Limbo at a San Diego Denny's

The employees had always seemed a little strange, and pompous, which made the customers a little more disrespectful. The employees called it the In Between Hellhole, but grew to be commonly known as Punk Rock Denny's in Santee. Santee was known as Klantee, or White Trash Capital USA depending on who you asked. Outside it was a quiet night, rodeo time, so there were few people sacrilegious enough to not be under the bright lights cheering. None of them brave enough to venture into Denny's, where tensions were rising, like boiling water about to poach eggs at 9 PM.

"Watch yourself Harry, Tom is in one of his moods again," Ron said from behind the register where he was writing Latin curses in dust.

Harry turned from where he was inspecting the Big Choice claw machine.

"What else is new?" He swept the curly black hair off of his forehead and straightened his glasses. He still hadn't gotten used to his smooth forehead. When he first touched it and hadn't felt the lightning strike of texture he fainted.

"He may mean business this time," Ron squeaked.

"He always meant business, and look where it's gotten him." Harry opened his arms to encompass the restaurant. "And worse yet, he dragged us here with him."

"HEY TOM!" he shouted across the empty restaurant toward the kitchen.

"What, you miserable little..."

"Tom, I have a Riddle for you. How many line cooks does it take to screw in a light bulb with just his hands?"

There was silence broken only by the Bewitched theme song on the MUSAK.

"Only one, YOU!"

Tom, a very good looking brown haired boy, burst around the corner, spatula in hand and pointed it at Harry.

"One of these days you filthy little brat, I'm going to..." Tom flicked his spatula at Harry like he was fly fishing.

"What? Scramble some eggs for me?"

"Wanna go bolthead? Oh, I'm sorry, you don't even have that anymore here do you?"

"Just say the Magic word," Harry replied, picking up a peppermill and pointing it at Tom like a swordfighter.

Just then the white-haired manager Al walked out of the back and stood between the dueling employees.

"What, is happening here?" he asked, reaching instinctively to the air a foot below his chin, then abruptly up to rub his clean shaven cheeks.

"Nothing, sir," Harry said.

"Is there anything you want to tell me Tom?"

"Oh grow a beard, you look ridiculous," Tom said turning around and going back to the kitchen where the other cook, Lucky, was already making a mess of the simple cleaning task Tom had given him.

"Harry, we need to all cooperate here for things to work. I know this job is a bit of a disappointment, but I've learned to cope with..."

"Yes," Harry interrupted impatiently, "but you've had an extra year to deal with this existence. You also had a whole lifetime before you ended up in this dump." He kicked a crouton under the claw machine.

"Dump it may be, but we must deal with the fact that we are mu... mere men. When our time comes, we will be promoted, and never have to deal with rodeos or ranch dressing again, though I do quite like the thousand island, a very interesting..." Al noticed Harry rolling his eyes at yet another one of his needless asides. "Anyway, remember. Your Godfather was only here a short while longer than I, and he was promoted."

"Which means, to me, that we don't have to cooperate at all," Harry said, trying to avoid looking at Ron in the background, who was pretending to pull out his red hair, and shoot himself of boredom. "He never cooperated with anyone, and you always got on well with everyone and you're still here."

"The plans of those above us are unclear only until we join them."

"Okay Trelawney," Harry muttered. Ron snickered imperceptively.

"What was that Harry?"

"I said I should go check on Neville."

"Yes, he's still adjusting as well, but picking up on things very quickly. Who'd have guessed his calling would be as a dishwasher?"

"Everyone," Ron said.

Harry giggled, Al smiled, then said merely, "Perhaps."

"Not perhaps," Ron continued, "he's a brilliant dishwasher."

Harry left Al and Ron and made his way back to the dishwasher area. Neville was scrubbing away at the walls, having no dishes left to wash. Harry, Ron, Neville and Tom had all started at Denny's the same day, and surprisingly, Neville had taken to his job assignment the fastest. Harry still frequently forgot to ring in orders, Ron would often forget about customers and drift off into daydreams about his old girlfriend who was, by all means, too smart and pretty to be with him anyway, (she eventually realized it, and got back together with her old boyfriend, the sports star,) and Tom just did what he had always done, learned his trade quickly, but then pawned his duties on his minion cooks, none of which he terrorized more than Lucky. Lucky had pure white hair, and was so very pale that all the customers thought he was an albino, though technically he wasn't.

