Alice's Restaurant Rock Radio

[4]

In Which Annushka, Under Dire Circumstances to Save the Family Restaurant, Comes Up With a Genius Plan

4) Your character meets a homeless person. What does he/she do?

For reasons unknown to anyone besides the Boleslav family, Annushka's parents' number one reason for packing up everything and moving from Russia to America was so that they could open up a Wild West-themed restaurant. Needless to say, things haven't really been turning up for the poor, depilated Bojangles.

"Maybe it's because of the taxidermy bear," Annushka suggested last week, pondering over the subject in front of Mr. Boleslav's prized possession, a six-feet tall grizzly bear that he had lovingly bought at a tag sale for five dollars and proceeded to place next to the hostess table as a warning to anyone trying to rob his restaurant. No one had any idea why a dead bear would scare any would-be robbers away, but he was persistent, so the bear stayed.

"Do you think a taxidermy werewolf would be better?" Sawyer asked, busying himself a few tables away from Annushka as solved a crossword puzzle on the kid's menu. "This is too easy," he grumbled to himself as he circled the word 'cowboy'.

"Yeah, that's because it's meant for six-year-olds," Marley sneered.

Annushka shook her head. "Well. . ." she began, before recoiling her previous thought. She closed one eye and tilted her head, finally saying, "Actually, maybe a werewolf would be nice." She waved her hands around and said, "We can have a little fear factor going on. That'd be nice."

Considering that Boleslav family's' methods for their restaurant's success have basically boiled down to "let it ferment and hope that, like cheese or a fine wine, it'll get better with age," Annushka decided to take incentive last Christmas and saved up three-hundred dollars to buy a fancy and well-thought-out billboard.

The Boleslav family SUV screeches to a halt at the stop light as Annushka points to it and explains her plan to her audience of three. "See, this is the longest stoplight in the county."

Marley nods.

"And over there, we have a homeless man."

Marley pauses and thinks about how casually Annushka pointed out the homeless man like he's part of a tourist attraction. She then nods slightly.

Harrison grunts and glances at the homeless man. "Is that. . . a dead animal in his pocket?" he asks with a twinge of disgust in his voice.

Annushka nods emphatically. "Yes, because he's hungry. You can tell because of his sign."

Marley leans forward so she can get a better view from the backseat, where she sees that the homeless man is indeed holding a sign that has 'hungry' written on it in Sharpie.

Sawyer unknowingly diverts his eyes and focuses on twirling his thumbs. Annushka takes note and turns around to face him, saying enthusiastically, "Ah, you guys see that? You looked away!" She points at Sawyer before jerking her thumb back to the man and explaining, "People driving by see the homeless man, and he's hungry. He makes them uncomfortable, so they look away—" she slowly points to a billboard on the other side of the road, and Marley and Sawyer follow her—"and see a new sign for Bojangles!"

The billboard has Bojangles written on it in a cheesy Western font, with Mr. Boleslav and his mustache in all of their glory in a picture that Harrison briefly remembers Mrs. Boleslava taking at last year's Halloween party. "And they think about the homeless man, and he reminds them that they're hungry, and they think, 'Oh, I'm hungry. Hey, look, Bojangles! Let's go eat!"

"You're terrible," Sawyer says.

"You're a genius," Harrison says at the same time, making sure that his voice is able to be heard over Sawyer's.

Annushka nods and begins to drive as the light turns green before glancing at Marley though the rear-view mirror, who has remained oddly quiet throughout the entirety of the trip. "Marley, thoughts?"

Marley's eyebrows furrow together as she finally is given the opportunity to ask a question that's been bugging her for a while now. "I'm just confused," she says. "Where did a homeless man get a Sharpie marker?"

"Okay, so no questions, then?" Annushka immediately shouts afterwords.

"No, but I was just—"

"All right, great!"

"Oh, okay."