Chapter 11 - The Booth by the Highway Kept Our Words Off the Record
The diner sat off Highway 27 past the gas station, the kind of place with cracked vinyl booths and coffee that tasted burnt no matter what time you ordered it. I got there first.
I picked the booth in the back, against the wall where I could see the door. My hands were still shaking from my shift. The venue lawyer had called twice that afternoon. Both times I'd let it go to voicemail. Both messages were polite. Both said the same thing about wanting to help clarify my statement.
Luis came in ten minutes late. He wore a plain gray hoodie pulled up despite the heat, and he kept his eyes down when the waitress looked at him. He slid in across from me and didn't take the menu she left.
"I shouldn't be here," he said.
I nodded. The waitress poured water and left. For a while neither of us touched the glasses. Trucks went by outside and rattled the windows.
"They told the crew you're illegal," I said quietly. "Is that true?"
He stared at the table. "I have a work permit. It's renewal. My cousin told me if my name shows up in a report, they flag it. Then no contractor hires me in this county again."
He said blacklist like it was a room he already lived in.
I wrapped both hands around my water glass to stop them shaking. "My mom cleans rooms at the motel by the church. We split rent on our apartment. Eight-sixty a month. If I lose this job before the county fair season, we don't make it."
He looked up then. Just for a second.
"I know about rent," he said.
We went quiet again. The waitress came back and I ordered coffee I didn't want so she'd leave us alone. Luis asked for nothing. She left the pot anyway.
Outside, the neon sign buzzed. Inside, the grill hissed and somebody laughed too loud at the counter.
"I saw the inspector's tag," I said. "On the link. He said wear plus pull. That means you didn't cause it alone."
Luis rubbed his thumb hard against the edge of the table. "I pulled when he told me. Mr. Hale said hold it steady from the balcony door. I heard it creak. I heard—" He stopped. He breathed in through his nose. "I should have let go. I should have yelled."
Another long pause stretched between us. I didn't fill it. I let the coffee cool. I counted the sugar packets in the holder to keep myself from pushing him.
"They want me to sign a paper," he said finally. "Says I was never on the balcony."
"Did the lawyer call you too?"
"My boss did." His voice dropped lower. "He said sign, get two more weeks work. Don't sign, don't come back Monday."
The waitress refilled my cup. Neither of us spoke until she was gone.
I pulled my notebook from my bag. The same one I'd used for orders. I tore out two clean sheets and slid one across with my pen. My incident report copy was folded in my back pocket. I didn't show it to him.
"I'm not asking you to go to the sheriff," I said. "Not tonight."
He looked at the paper like it might burn him.
"Then what?" he said.
"Write what you did," I said. "And what you heard. Just that."
He didn't pick up the pen. A minute passed. Then another. The ice in our waters melted.
"My mom—" he started, then stopped. "She thinks I work weddings. She doesn't know about the rigging jobs."
"I won't tell anyone where this is," I said.
Finally he took the pen. His handwriting was small and pressed hard. He wrote slow, stopping twice to stare out the window. It took him almost twenty minutes to fill half a page. Date. Time sent to balcony. Hale's words to hold the line. The creak. The sway getting worse. When he finished, he didn't sign his last name. Just Luis M.
He pushed it toward me.
"Make a copy," he whispered. "Not at the venue."
I folded his page and mine together. "The librarian on Main lets me use the copier after hours. I'll keep the copy at my mom's. Under her mattress."
He almost smiled at that. Almost.
"Does that keep us safe?" he asked.
May you like
I told the truth. "No. But it keeps it real."
We left separately. Him first, hoodie up, hands in pockets. I paid for the coffee and waited five minutes before I walked out to my car. His sheet felt heavy in my bag all the way home, like something that could break if I drove too fast.
