She paid $8.99 plus tax and was handed a cup for the soda fountain and directed toward a stack of trays still dripping wet from their washing. At the register sat a pimpled yokel who told her, “Enjoy your dinner, ma’am.”
“Yeah, God bless,” she said, already walking away.
The steakhouse was laid out like an airy square dance hall. Quiet pairs of slow-moving retirees followed the simple paths from their tables to the buffet line and back again. Deer heads, stuffed pheasants, and trophy bass all gazed down from the walls above them. Her fellow diners didn’t look too different from those gape-mouthed fish up there. They chewed openly, nakedly. There were teeth everywhere. Jesus, she thought, no one ever told them that’s disgusting? That’s bad manners? Didn’t anyone here ever have a mother?