"Hey Neville," Harry called as he got close.

"Oh, hey Harry, how're you doing?" Neville stopped scrubbing the wall and wiped the sweat off of his brow with the back of his forearm.

"I'm fine, you look like you're having fun."

"Oh yes," he smiled, "it's good clean fun."

Harry was giving him a polite chuckle when he was hit in the back of the head with a frozen chicken strip.

"No need for magic words when you have artillery!" Tom cried out as a hamburger patty sailed over and smacked Harry hard right in the forehead. "Ohhhh. Your forehead hurting again because I'm so close?"

"You Know Who's going down!" Neville shouted from behind Harry, and launched a soup ladle at the kitchen, which hit a shelf and fell to the ground with a harmless clank.

"Sorry Harry," Neville said and was promptly hit with a buckshot of unfried French fries.

"How's mummy and duddy?" Lucky crowed at Neville while feeding Tom more frozen foods to fling.

Neville turned a bright red and grabbed a butcher's knife from the drip rack.

"No, Neville, it's not worth it," Harry said as he dodged a goopy ball of mashed potatoes Tom had catapulted from an ice cream scooper. Then the lettuce began to rain on Harry and Neville by the handful.

"Hey Lord Suck-ass!" Got Tom to turn around just in time to catch Ron's banana cream pie in his face.

"You Weasley little brat!" Lucky exclaimed, and charged Ron, tackling him back to the host area. "Stay where you belong, the only position anyone in your family has ever belonged, one of menial work!"

Harry finally charged Tom, with Neville close behind him brandishing a bright red plastic cutting board.

Al burst in to see all of his employees in a swearing-swinging heap in the kitchen, the fray punctuated with phrases like "This one's for my parents!" or "I'll kill you, again!"

"Stop this! Stop!" Al thundered. His booming voice startled everyone into silence. "I just got the call."

"Who is it Profess... or, Al?" Harry asked, trying to brush ketchup off of his black apron.

"It is you, Harry."

"YES!!!" Harry leapt into the air. "Finally I am out of this purgatory!"

"That is totally uncalled for! I'm ten times stronger even now, than he ever was!" Tom exclaimed, throwing his handful of frozen hashbrowns on the ground. "He's only getting the promotion because of his sob story, and because his whole family's up there. My family is there too! I never for to know them either! What about me? What about me? This is bollocks!"

Harry stopped his Ashley Simpson-esque jig to stick his tongue out at Tom.

"That's..." Ron paused looking down at his feet, "that's brilliant Harry." Tom mimicked the word 'brilliant' over and over again.

"Oh Ron." Harry walked over and put his arm around his best friend's shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be shuffled along soon."

"Yeah, I suppose so," Ron replied, still studying his Wal-Mart anti-slip shoes splattered with whipped cream.

Harry opened his mouth, but couldn't find anything encouraging to say.

"That's jolly good Harry!" Neville exclaimed. "You have seemed miserable here. I love it, but you just haven't seemed your old self."

"I'm not going," Harry said, looking up from Ron's shoes.

"What?!" Neville, Tom and Lucky all exclaimed in disbelief. Al remained silent.

"I can't leave my best friend alone in a place as horrible as this. I'm staying."

Since there were no crickets, the cockroaches did their best to chirp, but it was still silent except the soft squeak of a rat in the dry storage room. Al studied the two carefully in the silence, which was finally broken when his cell phone began to chime the song I put a spell on you.

"Al here. Uh huh, uh huh, yes, he means it. Yes. Okay." Al shut his cell phone. "Ron, you got the green light as well."

Harry and Ron jumped up and down.

"I get to see them finally!" Harry exclaimed. "Both of them!"

"And poor Bill too! Standing upright!"

"Boys-boys-boys!" Al thundered again grimly. Silence. "Enjoy your promotion," he resumed with a smile.

Harry tore off his apron and tossed it to Al, then he and Ron ran straight out the door.

"Okay, back to work," Al said walking back to his office, seeming to not notice the huge mess of frozen foods on the kitchen floor.

"Back to, um, work," Neville said feebly, shrinking back from the looming figures of Tom and Lucky advancing on him.