Roadkill 1

Fresh From The Road Kill Cafe

... A Love Story

All the persons, names, places and events depicted in

Jan's stories are fictional.

Any resemblance to actual events, persons or locations is purely coincidental.

Part 1

Disclaimers: Any resemblance to any actual person from rural Illinois is probably very accurate. This story isn’t for the wee bairn, or for the sensitive of heart or stomach. In fact, I hope to rev up the “eyewwww!” factor in this updated version.

Dedication: To my wife, Carrie: Thanks for getting me the hell out of there!

Email: If you like it, please let me know at jancarr621@aol.com.

Condolences: If you’re in rural Illinois, sucks to be you!

Chapter One

Welcome to the Road Kill Café, where the motto is:

“If it ain't moving, we cooked it too long.”

The headlights on the highway revealed large two brown eyes staring straight ahead into the path of the oncoming semi. From the bushes near the side of the road, another pair of eyes waited and watched. Frozen in place by the oncoming high beams, the blare of the semi's horn did nothing to make the doe move away from the middle of the highway. Suddenly it was all over. As the truck made impact with the doomed creature, a shout of triumph went up from alongside the road, “There's gonna be some good eatin’ tonight!”

In the early morning hours, the back door of The Road Kill Café swung inward, revealing a grubby, stubble-faced man in filthy gray coveralls shouldering a dismal tan, blood streaked canvas sack. He dropped the sack on the floor and turned to the owner of The Road Kill Café who also happened to be the head cook and went by the name ‘Chef Rocky’. “Hey!”

“Hey, yerself, Rufus. Whatcha got in that sack?”

“Our main entrée. Got all the best parts—well them that was big enough to pick up.”

“18 wheeler, huh?”

“Oh, yeah! Big sucker! Thought there'd only be stew meat left by the time it got through with that critter; but, just about the time the truck got close enough, the deer turned and left us some choice parts.”

“Well, open up that sack and let's get busy!” Chef Rocky began her task of preparing the meat for the night's menu offerings while Rufus got cleaned up some and started spreading the word that there was fresh venison to be had at The Road Kill Café that night.

The Road Kill Café did the usual amount of good business it saw whenever deer was on the menu. The locals appreciated the fare and tried to get there early so as to have their pick of the parts for their evening meal. Those that got to the restaurant first got steaks and chops. Those arriving later had to make due with stews and soups. Business was good, and the profits were high. The only overhead was the upkeep on the shack that served as the restaurant and the pitiful wages paid to the two waitresses, Francine and Dora Sue, and, of course, compensation paid to Rufus Carnivore, who brought the highways' scrapings to the restaurant each night.

Inbred, Illinois was a close knit community, which was to be expected since most of the area's population was related in one way or another. The most common last name was Witherspoon with variations on the spelling. That they played fast and loose with their genetic pool never seem to faze the local population.

Rufus was an outsider, having moved to the area from a similar type of community in Louisiana. There he was just one of a hundred Carnivores, all known for their hunting and trapping skills. Except for Rufus. One of the lazier Carnivores, he preferred to leave the hunting to the trucks that flew down the two-lane black tops, leaving in their wakes a host of dining possibilities.

Chef Rocky was not from this area either. After completing her studies at the American Culinary Institute, she’d moved here 10 years earlier from Chicago, following the deaths of her grandparents. After accepting ownership of her grandparent’s roadside dive, she quickly found that the locals had a taste for the unusual and seized the opportunity to keep the floundering restaurant going. Once she’d adapted the fare to their tastes, the Road Kill Café became a local legend for fine cooking of its suddenly deceased wildlife.

Francine bustled from table to table taking orders, some for food and some for recreation after the restaurant was closed for the evening. To say she was a flirt was putting it mildly. To say she was a slut was putting it mildly. She did seem to enjoy her work, though, and was the favorite of the local diners. She could lay out a spread beyond their wildest dreams. For food and for recreation.

Dora Sue had her hands full both at the restaurant and in her personal life. She was married, sort of, to Rufus. He had won her heart with his Louisiana accent and the fact that he was breathing and single at the time. Together they had 7 kids, mostly boys, and mostly resembling Rufus with the occasional odd possibility thrown in.

