
No, I'm not sure what kind of rifle it was. I don't know guns very well. It was brown and it had a leather strap, I think.
Joey and I hear footsteps, and we can tell that the other chef is running across the diner. Bang! Bang! We're not hearing as much screaming anymore, if you know what I mean. Bang! Bang!
Joey goes "We have to do something!"
I go "What?"
Joey goes "Anything!"
I go "But what?"
Joey goes "I don't know! Something!"
I go "I agree, but what?"
There's maybe another six or seven shots, and then that's it. No more noise. They've slaughtered everybody else in the place. Joey and I are huddled under the table, trying to be very, very quiet, although since Harvey's is a pretty small place and there aren't tablecloths hanging down to cover us or anything it's a safe bet that we're gonna be found.
And this really sucked: Joey's cell phone went off.
It's sort of a double whammy, y'know? Not only did the phone give away our position, tenuous as it might have been, but it made us realize that we'd been too stupid to use our cell phones to call the cops when we had a chance. We're all like, d'oh!
So I hear footsteps running, and suddenly there's the chef, pointing the rifle under the table. And he –
Oh. I think the restroom's in the back, right next to the dartboard. Sure, no problem.
Hmmmmhmmmhmmm. La-de-da.
Yeah, I'll have another one. Thanks.
Hmmmmhmmmhmmm.
Jesus, how long does it take? You're not building a frickin' ark in there.
Hey, welcome back! Where did I leave off?
No, no, I was way past the meat cleaver decapitation. Then what's the last part you remember? I know I told you about the rifle. The second chef came out and he started shooting everybody. Me and Joey hid under the table. Then Joey's cell phone went off and the chef was right there with the rifle. I don't know what kind. I told you, it was brown with a strap.
I have no idea who was calling Joey. He didn't answer because he was a bit too preoccupied with the rifle-toting chef. So the chef says "Get the hell out from under there." And neither Joey nor I particularly want to do it, but we also don't want to join the other people who've got bullets in them, know what I mean? We're both kind of hesitant, because I figure that whoever comes out first is gonna get shot first, and I'm guessing that Joey figures the same thing, and we aren't quite prodding each other, but we're definitely trying to use nonverbal communication to suggest that the other person should go first.
And the chef is like "Now!" and so Joey scoots out from under the table. But the chef doesn't shoot him, which immediately makes me wish I'd come out first. He just pushes him out of the way and then looks at me. I climb out from under there and stand up.
The whole place looks like there was a massacre. 'Cause there was one. I mean, there's blood all over the floor, blood dripping off the tables, blood splattered all over the windows, corpses all askew...it's sick.
The bald chef with the meat cleaver walks over and stands next to his friend. And they're just staring at us sort of funny, like maybe they're thinking "Shoot or cleave? Shoot or cleave?"
Joey goes "Why are you doing this?" Which is a pretty legitimate question, you've got to admit, but it also sounds kind of hokey. But I don't tell him that because I want to know the answer.
The rifle chef says "We're sick of people complaining about our food." And then he goes off on this rant that I swear lasted a good ten minutes. I mean, if you make crappy food and charge people for it, they're gonna call you on it sometimes, right? But, God, he just went on and on and on, babbling about the lack of respect his customers give him, and how he worked his way through culinary school while he was taking care of his dying sister, and how nobody knew what kind of pressure he was under, and blah, blah, blah. By the end of his speech I was ready for a meat cleaver to the face.
Then he points his rifle back and forth between me and Joey, like he's trying to decide which one of us to shoot. And I'm trying to do this thing where I subtly move my eyeballs in Joey's direction, so that it might be some sort of subconscious signal that he should be the one to get shot. I mean, I don't wish Joey any harm or anything, but if one of us has to get shot, why not make it him, right?
The chef shoots Joey.
Not in the face or stomach – right in the kneecap. I cringe like he shot me instead, because I can't even imagine how much that's gotta hurt, although Joey's wailing is a pretty good clue. And the cleaver chef pushes Joey into the booth, laughing like he's gone completely insane. And Joey is bawling and shouting "Why me?" and now both chefs are laughing and the situation is so messed up that I can hardly even describe it.
The one chef twirls his cleaver and whack! There goes Joey's pinky. And the other chef presses the barrel of the rifle against the detached pinky and shoots it right off the table! Then they both laugh some more.
Is this too gross for you? It gets worse.
Pretty soon there's a pile of nine fingers on the table. The chef pushes them together into a nice tight pile, and then the other chef shoots again, sending fingers flying everywhere. And my first instinct is to bend down and try to scoop them up, just in case Joey lives through this and surgeons can reattach them, but I don't want to call attention to myself.
Then the chef starts slicing up his arms. No, Joey's arms, not his own. Duh. The cleaver isn't going through the bigger bones too well – it's probably dull from all the work he's put it through. I can't help but wonder if he'd offer me some kind of immunity if I went and got the blade sharpener for him, but of course I'm not really gonna ask that.
Then I guess they got tired of Joey making so much noise, because the other chef shoves the barrel of his revolver into Joey's mouth and pulls the trigger. And as all this stuff comes out, I swear to God my first thought was that I should gather it up in case the surgeons can sew it back in. Your mind does funny things under stress.
So Joey's dead. And since I'm the only non-sociopath left alive in the place, I figure I'm next. And, yep, my fears are confirmed when that rifle is suddenly pointed in my direction.
No, they didn't kill me. Are you trying to be a smartass? I'm telling you a story where one of my best friends got chopped up right before my eyes, and you're making fun of it. Oh, you thought I might be a ghost, real funny. Hilarious.
I'm almost done with the story. Can you find it within yourself to let me finish? I promise I won't take up much more of your ever-so-extremely-valuable time.
So I see my chance. The chefs are still laughing like maniacs, and I realize that the one with the rifle is only about eighty percent focused on me. That's when I kick him as hard as I can, right square in the upper thigh. And we struggle for a few minutes, and meanwhile the other chef slams his cleaver right into my arm. You can see the scar there, see? It's kind of faint. I'm not sure why it's jagged – that's just the way the meat cleaver hit it.
I get the rifle away from him, and kaboom! Right in the forehead! That chef is history, man! But there's no time for me to celebrate my victory, because the other chef is coming at me with that damn cleaver again.
I shout "This one's for Joey, you son of a bitch! And everybody else!" and pull the trigger.
Click. Rifle's empty.
So I bash the shit out of him with it. A lot messier, but it gets the job done.
And then the incompetent waitress from before comes out of the back room, looking all scared and stuff. She runs over and throws her arms around me and says "Thank you! Thank you so much! I was sure they were going to kill me next! Oh, I just don't know how I can repay you for what you've done!"
I tell her.
She looks at me, and starts to unbutton her blouse. I toss the rifle onto the floor, pull the waitress close to me, and –
Where the hell are you going?
This is the best frickin' part!
Ah, screw it. That's what happened.
