The Loop

June 3 1988, pt 5

Melonie woke up at 6:15. Once again hoping against hope that her clock would say something else, anything else. She just wanted a full night's rest for once.

At the sink she saw Tyler grip the toothpaste in a clumsily, scrapping it against the bristles of his brush with intense concentration. She watched out of the corner of her eye while he struggled to keep the paste in his mouth. But she didn't have time to ask him what was wrong. There were eggs to be cooked and a day to be lived, again.

The pair walked down to the school together. Main street was practically empty, and Jerome sat awkwardly on a bench all alone. He didn't look up at people when they passed and seemed caught up in his own world. Maybe his fifteen minutes of fame were done with, and he was back to being the strange kid in town.

Tyler attempted to pull away from Melonie as they approached the preschool, but she held on to him. The other kids barely lifted an eye at him when they passed.

The teachers barely looked at her while they clattered on about the newcomer. Fresh gossip was finally available to them, and she was no longer the center of it. But she still felt that something was wrong. None of the kids pushed Tyler around, they just accepted him. The way they used to before the loop.

Once Tyler was in his class she took a brief walk down the road, in the opposite direction of the diner. Some people raised eyebrows at her and whispered among themselves. But something was still off, and whatever it was, Melonie decided that she would figure it out.

While she walked to the diner she collected her thoughts. The change in the teachers probably came from the stranger in town, but that wouldn't explain the change in the kids. Maybe if the gossip made some waves they'd stop caring, but it would take at least a week before there'd be any difference in the way they treated him. If they were bored of harassing him, it wouldn't be anywhere near this abrupt.

The diner was full, more so than usual because of she was late. Once her apron was on, Melonie began her rounds. She asked each man what exactly it was that he wanted. Even if there was no reason to, they glanced up briefly to answer before going back into the world of their thoughts.

When Peterson's head went up, he appeared dejected. "Eggs and bacon," he said, avoiding the looks of anyone else in the town. The black eye that should've been there was gone, as was the deputy.

The door banged open, and a bearded version of the ginger stumbled in. None of his clothes were clean and were scuffed up. He slammed into one of the empty tables before staggering up to the counter. As a collective, the people in the diner slid to the extreme sides of the diner. The ginger stranger dropped his elbow on the counter and leaned almost all of his weight onto it as if he was unaware of the disgust of his surroundings.

He lifted his sunglasses slightly to look into Melonie's eyes before wincing and shifting away from a light on the ceiling. She was disgusted as he leaned closer to her face than anyone had been in a very long time. There was not a bone of respect in his body.

"What do you have for hangovers?" he mumbled as he put his sunglasses back up. "And can you make change out of hundred?"

Melonie looked at Peterson, who was distressed by the reappearance of the stranger, so distressed that he was backing out the door five minutes too soon. But his death-taunting actions weren't her business if they didn't affect her, so she did nothing to stop him.

She opened the cash register while glaring at him angrily. "Toast, bacon, and eggs have been said to help," she said stiffly. "Which will be three bucks."

He took his wallet from his front pocket and pulled out a regularly shaped but oddly colored bill. Melonie took it from him and turned it over in her hands. No circle? A feather pen? And why is it blue?

She smacked it down on the counter and slammed the register shut with a loud ding that brought the stranger's hands to his ears.

"We don't take Canadian bills," she snapped. "I'll let the occasional quarter slide, but that's way more useless down here."

He picked the rectangle off the counter, pushing his sunglasses down and squinting in the light. "It says United States Of America right there!" he insisted while he pushed the glasses back up.

Melonie took the bill back, looking where he pointed, and it did say that it was an American bill. But the small print at the bottom said something absurd, SERIES 2009.

"How did you get the year that wrong?" she scoffed with a mocking tone, as she pushed it back.

The ginger stranger put down his sunglasses once again, rolling his eyes at her like an insolent teenager. "Hundred dollar bills can last in circulation for up to fifteen years, it's not that weird," he scoffed in a low voice.

Melonie stared him right in the eye while she opened the register and slammed it shut again, which make him flinch and cover his ears in pain.

"You're worse than that kid from yesterday!" he snapped, keeping his hands over his ears. "And that jackass cop, won't even show his face in here will he?"

Tension hung in the air of the entire diner. Melonie stepped back from the counter and pointed at the door. "Get out of my restaurant," she said.

The stranger sighed, pushed the bill into his pocket and made his way out, bumping into people and things every other second. No one spoke for a long time, staring out the window in quiet contemplation without making a move to eat or drink, not for several minutes.

"He didn't have beard last time," Hybner murmured before bringing her coffee to her lips.

Melonie started wiping down the counter in an attempt to clear her mind. Hybner was right, the stranger in town should be the same as how he entered the loop. He was also somehow able to be sober one loop and hungover the next. It was a mystery, and one Melonie had no desire to figure out.