Resembling Rufus was not all that good for the ones who did, either. It mostly meant that they started shaving by the time they were kindergarten age and got a sudden glazed over look on their face when they spotted any 4-legged beast. And those were the girls! They boys mostly seemed to look like somebody else...several somebody else's.

Still, Rufus was quite content to treat all Dora Sue's children the same, whether their parentage was suspect or not. He flat out ignored them all, much to their delight. They had shelter, thanks to Dora Sue's waitressing, and they had food that she brought home to them after work each night. Chef Rocky would always put something aside for her to take home, knowing that Rufus was pretty well good for only two things: scraping road kill and making babies.

“Francine, stop flirting with the mayor and pick up your order!” Chef Rocky called out, clearly annoyed with the waitress who seemed more preoccupied with her social life at the moment than in serving her customers. No, that's not entirely right, thought the chef, it's what she's interested in serving right now that's the problem.

“I am not flirting with the mayor!” Francine huffed indignantly. “But Miz Witherspoon is a pretty little thing, if you don’t mind the chin hairs. And the mustache.”

The crowd erupted in laughter, and the mayor got a few evil grins from the other diners. His wife sat there with a dazed expression on her face and an obvious interest in the cleavage of the waitress who was bending over to refill her water glass.

“Hey, Mayor!” one of the locals shouted, “It looks like Francine is about to give you a run for your money!”

“Got a little competition there, Mayor?” another shouted.

“Ain't no competition about it.” Francine answered. “Is there, Sugar?” She smiled seductively at the Bea Witherspoon whose eyes still remained firmly fixed on Francine's ample cleavage.

“Huh? What?” Bea Witherspoon slowly came to the realization that she was the object of the conversation and regretfully refocused her eyes on her husband's and gave him a sheepish grin.

That was the interesting thing about Inbred, Illinois. No one threw stones at anyone else. No one dared. The only upstanding citizens were those that weren't drunk enough to fall down yet.

Francine never cared if she was with a man or a woman. Whoever caught her interest that night was just fine with her. And there seemed to be some kind of implied honor in being one of her one-night stands. Anyone who got a second night became some kind of local hero. There was an aura about Francine that the locals couldn't resist. She wasn't particularly all that good looking, but there was something about her that drew suitors to her like flies. Her tips always outmatched Dora Sue's. But Francine had a kind heart and always split her take with the other waitress, feeling a bit sorry her.

Dora Sue appreciated Francine's generosity. And, even though it made more work for her at times due to Francine's preoccupation with the clientele, the tips more than made up for any inconvenience. She and Francine were like sisters. Rumor had it that they were. But that was nothing unusual. Aside from the occasional 'slow' child that was born to the local inhabitants now and then, still breathing and willing seemed to be the only requirements for a romantic fling. Breathing was optional. Just ask Bag’em Tag’em Witherspoon, County Undertaker.

Chef Rocky didn't get involved with the romantic goings on of her staff or of the rural populace. She'd been married years before and came to her senses one day, realizing that the whole thing was a mistake. When the chance to move to Inbred came along, she seized it as an opportunity to start her life over, and she never looked back. She'd had her share of suitors now and then, but they quickly realized that her standards were a lot higher than theirs were. Like, for one thing, they had to have bathed recently. That was just asking a bit too much as far as they were concerned. So she was pretty much left to her own devices, which she kept in the drawer of her nightstand.

In ten years, no one had caught her eye. So she concentrated on the café and resigned herself to not having much of a social life. It wasn't due to her looks, either. She was attractive, smart, and had a great sense of humor, which is the only way she survived living in such an odd community. She worked hard and was very inventive in her use of any spice or ingredient that would make her dinners edible and safe. Good taste cost extra. So the inhabitants generally were satisfied if the meal didn't cause too much stomach distress. Flatulence was to be expected, though. And a really good night at The Road Kill Café could cause a mushroom cloud to appear suddenly over the entire county.

If Chef Rocky was lonely, she never let on. The idea of becoming involved with any of the Inbred population sobered her thoughts and killed her libido immediately. Besides, running the restaurant left her too tired and busy to travel much. I'll probably grow old here, and die here alone, she thought, but I'll die filthy stinking rich! It was amazing what people were willing to pay for a seat at one of her tables. It was either the food or Francine or both. Probably both.

