I walk in and the floor is covered in dead rodents, and I can not even see the color of the ground from all of the dust and dirt. Blanche, the waitress, hands me an old piece of paper that I am assuming is the menu. Smacking her gum loudly she tells me to take a look and she will be back after her cigarette. The menu is so old that the words have faded and it is barley readable. The only thing I can make out is that they have grilled cheese and broccoli soup. As I take a gander around at the peeling wallpaper from the 60s and the cobwebs from ceiling to floor, I can not decide if it is worth starving or dying from an infectious disease that I may contract from eating here.
Blanche comes back into the Café and starts talking to the lady in the booth next to me who resembles a street walker with her dark eyeliner and dirty blonde hair and cut off shorts. I refuse look at this site any longer, getting up from my booth Blanche stops me and tells me that she is being held captive by Moe. She nervously points behind her to a colossal man who is dripping in sweat that he lets fall on to the grill. Looking at him I am frightened, he is twice my size in everyway, I can not just leave Blanche so I decide to stay and take my risk ordering some food.
I decide to get the only thing on the Menu, Grilled cheese and some Broccoli soup. Blanche walks away to go tell Moe the order and then immediately comes back to me so we can talk. She tells me how he has been holding her here at this dump since she was six; her parents were traveling and sold her to Moe for four thousand in cash. When she first was here the place was not too bad, but Moe had spent all the money on her so the Café started to fall apart.
She tells me about numerous times she has tried to escape and then shows me the burn marks all on her arms from the stove. She says that whenever she would run away he would find out almost immediately, he would catch her and bring her back. That was not the end of it though; she had to learn her lesson. He would grab her arms and lay them on the stove until they would start to sizzle. Blanche stops talking immediately, without looking I can tell that Moe is behind me. He gives off an astounding smell of urine, burnt cheese, cigarettes, dust, body odor and sweat.
Without saying a word Blanche runs to the back and disappears behind a swing door. Moe puts the brown and green grilled cheese in front of me, I want to throw up in my mouth a little and then he puts down the broccoli soup that did not even ripple when he set it down. Enough is enough; this is no place for Blanche to be.
Swiveling on my chair, I stand up and face Moe. He is at least three times as wide as me and a foot taller, despite all the factors weighing against me I step into the biggest mistake of my life. With my right fist clenched, I hit Moe straight in the nose, he laughs at me and asks if that is all I got. I say no and start to beat him continuously in his large stomach. Again laughing, he picks me up and throws me to the other side of the Café.
He yells to some junkies sitting at a booth nearby and tells them they can do what they please with me. They respond saying, “well we would like to sell him to you Moe.” Moe laughs and tells them he will give them five hundred for this whimsy human punching bag. With no remorse the crack heads are ecstatic and leave to find their next fix. And here I am stuck with Blanche and Moe.