She leaned over the glass counter, her chin resting on her fists, her elbows pointed firmly at the pastries below the glass as she tapped her foot wildly, watching the punk kids through the big glass windows at the storefront as they slid up to the door on their skateboards, one runt running behind them with a camera focused on his friends. The boys picked up their boards.
“Jude!” she yelled nervously just before the boys opened the door.
A tall, black haired young man came out of the kitchen, his face flustered and his curly hair disheveled. He straightened his apron and tightened the knot behind his neck as he glared at her.
“What's going on?” he asked as he wiped his face.
“I'm sorry to interrupt your kitchen business with your wife, but the kids from last week are back,” she said in a hushed voice. “You should've taken a honeymoon. Lew and I could have run this place for a week without you guys.”
“Like Lew would go to school without me here to make her,” he said. “We're taking one in June.”
He turned to see the boys approach the counter.
“Can I help you?” Jude asked their apparent leader.
“Yeah,” said the boy, his hair dyed black and hung long and straight at an angle across one eye, a large orange chunk streaked over the longest hairs; his eyes lined in black eye liner; a silver hoop wrapped around his bottom lip; another hoop adorned his eyebrow. “I was wondering if you minded at all if we took a couple of these really cool chairs and threw them through a couple of your really big windows... you know, as a thank you for that police report. I really like having that on my record. Thank you.”
A couple of the boys began to pick up the chairs, which Jude had found at a few vintage and thrift stores all across Texas, and even a few from South America when he went to study the procession of coffee beans.
“Wait, wait, guys,” the kid with the camera said nervously as he visibly began to shake.
“Shut up, Kenny,” one of them said as he lifted a chair in one big heave and started to spin like a shot putter.
“Hey!” a man, who'd been absorbed in a thick, worn novel, stood and lunged for the boy holding the chair, knocking him to the floor, and changing the flight course of the chair to where it simply hit a table and landed on its four feet.
This distracted the other kids enough for Jude to be able to restrain the other boy who was about to lift a chair. The boy with the camera ran out of the cafe and Jasey grabbed the phone and dialed 9-1-1. The police station was only two blocks away, so officers were there in a matter of minutes. A couple of officers chased the boy who'd ran and caught him just before he was about to drop the tape he'd recorded down a runoff drain. They took short statements and left with the boys cuffed in paddy-wagons. When things settled down, the man who'd intervened went back to his novel and coffee silently.
“Jasey, if you need me again just knock on the door,” Jude said as he opened the kitchen door. “And give that guy some sort of voucher for free stuff. Unlimited coffee for life, something. Whatever.”
“Alright,” she said and resumed her stance over the counter.
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a penny for your thoughts?