It came to me in a dream.

I walked on the opposite side of the street, my shoes digging into the
mud that covered the sidewalk. I passed the pharmacy where kids stole
the ingredients to make their own methamphetamine cocktails and also
four antique stores that sold nothing but junk from dead people's
attics. My shoes were now hopelessly brown, my boss wouldn't like
that. I adjusted my uniform and pulled out the ridiculous hat we were
made to wear by the owner of Decoys, the only restaurant within forty
miles of this mud hole. Atop the hat sat a stuffed duck that someone
had super glued to a normal baseball cap. When you walked the duck
dipped and bobbed and swayed and I sometimes thought that it would
make me fall over and spill an order all over a table of customers. I
kind of wish that would happen. Deanna would surely fire me. But it
wouldn't be worth it and Kitty needed to eat. Kitty is my sister by
the way. She is five now. She was two when our mom left, walked right
out of town and I guess she never stopped unless they stopped her at
the Canadian border. The job I have is the one my mom walked away
from, actually this life I have was handed down by my mother and I
don't blame her for leaving it. One human being could only wake up to
this for so long and that is especially true of my mom because
everyone says that if she had gotten out twenty years before she would
have been something beautiful and great and I don't doubt that. She
was beautiful and great already but she became trapped in this awful
place and she let it kill her soul.

Kitty and I live with our father, at least I think he is my father and
with some guys he tells us to call uncle even though I am pretty sure
my mom and dad didn't have any brothers. Kitty and I live in VW van
parked permanently in the back yard. And it is an okay place to live,
better than inside of the house where the men walk around drunk all
day stepping on cigarette butts and crushing empty beer cans with
their bare feet. The van door locks which keeps the uncles away and in
the winter my dad lets us use a space heater to keep mostly warm.

"DUCK DUCK DUCK" some boys scream from across the street.

I roll my eyes because you think it wouldn't be funny any more, the
whole duck on the head thing. But little boys start growing up and
think they are clever.

Someone half heatedly throws a glass coke bottle and its pieces
shatter around my feet. I glare at them and stomp across the street
without looking first. I hear the engine of an old pick up approaching
me slowly. The driver comes to a stop to let me pass and leans
outside the window to scream something stupid at me. Whatever. I keep
walking and the little boys scatter.

I walk into the alley, kicking trash as I dutifully march towards my
destiny. Already I can smell the grease escaping from the kitchen. The
whitewashed brick above and around the kitchen door are stained an
ugly brown from all the filth that escapes the place. From above,
Deanna peers her head out of the apartment she shares above the
restaurant with the owner, Roy. He's a mean man, a fat and ugly man
who has a problem staying away from girls much too young for him.

"You're late again Lydia. If I could find some other little bitch to
work here I would and then I'd fire you".

I've heard this all before. Deanna would never fire me because I
actually work which means she doesn't have to. She just sits in the
kitchen and eats pie crust all day while ordering me and the other
girl, Sam, around. She's stupid anyway since she has been trying to
convince Roy to marry her for the last fifteen years at least even
though he leaves most nights and doesn't come back until he's had his
fill of dirty skanks up the road at the hunter's bar. Roy will never
marry her now. She's gotten fat from all that pie crust she eats all
day long and she's gotten old. The skin on her face sags and she can
never manage to keep up with bleaching the black roots that grow out
of her head which gives her hair this perpetually dirty and unwashed
look.

I walk through the hot kitchen and readjust the apron tied around my
waist, I summon up a smile and push through the swinging doors that
lead to the dining area. Even though it is noon, the room is dark and
hazy with smoke. It smells of booze, raw meat, and men. Bars of light
break in where the blinds covering the windows have been worn down. My
tables are in the front half of the room and right now they are all
empty except for Rusty, my uncle, who is already drunk and probably
has been for at least the past seven days. I don't carry a notepad to
take orders for two reasons, first of all we only have fifteen things
on the menu and we don't do special requests and second because
everyone always orders the same thing.

I tap Rusty on the shoulder to make sure he is still alive and he
grumbles and makes a pass at my ass. I step on his foot and he
grumbles again and puts his head back down onto the table. I walk
towards the bar and fill up a water and bring it back to Rusty's
table. Today will be slow, which is good. I guess it's always slow,
except during the summer cabin season when nice folks from the city
drive through this little mud hole on their way to expensive lake
homes and for some reason think our town to be charming enough to stop
in. They are so wrong and they usually figure this out quickly. Most
of them are too polite to leave once they have sat down but you can
see the looks of horror splayed across their faces, the ones that say
"how do people live like this". Sometimes their pompous children say
rude things that are responded to with stearn looks that say "Johnny,
these people can't help it. They are just below us". But at least they
always tip generously. I don't think I'd want to be like them even if
I could.

The other time it gets busy is during hunting season but most of the
hunters stay away from here and prefer the bar up the road. I think
this is mostly because the place rents out prostitutes by the hour. I
think the girls are actually the daughters of the owner and I suppose
that is really sad and disgusting.

My name is Lydia by the way and I am fifteen. That means I've been
working here since my mom left when I was twelve. I don't go to school
anymore. It's not so bad, school here is kind of a joke. I guess I had
one good teacher, Mr. Nelson and he still gives me books to read and
talks a lot about enrolling me in a correspondence program to get a
G.E.D. so I could go to college one day. Before my mom left I wanted
to be a meteorologist. Not just a weather girl or something stupid
like that. But ever since I can remember I have been fascinated by
storms and rain and sunshine. But now I know that there will never be
time for that. I could never leave Kitty alone.