Apparently There Was More

If you were not sickened by the precursor, and would like to be sickened by the precursor, knock yourself out.

***

Jonesy considered himself a good tipper.

Excellent service (rare these days) he rewarded with fifteen, sometimes twenty percent of the tab. Though for the waitresses who went above and beyond he occasionally wanted to leave more, he felt it was unwise to draw more attention to himself than was necessary. Often, the restaurants he dined in doubled as his hunting grounds, and he felt it prudent to blend in whenever possible. For mediocre and poor service, he always left a flat ten percent. Even when his waitress was a total fuck up, he left a tip. He couldn't bring himself to walk away and leave them empty handed. It wasn't his style.

Today, he left a fifteen percent tip. She had been decent so far as waitresses go: his meatloaf had arrived in a timely fashion and his coffee cup never ran dry. He'd have to remember her name for next time. It was Carla, if her name tag could be believed. He figured it could.

Jonesy didn't use the bathroom before he left the restaurant. He didn't trust public bathrooms, would rather shit in his hand and bury it personally in his back yard before shitting in a room with other men. But today, he didn't have to shit. He left without using the bathroom because he was hunting.

The girl was probably 7, he thought. Too young, much too young to be out on her own. It was a school day, to boot. She was pushing a bicycle, blue and white, it's front tire flat, and was walking towards the intersection of Hennepin and Lake. Away from the school, he noted. Interesting.

She was plump, but not obese, brown hair, ponytail, white sneakers. But what had caught his attention through the window as he sat digesting his lunch, was her backpack. Funny how something so trivial, like a parent's choice of backpack, could change a person's life. Sometimes he felt like God that way, taking note of the minutia and acting accordingly.

Her backpack was dark purple, Jansport, with black straps and zippers. When Jonesy looked up from his coffee and saw that backpack on a little girl with brown hair, he knew he'd found a new toy.

He noted her proximity to the intersection as he stepped out the restaurant doors and into the bright sunlight. Sunglasses lowered, he walked towards his car in the parking lot. He just happened to have an air pump in his trunk. He thought that it might come in handy today.