The restaurant still resembled the run down shack that her grandparents had left her. She wanted to remodel it at first, but eventually learned that the ramshackle quality of the building was one of the drawing points for the patrons. They seemed to like the rustic element.

It was a challenge to eat a meal their during one of their storms, wondering if you'd get to finish your plate before the building blew away, which it had on more than one occasion. Chef Rocky would just rebuild it right on the same spot, and in a few days, The Road Kill Café was open for business again.

In fact, another one of Rufus' chores was to make sure that he gathered all the debris from the violent spring storms. “Closed for remodeling” was what the locals called it when a storm had dismantled the restaurant, scattering wood and shingles across the field where the restaurant otherwise sat.

Chef Rocky, Francine and Dora Sue kept things going at The Road Kill Café the rest of the night, and Rufus returned to his place in the bushes by the highway, waiting for another hapless creature to meet its fate at the hands of a truck driver.

When the food ran out and the customers had either all been served or turned away, Francine announced she was done for the evening. She counted her tips, gave Dora Sue her portion, and then took off for the rest of the night to attend to a 'civic matter' as she called it. Bea Witherspoon kissed her husband goodnight, then suddenly remembered something she forgot to take care of at the beauty parlor, where she was ‘queen of the really bad perms’, and left for her rendezvous with Francine. Mayor Witherspoon was not to be fooled by his wife's deception, though, but shrugged it off and decided to pay Dora Sue a visit while Rufus was out scouting the highways for the night.

The kitchen was all cleaned up. The tables and chairs were all straightened up in the dining room. The money was counted and put in the safe and the books were done for the night. Chef Rocky went into the storeroom to make sure that she had enough supplies for the remainder of the week.

Lemme see....beer...potatoes....beer....carrots....beer.... Yep! I'm still set for the week; but, just in case...I'd better order some more beer. It was amazing what people would eat if marinated long enough in the proper amount of beer. Beer, in fact, was the main ingredient in her recipes, Coors being the flavor of choice. Occasionally some uppity local would ask for a Heineken, or some yuppie local would ask that their meat be marinated in Bud Light. But mostly it was a good old six-pack of Coors for every 5 pounds of meat that seemed to do the trick. And for safety's sake, a generous supply of antibiotics was thrown in the pot to make the eating less risky. It proved to be a good combination: what the antibiotics didn't kill, the alcohol content would.

The health department didn't seem to mind. No one had actually died from the food there. But there was that one scare when someone rumored that real beef had accidentally been used in one of the stews when Chef Rocky ran out of road kill. That nearly got the restaurant shut down. Not by the health department, but by the protests of the customers who had come to expect only wildlife from the restaurant and didn't want any of that domesticated crap served to them.

Headlights shone through the window and caused Chef Rocky to look up. She wondered who would be coming there this time of night. She moved the curtain aside at the front window and peeked out. The driver of the car left the motor running as she got out of the car. From the window, Chef Rocky could tell that it was a tall woman, slender, and very good looking, even with the shadows of the parking lot falling across her face. The woman walked up to the door and knocked. Chef Rocky opened the door and was just about to tell the woman that the restaurant was closed for the night, when she was captured by the most amazing blue eyes she'd ever seen. She felt like she'd melt on the spot. The woman looked incredible.

Just as she was trying to form a coherent thought, another woman exited the car and came up to the taller woman. The second woman was shorter and her blonde looks contrasted remarkably with the darker looks of the taller woman. She tugged on the taller woman's arm and whispered something into her ear. While the chef was still struggling to make her mouth form words, her libido took completely over. Her hands began to shake, her face turned beet red, and she had to restrain herself from trying to grab hold of the beautiful woman who was turning to leave. Mine, mine mine! Her body screamed in its frustration and the only thing Chef Rocky could think to do was to start banging her head against the doorway in the hope that she would soon black out.

The shorter woman looked at the chef with suspicion, and the taller woman looked apologetically at Chef Rocky and said, “Don’t worry. I get that a lot. Anyhow, My friend found the place we're looking for on the map just now. Sorry to have disturbed you.” Both women got back inside and the car reversed, turned, and sped away into the night.

