Geoff Hoff has been a dishwasher, actor, manic depressive, librarian, pizza slinger, life of the party, computer consultant, acting teacher, picture framer, standup comic, perennial uncle and pseudo-intellectual.  Since meeting Steve Mancini sometime in the last century, he has devoted himself to showy, pretentious wordplay.  He currently lives in Los Angeles and is survived by his cat, Cat.

Steve Mancini spent his early life in Port Huron, MI, where he grew up, won “Cutest Behind - Boy” award in high school and played baseball and competitive beer drinking.   He worked as a draw bridge operator, but was fired.  After deciding motel ownership and marriage weren’t for him, he moved to Los Angeles to write. He’s not dead, yet.

Lee looked at him for a very long time, trying to jump tracks.  He decided to put his confusion aside and be nice to his friend.

“I’ve never heard of a food hangover.  What’s it feel like?”

Peter looked at him through the red veins in his eyeballs, shook his head softly, stroked his beard, then took stock.

“My head hurts.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“And I feel like I need to sweat grease.  My stomach is sort of trying to churn but there isn’t any room.  My skin feels doughy, my eyes hurt.  My legs feel full.  My heart is pumping cheese instead of blood.  My fingers feel fat and I can’t make a fist.  I’m thirsty but I’m too full to drink.”  He took a sip of Tang and sighed.  “My shirt is rubbing very unpleasantly against my back.  I want to sleep, but even if I were home in bed, I wouldn’t be able to lie on my stomach or my back or my sides.  If I stretched out straight, it would stretch my stomach too much.  If I pulled my legs up in a fetal position it would squish my stomach too much.  Standing takes too much energy and sitting is very uncomfortable.  And my head hurts.  Maybe a piece of dry toast will settle my stomach.”

Lee was unsure, but put a slice of bread into the toaster.

“Want some Alka Seltzer?”

“Oh, no,” Peter said, and looked a little gray.  “That would make me throw up.”

“Wouldn’t that be good?”

“I hate throwing up.  I haven’t thrown up since I saw Last Tango in Paris.”

“Last Tango in Paris made you throw up?”

“Have you seen it?”

Lee shook his head.

“Don’t.”

Twain thunked the little bell and put Kim and Abby’s order on the window ledge.  Lee was thankful for the interruption.  He took the plates to them.  He set the plates down and stood there, trying to think of something to say.  He couldn’t, so he went back behind the counter.

“And my feet are throbbing,” Peter said.  “And so are my fingernails.  And I can’t breath through my nose.”

“I don’t understand it,” Lee said, looking at Kim, who unfolded her omelet and scraped the cheese and mushrooms out.  Then she picked the mushrooms out of the cheese.  Then she ate the cheese.  Then she ate the mushrooms.

Peter looked back at them, then at Lee.  He told Lee to ask her out and have done with it, then looked at his watch and ordered a single scrambled egg.  Abby got up from the booth again, presumably to wash her hands.  Again.  Lee took the opportunity to go back to the booth.

“Last night, you said I should be dating someone more your age.”

Kim looked at him quizzically.

“Well, aren’t you more your age?”

Her eyes got wide for a moment, then she stammered.

“Oh,” she said.  “No.  I’m sorry.  Oh.  I didn’t mean that.  I wasn’t trying to lead you on.  Oh, God.  I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Lee said, more flustered than her, his throat sinking down into his stomach like a lead hamburger with steel buns.  “I just...  I... ”  His voice got quieter with each word.  “Thought you...  wanted to go out...  with...  I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean...  I’m sort of seeing someone.  You’re a nice guy, you’ll meet someone.  Really.”

Abby came back from the ladies room and Lee hurried back around the counter and hid behind Peter.  Abby asked if she had done something wrong to scare him away and Kim explained in amused tones that Lee had just tried to ask her out.  Abby thought that was cool, but Kim let her know just how uncool that was.

“Do you think Kim is dating Abby?” Lee asked Peter.

“I don’t know,” Peter said a little too harshly and gave him a “how dare you think I’m the local gay directory and ask me that in public especially when you know I’m suffering, here” look.  Lee cocked his head to the side.  He wasn’t good at reading looks.

“I just made a fool of myself,” he said.  “I asked her out like you said and she turned me down.”

Peter gave him a “well, at least now you know and can stop bothering me about it and why should I feel sorry for you when I haven’t had a date since The Last Tango in Paris and you can play the piano and speak French and add numbers in your head and get double triple Scrabble words and you’re thin and have young women chasing after you and you’ve never had a food hangover in your life and have only been here for a couple of months and everybody already loves you and offers you parts in plays and nobody loves me and I don’t care if I’m feeling sorry for myself because I don’t feel good and who are you?” look.  Lee blinked and missed it.

“You really do look awful,” Lee said.  “Why don’t you just go home.  Your friend is really late.  If she shows up I can tell her you didn’t feel well.”

“I have to wait at least an hour.  It wouldn’t be polite not to,” Peter said, then ordered a side of hash browns and a short stack of pancakes.

“An hour?  I wouldn’t wait more than fifteen minutes.”

“Well, I’m not you,” Peter said and ordered coffee.

Lee wondered why everybody hated him.

After Twain put the order up, he came out of the kitchen, pulled the microphone stand forward on the little platform in the corner, stood behind it, adjusted it, and tapped on it twice to make sure it was on.  Lee watched him carefully.  No one else seemed to care.

“Coconut doilies,” he said into it, then stared out into the air for a moment.

Lee waited for him to finish.  Twain put the microphone stand back in the corner, stepped off the platform, then went behind the counter to read the morning paper.  Peter excused himself to go to the men’s room.  Twain handed him a two-hundred fifty count box of Ohio Blue Tip Matches as he walked by.  With Peter gone, Lee had nothing to hide behind and went in back.

When Matt brought their check to the table, Kim laughed a little.

“Poor guy,” she said to Abby.  “He was too embarrassed to bring it himself.”

“You’ve never been turned down, have you?” Abby said as she reached into her purse for the money to pay her part of the tab.

Peter sat back down and handed Twain the half empty box of matches.  The phone rang and Twain answered it.  He nodded a couple of times, said he would and hung up.

“That was your friend,” he told Peter.  “She said she didn’t feel well and wouldn’t be able to make it.”

Peter looked hurt.  Twain understood the look perfectly.