Be Cool, Hunny Bunny
Hawthorne Grill sits on the corner of 137th and Hawthorne Boulevard. Originally opened in 1956, the diner is the last standing reminder of the Googie architectural style. A style symbolic of the 1950’s hope for a Space Age future. Now that America had sent a man to the moon, the Grill seemed quaint in contrast to the modern architecture of the surrounding buildings.
The couple sits in a booth by the window. He is wearing a hawaiian shirt with light blue jeans. His hair is floppy, dirty blonde like a vagabond beach boy. She is wearing a nondescript blue dress and a French bob.
Exasperated, he begins: “I’m done hunny bunny.”
“Pumpkin, you say that all the time. ‘I’m through. Never again. Too dangerous.’”
“I know that’s what I always say. I’m always right too.”
“Well you’ll forget about it in a day or two?”
“Yeah well the days of me forgetting are over and the days of me remembering have just begun.”
“You know what you sound like?”
“I sound like a sensible freaking man.”
“You sound like a duck - quack, quack, quack, quack.”
“Well you won’t have to hear me quack about it again cause I won’t be doing it again.”
The waitress interrupts their banter with an offer of coffee refills.
Pumpkin watches the waitress walk away before he continues, “The way it is now you’re taking the same risk as when you rob a bank. In fact you’re taking more of a risk. Federal banks ain’t supposed to stop you in any way during a robbery. I mean they’re insured, why should they care. You don’t even need a gun in a federal bank. I heard of this one guy, walks into a bank with a portable phone. He gives the phone to the teller, a bloke on the other end of the line says, we've got this guy's little girl, if you don't give him all your money, we're gonna kill her.”
“Did it work?”
“Of course, it worked. That's what I'm talking about! Knucklehead walks into a bank with a telephone. Not a pistol, not a shotgun, a freaking phone. Cleans the place out.
“Did they hurt the little girl?”
“I don't know, there probably never was a little girl in the first place. The point of the story isn't the little girl, the point of the story is they robbed a bank with a telephone.”
“You want to rob banks?”
“I'm not saying I want to rob banks, I'm just illustrating that if we did, it'd be easier than what we've been doing.”
“No more liquor stores?”
“What have we been talking about? Yeah, no more liquor stores. Besides, it ain't the gig it used to be. Too many foreigners own liquor stores. They don't understand freaking English. You tell them, empty out the register, they don't know what you're talking about. They make it too personal; if we keep on, one of these days we’re gonna kill somebody.”
“I'm not gonna kill anybody.”
“I don't want to kill anybody either. But they'll probably put us in a situation where it's us or them. You've got Grampa Irving, whose owned the store for 15 years, sitting behind the counter with a freaking Magnum in his hand. Try walking into one of those places with nothing but a phone, see how far you get. Forget it. We're out of it.”
“So what then, day jobs?”
“Not in this life.”
“What then?”
“This place.”
“This place? A diner?”
“Why not? Nobody ever robs restaurants. Bars, liquor stores, gas stations--you get your head blown off sticking up one of them. Restaurants on the other hand, you catch with their pants down. They're not expecting to get robbed. Not as expectant, anyway.”
“I bet you could cut down on the hero factor in a place like this.”
“Correct. Same as banks, these places are insured. Manager? He don't give a crap. He's just trying to get you out the door before you start plugging the diners. Waitresses? Forget it! No way they're taking a bullet for the register. Busboys, some kid getting paid a dollar-fifty an hour, really care you're stealing from the owner? Customers are sitting there with food in their mouths, they don't know what's going on. One minute they're having a Denver omelette, next minute somebody's sticking a gun in their face. See, I got the idea, last liquor store we held up, all the customers kept coming in? And you got the idea of taking their wallets. Now that was a good idea. Made more from the wallets than we did from the register.”
“A lot of customers come into a restaurant. That’s a lot of wallets.”
“Pretty smart, eh?”
“Pretty smart. I'm ready. Let's do it. Right now, right here. Come on.”
Pumpkin hands hunny bunny a revolver as he collects his own pistol: “All right, same as last time, remember? You handle gun control, I'll handle the employees.”
Honey Bunny: I love you, Pumpkin.
Pumpkin: I love you, Hunny Bunny.
Pumpkin Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!
Honey Bunny: Any of you ****ing pricks move, and I'll execute every mutha****ing last one of ya.
