ENOCH AND THE GORILLA ENOCH EMERY / TUTORIALOUTLET DOT COM ENOCH AND THE GORILLA ENOCH EMERY / TUTORIALOUTLET | Page 8

as if he were afraid he might have to snatch it instead of receive it
. He never set out for anything without eating first. The restaurant was
called the Paris Diner; it was a
tunnel about six feet wide, located between a shoeshine parlor and a
dry-cleaning establishment. Enoch
slid in and climbed up on the far stool at the counter and said he
would have a bowl of split-pea soup
and a chocolate malted milkshake. The waitress was a tall woman
with a big yellow dental plate and the same color hair done up in a
black
hairnet. One hand never left her hip; she filled orders with the other
one. Although Enoch came in every
night, she had never learned to like him.
Instead of filling his order, she began to fry bacon; there was only one
other customer in the place and
he had finished his meal and was reading a newspaper; there was no
one to eat the bacon but her.
Enoch reached over the counter and prodded her hip with the stick.
“Listenhere,” he said, “I got to go.
I’min a hurry.”
“Go then,” she said. Her jaw began to work and she stared into the
skillet with a fixed attention.
“Lemme just have a piece of theter cake yonder,” he said, pointing to
a half of pink and yellow cake on a
round glass stand. “I think I got something to do. I got to be going.
Set it up there next to him,” he said,