Nothing is Easy, Hurley
By Rebecca Bernard
Standing in the kitchen, before the flattop grill, Hurley feels the buzz in his pocket, and no way is this a good sign. Dana, who sleeps till noon. Dana, champion of the fishnets. Dana, the so-far love of his life who, probably, maybe, tried to break his idiot heart last night—
Hurley cracks one, two, three, rereads the ticket, four eggs onto the blazing grill before him. The soft egg bodies wiggle and flail on the hot-ass surface and calmly, coolly Hurley waits to flip them. To end their misery.
Or like—she didn’t exactly break his heart, more like—put it on ice. I don’t know, Hurley. Takes a large bite of falafel. I don’t know anymore. That Dana with the dyed blond hair and the longboard and the eyelashes like tiny feathers all meticulously painted in black goop.
Four slabs of bacon hit the deck and the air smacks with grease. The trick is to let the bacon fat make its way toward the eggs but not to invade the flavor entirely.
And Hurley out afterwards, buzzed, drunk, wasted, with Stupid Rick and Stupider Mikey. One more Jager, Hurl, one more. And so, of course, last night’s, late-night series of fuck-yous and tear stained emojis. Dana, I need you, baby. I love you. Puh-lease.
The phone in his pocket buzzes again, and Hurley looks up to see Suzanne in crisp green polo shaking her head.
“You almost got table 6? Two over easy, two over medium, three sides of bacon?”
The order printer begins to heckle, and Hurley sees the tickets spit out and hang down and his own jaw hung down last night, just like that. Sad, slack, lame.
“Order up!” Hurley plates the eggs, the meats. Suzanne adds toast, parsley, anemic slice of orange and off they go in the steady hands of Emily, server, waitress, whatever.
Hurley takes the new tickets from the printer and adds them to the line-up. They look like the saddest string of Tibetan Prayer flags, all off-white and cheap paper and focused on food, like food is on anyone’s mind now at seven in the morning when the best, hottest girl might no longer love you if she ever really did in the first place.
Buzz. Must check, can’t check.
“Hurley—what’s the matter with you?” Suzanne frowns.
“How’s table 14 coming?” Emily again, capable hands dusting powdered sugar onto a stack of French toast.
“Almost up.” Hurley focuses his almost wet eyes on the tickets. Ladles out pancake batter onto the grill and sees the bubbles rise then disappear. Everything disappears. It is the nature of everything.
“Ephemeral.” Hurley says the word out loud in the hot kitchen, the breakfast onslaught just now beginning, everything, just now beginning or ending.
“What?” asks Suzanne.
“What?” says Emily.
“Nothing,” says Hurley. No more buzz in his pocket. No more buzz in his heart, his brain.
Hurley, Dana had said. Tahini in his beard. Lettuce in his teeth. I just don’t know if we want the same things.
Hurley flips the pancake and part of it is burned, not burned, but well done. Passable. He adds four links of sausage to the grill. Two patties. Then pours four servings of scrambled eggs onto the hottest part of the grill and watches the writhing, the squirming of so much protein all at once, vulnerable and ugly.
Like what, Hurley said. Flavor of tomato still on his tongue, sweetness of hummus. Like, Hurley—I just don’t know if you’re hardcore enough. I mean, Hurl. Can you really call yourself punk rock?
“Order up table 14, table 2.” Hurley plates the eggs, Suzanne garnishes, Emily whisks them away.
Hurley, lamely, I mean, I could get a faux hawk, gauges. Dana, head shaking. Feather earrings whistling back and forth like so long, see you later.
Spatula inches into the mass of scrambled eggs and fluffs, flips, fluffs again.
It’s not me, Hurley. It’s you.
Beyond the swinging doors of the kitchen, Hurley pictures the bevy of hungry diners. The emptiness in their bellies. The faint sticky syrup grazing their arm hair as hands grasp coffee cups like desperate, ceramic lovers. The hunger of it all. The need. And Hurley?
Table 17. Four orders of sunny side up eggs. The eggs, perfect in their white halos. This is your brain. He pokes an egg, the yolk spills drunkenly across the grill. This is your brain on Dana. “Order up. Table 3!” He cracks a replacement egg onto the grill.
There is something clean about the sunny-side up egg. There is promise in its face. Its unblinking, yellow eye.
Suzanne out on the floor. Emily garnishing, reaching for the plates. “Hurley, are you okay?”
Hurley looks up, meets Emily’s eyes, nods. Then, reaches for the phone in his pocket, pulls it out, hesitates. Clicks to black. Egg is flipped, bacon is prodded. “Emily?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I’m punk rock?”
Emily looks up, pushes her tongue against her front teeth, blinks her non-crusty eyes. “Definitely not.”
Hurley frowns. Feels a sudden warmth, the grill, the steam of frying meat. Puts his phone back into his pocket. There are so many eggs.
The kitchen is empty. The heart is empty. Steam and grease envelop the space, the man in the space. Hurley, wearer of the Vans. Hurley, listener of the Blink 182, not the old stuff, the new stuff, the shame.
Emily in the kitchen again. Taking the ticket. Piercing the ticket on the spike. “Hurley?”
“Yeah?” The spatula is grasped. The eggs drying out, abandoned.
“I always thought you were metal.”
The mouth swallows. The apron, once white, now stained with the greased hand’s wiping. “Metal?”
Emily smiles. Hand tucks a strand of blond hair back behind the ear. Teeth white, but crooked. Pretty. “Yeah.”
Hurley, his mouth a line. The phone abuzz. The heart abuzz. “Okay.”
The head, the heart. See how they bang anew.
About the Author:
Rebecca Bernard is a PhD candidate in creative writing at the University of North Texas where she serves as Managing Editor for American Literary Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Southwest Review, Pleiades, Meridian and elsewhere. Her work received notable mention in the Best American Short Stories of 2018.
About Weekly Flash Prose and Poetry:
CutBank Online features one work of flash prose or prose poetry every Monday. Submissions are free and open year-round. Send us your best work of 750 words or less at https://cutbank.submittable.com/submit.