Broken Highway: A Thomas Highway Story Read Free

started to
rumble. I’d eaten a can of pears already but my body needed
something more substantial. I folded the corner of the page I was
on and set the book down. Then I slipped a black sweatshirt over my
head and headed up the stairs and into the great wide open.
    The stairwell emerged near the back of the
kitchen. I nodded to the cook and walked through the kitchen and
came out near the front counter. The owner, an older man named Dat
Tran, was working the front, as always. I clapped him on the
shoulder and came around to the other side like a normal
customer.
    “What you want today?” Dat said, speaking in
his patented rapid-fire. “Sweet and Sour pork? Bejing Beef? Lemon
Pepper Duck?”
    “I’ll take the usual.”
    He waved his hand dismissively. “Orange
chicken with white rice. Always the orange chicken with white rice.
You need to try something new, Highway. You too boring.”
    We went through this same thing every time I
ordered, which was pretty much every day. It was a ritual. One of
the few things that made me smile anymore.
    “What can I say? I like what I like.”
    “But how you know you don’t like something
else if you never try?”
    “I’ve tried all those other things,” I said.
“And I don’t like them as much as the orange chicken.”
    “Bah,” Dat said. “Go sit. I bring you the
food when ready.”
    “Thanks, Dat.”
    I headed toward my customary table, in the
far corner of the restaurant, adjacent to the hallway that led to
the back door, just in case. Old habits die hard, even with someone
like me. Oh, who was I kidding. Especially with someone like me.
Habit is all that I had left. It was all that was keeping me
functional. Without it I would have nothing.
    Dat brought me my food a few minutes later.
I had barely started on it when I heard the front door chime. I
looked up and saw Dave Willis, my one and only true friend, walking
in. He took one look at me, shook his head, and headed over.
    Willis was a huge man, standing 6’5” and
weighing in at around 260 pounds. We’d played baseball together and
roomed together in college. After we graduated, I went off to the
Navy and he went on to the minor leagues. After a few years he
flamed out due to injuries and opened a Security and Investigation
firm with his dad, an ex-cop, right about the same time I’d gotten
bumped out of the SEALS because of my own injury. He’d been trying
to get me to do work for him ever since.
    Willis sat down on the other side of the
table, grabbed a piece of orange chicken, threw it in his mouth and
chased it with a long drink of my soda. Belligerent as hell. Just
like always. I laughed under my breath and shook my head. Willis
smiled widely. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted,
heedless of society’s conventions. Always had, always would. Just
like me. Which is why we got along so well.
    “How’s it hanging, brother?” he said.
    “Down to my knee,” I said.
    “Bullshit,” Willis said. “I’ve seen your
pecker. You’re hung like my pinkie.”
    “Shit, I wish I was that big.”
    “Don’t we all, my friend. Don’t we all.”
    Willis smiled and clapped me on the
shoulder, nearly spilling me from my seat. I smiled back. I
couldn’t help it. Willis always had that effect on me. On everyone,
really. Unless you got on his bad side. Then you’d better just
start running.
    “To what do I owe this visit?” I asked.
    “I just wanted to stop by, see how you were
doing. Make sure you weren’t banged up too bad.”
    “You heard about that little spat I had last
night, didn’t you?”
    He shrugged and flashed me a “what can you
do?” look.
    “How?”
    “A little birdy sang to me early this
morning.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said and dropped it. He had more
connections than most people had hairs on their body. Dude knew
everything, all the time. I didn’t know how he did it but I knew
he’d never tell me.
    “But that’s not the real reason I’m here,”
he said.
    “What is?”
    “I