| "You thought Beach tore 'em off, I know. Sure had you goin there, you should've seen the look on your face!" Sam laughed silently to himself. "You tickle me, boy." "Yeah, ha ha." Arnold smiled, partly because Sam really pulled a fast one on him, but mostly because his arms weren't actually torn off by a man he was supposed to arm wrestle in a couple of hours time. Sam recomposed himself. "So you're going to wrestle ol' Beach, huh?" Arnold nodded as he ran his finger along the edge of his glass of coke. "He's a rowdy one. He's always comin up in here just to cause toruble. Chances are you don't have even half the strength that Beach has, so you'll probably lose." Arnold looked at the counter and raised his eybrows. "Great." Sam leaned in and looked around the diner as if people were watching them. He tapped the spatula on the counter. "There is one, err, little secret that I could let you in on." Arnold's eyes grew big and he looked up. Sam held out the spatula to stop his exitement. "Now I'm not guaranteeing that it'll work, but it might give you a...you know, competitive edge." Sam smiled. "You just have to promise me this one thing." Arnold hesitated before he silently nodded and listened while he ate the cheeseburger. <><><> The diner was packed with truck drivers. Most of them knew each other, a few of them Arnold recognized from the night he'd eaten with them. The lady was rushing about with pitchers of cofee and plates of eggs and orders of hash browns, stopping every now and then to smile at a patron's joke or exchange a few words with some of the customers. Sam was in the kitchen grilling up a storm. Arnold was still sitting in his seat at the counter, a completely empty glass next to a plate with two pickles on it and a balled up napkin lay neatly in front of him. The diner's din didn't notice a large figure step in through the door until it took three steps into the room. The whole place went quiet and all of the heads slowly turned to the seven-foot-tall man who was standing in the middle of the room. He had on jeans that had been worn at the knees, a black leather vest, and a blue bandanna tied tight to his bald skull. Under a large brown goatee he hid a cruel frown and were contantly rolling around in his head. All of the drivers watched as he slowly went over to a booth in the corner of the room and removed everyone from the table. He sat down, put one finger in the air, and put his hands in his lap while the lady ran to get him a cup of cofee. Arnold took a deep breath and he held it. He glanced up and he saw Sam, who winked at him and then went back to the grill. The stool squeaked loudly in the silent restaurant as Arnold slowly turned it around to face Beach. Arnold didn't realize that Beach was going to be such a intimidating opponent. He wanted to calmly get up and walk back to the motel, but he also wanted to get his goddamn car back. He'd also promised Sam he'd do it. He let the breath out and stood up. "Beach." Arnold's voice made every head in the diner turn to him. Every head except Beach's. Arnold looked around the restaurant and shifted his weight from his left leg to his right and the back again. "Beach!" The diner turned it's many heads back to Beach. "What?" he snarled as he looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Arnold licked his lips and took a step forward. "You wanna arm wrestle?" The patrons looked from Arnold to Beach. Beach sat motionless in the booth. Arnold was about to leave, but a very faint noise stopped him. It was a rumbling, very low but audible enough to be heard over the grill. Arnold raised an eyebrow and looked at Beach. The rumbling got louder until it identified itself as manical laughter coming from a booth in the corner of the diner. Beach quaked and banged the table with his left hand until his laughter died down. He looked at Arnold. "Let's do it, pretty boy." The crowd broke into hushed whispers as Arnold slowly made his way across the black and white linoleum floor to the booth. The red vinyl made a whirring noise as he slid in across the table from Beach, who was busy putting a black fingerless glove on his left hand, smiling and shaking his head. Beach slammed his elbow down onto the table. Arnold watched in horror as the man proceeded to flex every single muscle in arm. His flesh rippled and moved like an ocean of fury, each tendon an angry tempest beneath the surface of his skin, ready to swallow Arnold whole. Arnold gulped hard and put his elbow on the table. His hand couldn't even wrap around Beach's garbage can lid-like palms, so he made a fist and Beach made a larger one around it. They glared into each other's eyes. Arnold could see the fires being stoked in the annals of Beach's chest. "You ready?" Beach asked, punctauting it with a sadistic grin. "As ever." Arnold replied. "Ok. Here goes." Beach was about to start the countdown, but he noticed something had changed in Arnold's expression. There was something behind his face, something that Beach was slightly curious about. Arnold launched into action. "Y'know, I heard the funniest thing today." "Three." Beach started the countdown. "See, there was this woman..." "Two." "...who loved her mother very much." "One." "And she loved her mother so much that--" Beach didn't give Arnold time to finish his sentance. The man's arm quickly turned on like an engine and Arnold was doing his best to fight it. His hand was slowly getting closer and closer to the table, and Beach wasn't even trying. He quickly decided to speak between breaths and finish his story. "She loved her mom so much that she...promised to name her child after her..." Beach looked up at Arnold, who's face was bood red. Beach grunted and started to actually put some effort into the game, so Arnold continued. "But, y'see her mom died before the kid was born...and the mom was devastated...but she kept her promise..." Arnold took the last breath he could manage and closed his eyes. "...it's too bad she had a boy, though!" Arnold's hand was less than an inch from the table when the blood vessels in Beach's neck stopped throbbing violently and he suddenly lost the fury he had in his eyes. His mouth hung open on the hinge of his jaw. The restaurant gasped as Arnold started moving Beach's giant arm the other way. Arnold grunted and gasped and his whole body shook as he slowly pushed Beach's arm. The burning in his lungs told him to stop, but he looked up and saw Beach's blank gaze, so he called forth the last piece of strenght he had and pushed Beach's hand up past the resting position, where it fell to the table with a large thud, knocking over the salt shaker. The diner was absolutely silent, save Sam forcing his spatula under some eggs in the back. Arnold caught his breath. He glanced up and Beach's eyes slowly rolled down to meet him. "So the boy was named after his grandmother: Beatrice Marie Washington, or Beach for short." There was a long pause as Arnold looked over every face in the diner. He leaned in across the table and spoke quietly to Beach: "I think you owe Sam something." It took a while, but Beach finally closed his mouth and walked across the restaurant over to the counter. He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a gold watch. Holding it out in his open palm he called to the kitchen. "Sam! I got your watch here." The grill sputtered and hissed for a little while, then Sam's face came around to the window. "It's ok, Beach. You can keep it. It doesn't fit me anymore." The two men looked at each other, and then started laughing very very loudly. It was so loud that Arnold could hear it from the mechanic's across the street. He looked at the mechanic and asked him if his car could be repaired. The mechanic giggled, and then opened up the hood and pulled out a broken fan belt. He replaced it, tossed the old one in a barrel for the moonlight to eat, and told Arnold that he'd better be getting on his way. Arnold pulled out of the town, the moon chasing his car across the lonely desert. |