I am not please with this story actually, wrote it a while ago.. It is somewhat funny, so I am posting it anyway..
The moose was looking right at him, he was sure of it. The head of the moose at least, because of course there was no body. “The rest of it could be on the other side of the wall” Armand thought, “what a weird decoration for a restaurant.” Would he move to another table, he knew the moose would still be looking at him.
- “Good afternoon Sir, my name is Sherry, what can I get you?”
The waitress was in her mid forties, kind of pretty, Armand decided, but she seemed to be missing something that at least forty years should provide to anyone, he could not quite put his finger on it.
She wore a white apron, had brown hair and a thin long nose you couldn’t hep but notice.
- “Do you serve moose here?”
- “I beg your pardon Sir?”
- “Just kidding, never mind. Do you have a filet mignon?”
- “You’re not from here are you?”
- “I’m from Alabama.” Armand said, with his French accent and a smile.
- “Are you making fun of me?”
Armand realized that if moose wasn’t on the menu, neither was humour…
- “Oh no, sorry, it’s just that moose.” he said, then thought “Oh shit, did I just say that?”
Sherry looked at him for a few seconds like a chicken looks at a computer, then turned around and yelled:
- “Frank!”
When Frank opened the kitchen door, Armand’s first thought was “He killed that moose,” immediately followed by “What’s gonna happen to me?” Frank was an imposing figure, in a redneckish kind of way. Six foot tall, slightly under three hundred pounds, with a large belly and a handle bar mustache.
- “What’s the problem here?”
- “He makes fun of me and the moose, and then he lies about where he’s from.”
- “We don’t like strangers here. You see that man eating over there? That’s Sheriff Morley. Now, either you order and eat quietly or leave, otherwise I will let him handle the situation.”
Sherriff Morley looked like anything but a sherriff. He was skinny and short, but with a hard face, as if his previous carreer had been of a sea captain on an old schooner. Even the Colt Peacemaker on his side looked too big for his hips.
The music from “The Twilight Zone” popped in Armand’s head. He looked at the sherriff, and to his horror, Morley was looking at him, finally put his fork down, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and looked at Frank.
- “Problem Frank?”
- “We just have a funny stranger here Jim.”
Jim got up, adjusted his gun belt, and crossed the room as if he was three times his size, which would have been comical in any other situation.
- “Sir, is this your car outside with the Florida plate?”
- “Huh, yes. There is no problem really, I just want to eat something.”
- “Where are you from, and what are you doing in Greenhorn Gulch?”
- “I’m on vacation, I’m French.”
Armand would have liked to know which of these answers was the wrong one, maybe both, because he didn’t even see Morley grab his handcuffs before he heard them click on his wrists.
- “Hey! What are you doing?”
- “Don’t make any trouble now, or I’ll charge you with resisting arrest.”
Armand looked at the moose, now it seemed like it had a smirk on his stuffed face.
He knew there was no use in saying anything else.
The GreenHorn Gulch prison looked right out of a western ghost town. There was only one cell, with four bunks, and one toilet you had to use in front of whomever was there. A man seemingly in his forties, although he was probably ten years younger (crack, Armand thought) was sitting on one bunk.
- “I want a lawyer!”
The Sherriff smiled. The man looked at Armand: “Y’r not from here, are ya?”
Well, I find myself wonder’n if this’s fact or fiction. Next time, just ask for freedom-fries and a bud-lite. I suspect the moose would probably have left if it could.