Ch 171 - Give Me a Pancake

When the madam of the whorehouse and the rest of the group all went back, only Alex and Nelly were left in the alley.

"Thank you," Alex said to Nelly, as he was deeply grateful for her performance just then.

"Hmm." She stared at him and her lips tightened. She raised her hand and prepared to hit him in the face, but he quickly grabbed her hand to stop her.

"Why are you beating me?" Alex asked with surprise.

"I've just been slapped twice by that stinky woman. So, I'll slap you in the face twice too. Let go of me!" She tried to pull her hand back, but he didn't let go.

"She hit you, so you want to hit me? This is too much," he said innocently.

"I was beaten because I saved you. I hate being bullied because of you. Because of you, I was beaten by that smelly woman. If I don't hit you, who will? Let go!" She shook her hand vigorously.

He noticed her embarrassment. It seemed that if he didn't give her a fight, she wouldn't be happy.

"You want to fight?" He let go of her, stood in place, and closed his eyes. She didn't show any mercy and slapped him twice.

"You're so cruel." He rubbed his beaten face and looked at her. He said, "Why do you want to beat me at all? Have you never heard of the saying about suffering a loss can turn into a blessing?"

"I can't suffer losses. I don't want to be bullied. I've been bullied enough, so I try not to let others bully me, but I'm still—" She couldn't help but become emotional as the tears rolled down her cheeks. She lowered her head.

"Are you all right?" He didn't expect that his simple sentence would make her cry. He was overcome with shame and pain.

"What's wrong with me? I won't cry, then. I'll laugh when I'm ridiculed by you bad guys. Ha, ha!" She raised her head and laughed twice, but her eyes were still watery, which made her look so sad.

"What do you mean by that look? Look at me like that again, and I'll gouge your eyes out!" she said as she glared at Alex. Suddenly, she smiled. "This afternoon, I didn't mean to be offensive by saying that one hundred dollars is a small amount of money for you. How come a rich person like you has come to live in this kind of place?"

"I have a problem," he said, laughing. He wanted to explain it, but it would be pointless.

"You'll blow it," she said with a smile.

"How come you were in this neighborhood?" he asked with curiosity.

"I came to the train station to find people to work for me. I didn't expect to see you outside the whorehouse, you little loser. Because you helped me out this afternoon, I've helped you back. But I didn't expect to get slapped in the face for you. I knew I shouldn't have come here," she said.

"Thank you again. Are you really a pancake seller?" he asked, looking puzzled.

"Are you not convinced that I sell pancakes?" she said as she pursed her lips. As she saw him smile apologetically, she added, "I bought a food truck by myself, which I use to sell mostly soft drinks, ice cream, burgers, hot dogs, and pancakes. I can't do it all alone. I came to the station to see if there's anyone who's come looking for work in Washington."

"Oh." He nodded. "But there should be few people willing to do this job."

"I think you're quite suitable for the job. You can come with me." She stared at him and said, "I've helped you so much. What's wrong with the idea of you working for me? Would you like to work with me?"

"Um." He looked at her for a moment.

It must be hard for her to sell pancakes, he thought.

He couldn't bear to refuse to help her. "I'll first listen to your working conditions."

"I'll pay you three hundred dollars at the end of the month, and you can have some pancakes to eat during the day," she said happily.

"Really? The pay sounds okay at three hundred dollars," he said.

Can a pancake seller like Nelly this? he wondered.

"It's not bad work. I can make a living with my food truck. Plus, I get to have pancakes and burgers to eat. You can watch the truck for me."

In the end, Alex agreed to help Nelly sell food. Now that he had no financial resources, he had to find a job. She also said that her food truck had to be driven all over Washington, D.C., which would also help him in his search for Debbie.

That night, she took him back to her place. He didn't stay in the food truck but rented a room for one hundred and twenty-five dollars.

The next day, Alex drove the food truck with Nelly to sell food in different parts of the city. The truck operated as a small shop. She was responsible for cooking as well as buying milk, eggs, and other staples. Alex was responsible for selling the food and drinks from the shelves of the truck. Their daily business was good, with earnings of fifty to sixty dollars per day.

One day, Alex noticed that the bracelet on his left wrist was moving. Grandma in New York was contacting him. His index finger swayed left and right three times, which meant that he hadn't sent her a chicken.