Chef Rocky closed the door, and continued to shake and mutter unintelligently all the way back to the kitchen.

A little while later, a sudden knocking at the kitchen door startled the chef. “Now what?” she asked herself under her breath.

“Chef Rocky! Chef Rocky, you in there?”

“Oh God, what now?” The chef shook her head and opened the back door to reveal the most pitiful excuse for a human life form that Inbred had managed to produce thus far. To say he was slow was a complement. More accurately, his IQ was plastered all over the county on the road signs that read: “Route 36.” Perliss T. Witherspoon was one of Inbred's genetic disasters. When he was born, his momma took one look at him and said, “He looks purely stupid to me!” And the name stuck. Perliss Tupid Witherspoon stood before Chef Rocky proudly grinning from ear to ear. His two remaining teeth shone dully in the dark. The one on the bottom left and the one on the top right somehow managed to balance his jaw line rather perfectly.

“Chef Rocky, you gotta pay me for this road kill!”

“What?” the chef replied, the look of confusion flashing across her face.

“You gotta pay me. Rufus says you pay for road kill and I got me some right here.”

Perliss proudly thrust out a half-eaten baloney sandwich that looked like it had tire tracks across the bread. It was smashed and dirty and stunk to high heaven.

“Perliss, that's not exactly road kill.”

“But it's meat, Chef, and Rufus says you gets your meat from the highway! Well, I found this meat on the highway…an' look! It's all ready to eat. Gots the bread and mustard and everything.”

Now you'd think that preparing road kill for human consumption every night would make Chef Rocky pretty immune to being affected by such things as Perliss was waving under her nose, but—

When Chef Rocky returned from heaving her guts into the bushes, she paid Perliss five dollars to get that sandwich out of her sight. Which he promptly did, licking his fingers afterward and sending Chef Rocky right back out into the night to throw up in another clump of bushes.

Perliss closed the door to the restaurant and made his way back out into the darkness, off to get another prize piece of meat for Chef Rocky. “That's so nice of her to treat me to dinner an' all!” he gleefully said to himself! “Maybe next time, I'll share with her!”

The morning found the Chef back at work, feet propped up on her desk with her ledger firmly planted in her lap. This was one thing that Chef Rocky found appealing about her work. Her restaurant was only open in the evenings, providing her with free time during the day. As long as she was at work by about 4, she could take the rest of the day off. This morning, however, she decided to come in and give her books a little attention. She'd be done in a little while. After all, the books were easy to maintain when your chief expense was paying someone to scrape the highway for you.

Rufus stumbled in and slapped his night's collection down on the work table. “Four raccoons, three squirrels, a possum and something I'm not quite sure about.” Rufus shot a challenging look at the Chef. Those were slim pickings. It would challenge the chef to feed the local crowd on what he'd found last night. But she always seemed up to the challenge, surprising Rufus with the things she could create and give one of those funny foreigner sounding names to.

“Pot Pies tonight!” Chef Rocky declared. That was simple. Just put whatever meat there was into a stew with a lot of vegetables, some antibiotics and a thick sauce made from lots of beer and a little flour. Put some pie dough over it, and the evening crowd would be satisfied.

“Dang, woman! Ain't there nothin' you can't make outta what I bring ya?”

Chef Rocky smiled and threw the sack into the cooler and poured Coors all over it. Might as well start marinating it now, she thought to herself. Rufus collected his pay and headed back out the door.

“Oh, if Dora Sue asks for me tonight, tell her I'm out checking the back roads.”

“Sure thing, Rufus,” the chef replied. Dora Sue will be glad to hear that. She and the mayor seemed awfully cozy last night. Bet she'll be glad to have Rufus out scouting the gravel roads.

Then Chef Rocky grimaced. She hated picking the gravel out of the meat. Sometimes she just left it in and said it was good for the digestion. After all, didn't they do that with chickens? And they seem just fine.

To be continued in Chapter Two:

Welcome to the Road Kill Café where the motto is:

“Sorry, Sheriff, it looked dead to me!”