Grandma knew that he had left without her permission, and she was angry. Alex felt that if he continued wearing the bracelet, he would feel confused, so he simply took it off and put it in his pocket.

His finger was suddenly yanked again, and when he looked down at it, he saw that some of his skin had been scratched.

Over the next ten days, Alex and Nelly continued working together, and their relationship grew closer. However, he had not found any news about Debbie.

One day, Alex and Nelly stopped at Tillie square with the food truck. After the morning rush hour, the number of customers gradually decreased. He told her that he was going to go for a walk. She knew that he was going to go and look for his girlfriend. So, she told him that if he wasn't back by noon, she would deduct seventy-five dollars from his wages.

Looking at him from a distance, she sighed, sat in the food truck, and watched television.

When it was nearly half-past eleven, she was still absorbed with the television show when she heard a voice in front of her. "Hey ugly girl, make me two pancakes."

Her heart caught on fire. She looked up and saw a man and a woman standing in front of her. The woman was dressed casually in white clothes and wore sunglasses and a brown sun hat. The tall, strong man was dressed in black and looked like a gym coach.

"What are you looking at? I'm starving!" the man yelled at her.

"Honey, do you think she looks clean?" the woman in white muttered.

"There's nowhere else to eat in this run-down square. Let's buy some food to cushion our stomachs. Don't worry—if she dares to make unsanitary food, I'll damage her truck," the man said, as he put his arms around the woman's waist.

Nelly looked at them angrily, and then quickly made the pancakes. She handed them to the couple and said, "That'll be five dollars."

"I'll pay you next time," the man said and turned to leave with the woman.

"I have a small business here. You'd better pay it now," Nelly said politely, suppressing her anger.

"Don't you see that I'm playing a game? Are you really going to lose that much money because of your two lousy pancakes?" the man said. The woman was ready to leave.

Nelly's face turned red. She called out, "Wait a minute… I forgot to add onion to your pancakes. I'll add it now!"

"Dear, you forgot how to make pancakes? You really are a genius." The couple returned and handed the pancakes back to her. They looked at their phones and not up at Nelly.

"This time, they'll be okay." Two minutes later, she gave them back to the man, who cursed and walked away with the woman.

Nelly took out her phone and called Alex. "Where are you? You need to come back right away. I want to go!"

"Ah, you want to go?" Alex was very puzzled. Previously, each time they had stopped at a place, they had stayed there for the whole day. Why was she changing her routine? Since half the day had gone by anyway, he agreed and began walking back to the truck.

As he went across a lawn with a sprinkler, Alex accidentally stepped into some mud and slipped. Half of his body was covered in mud, but he couldn't deal with the mess because he had to go back.

Nelly had packed up the food truck, and she was waiting for Alex to return, so they could leave. She stood outside looking around anxiously for him, but she couldn't see him. Instead, she saw the man in black and the woman in white coming toward her.

She was startled. She had taken the couple's pancakes and squeezed in some shoe polish from a tube as revenge for abusing her and not paying what they owed. She had thought she could leave before they found out, but they had returned too soon.

"You're so ugly that you don't want to live, right?" said the man. They had already walked up to Nelly. Their lips were stained black with shoe polish.

"What do you want to do? Don't move, or I'll call someone." Nelly stared at the man fearing that he might hit her. He was talking nonsense and sounded frightening.

"Ugly girl, do you have someone to help you? You should call your relatives and friends, so I can beat you up in front of them. Don't you believe me?" the man said to Nelly with a mouth full of shoe polish.

"Honey, don't hit her. Look… this is the polish. You should make her eat it!" The woman had found the shoe polish in the food truck and walked toward the man.

"I'll grab her mouth, and you squeeze it in," he said. "If you don't swallow this whole tube of shoe polish, I'll see that you don't leave here alive," he told Nelly.

The man grabbed her mouth from behind and forced it open. Nelly was crying, but it didn't stop them. The man sneered at the woman and said, "Honey, let's start to squeeze it out. Make sure you choke her half to death."

"Good!" The woman put the tube in Nelly's mouth and squeezed it in little by little. "Ugly girl, it's like eating bird poop, isn't it!"

"Aaargh!" When the shoe polish slowly squirted into her mouth, Nelly gesticulated violently, raised afoot, and kicked the woman in the abdomen. The woman screamed and fell to the ground. The man let go of Nelly and went to help the woman.