Welcome Home

"Hi, can I get you something?" Mandi asked the man in a button-up, plaid shirt with a cowboy hat on.
"Well hey there...uh...uh... Mandi," Leroy Pickler said as he squinted to read Mandi's diner tag pinned on the upper corner of her red uniform. "It's nice to meet you, my names Leroy, Leroy Pickler."
"You can call me Mac, is there anything I can get you sir?"
"Well there Mac, I'll have a sweet tea with an extra bowl of lemons."
"Sorry sir, we don't serve sweet tea up here."
"Don't serve no sweet tea? Dag nabit! Well then I guess just a coffee for now."
Mandi walked to the back of the diner and grabbed the burgers for table 8. She dropped them off at the table and headed back over to the coffee machine looking at the ticking clock on the wall. 6:57. She'd been working about 12 hours now and only had 4 more to go.
At 11:05 Mandi clocked out and grabbed her ham and swiss melt to-go. "Night Sammy," she said to the little old man sweeping the floors. She walked outside, dark again. Working as much as she did she barely ever saw the daylight except from through the plastic blinds of the five diner windows.
Mandi breathed heavily as she rounded the corner of the sixth floor. Clunk, clunk, clunk. Seven. She flung open the door and walked down the hallway, figiting in her purse to find her key.
"Yeah!! Get 'em!" She heard her dad scream through the door as she jangled her keys in the lock. The door creaked open, only for mandi to find a knocked over beer can pyramid, and her dad in the recliner, beer in hand, screaming at a fuzzy wrestling match on the 13 inch TV. All Mandi wanted to do was walk past him, sit in her bedroom to eat her already-cold sandwhich, and attempt to get some rest; but the "What the hell are you doin'?" grunted from her dad stopped her in her tracks.
"What do you mean where have I been? The diner," she said as she rolled her eyes.
"Well where da hell is my dinner? And where have you been all night, damnit?" he slurred. "Yeah!! Come on!" He returned his attention to the fake wrestling.
Mandi turned and continued walking towards her room, she figured he was too drunk and into the wrestling to even care.
"Hey! I'm talkin' to you! Walk off on me, after not being here all day and night, make me worry bout you."
"Ya right like you worry about me, I'm going to sleep." Mandi took another step away and her dad pushed himself up off the recliner and stumbled towards her, stepping on several beer cans. Crunch. Clank.
"I said I was talkin to you!" He grabbed her wrist with a strong grip and pulled her back so she whipped around dropping her to-go bag from the diner. Mandi said nothing in response, she just stared up into his fading eyes with a fear of this reoccuring scene. "Now when I'm talkin to you, you answer me damnit! Who tha hell do you think you are anyways, you're just like that damn mother of yours."
"Don't you dare talk about my momma like that. She was too good..." Mandi's yelling was quickly stopped when the sticky hand swiped accross her face. Nothing else needed to be said. She picked up her to-go back and walked to her room. He wiped his mouth and returned to the recliner. The fuzzy TV lit the apartment, and yelling of fans echoed through the night. She knew that's exactly what a coment like that was asking for, but she couldn't let him talk about her like that.

Mandi Mac apt. 704

Mandi Mac ran out of her apartment and slammed the door behind her, closed her eyes, and leaned against the door, letting out a deep breath. She hated being in that rundown apartment with no lights and hardly any furniture, especially if her dad was there, filling the room with a strong smell of tequila, or whatever liquor he could get his filthy hands on the night before. The sound of a whisky bottle shattering on the floor folowed by a slurred "Damnit!" from her father, snapped Mandi right back into realitiy and she took off with a brisk walk to the stairwell. She always ran down the seven flights of stairs. She hated the feeling of the cool, dark, cement stairwell that normally had a homeless guy sitting on the third floor stairs. The Washington Heights apartment building pretty much just gave her the creeps overall. But after her mom died about a year ago, she had nowhere else to go.
Mandi let out another sigh as she stepped out into the dark, chilly morning, and warmed herself with her own arms. Work didn't start for another 50 minutes, but she would rather be a the small diner next door than in that apartment building anyday.
"Mornin' Mac," smiled one of the older waitresses at from the diner.
"Morning," Mac smiled back. The two walked into the empty diner together. They had a ritual of going to work early together and grabbing coffee, Mable was an early riser, and she was aware of Mandi's circumstances so she didn't mind heading into work a little early to keep the poor girl company.
"I am gonna need more than the usual cup of coffee this morning," Mandi grunted.
"Whas the matter sugah? Long night?"
"Ya, you know how it goes. The drunk laughter and blaring TV woke me up around 2, guess he stumbled his way in around then... and then didn't sleep well after that."
"Oh Mac sweetheart, I don't know how you do it."
"Well...Guess I don't have much of an optiong. Only 3 more months and I should have saved up enough from workin here that I can get out of this hell-hole."
Mable reached over and patted Mandi's shoulder and then reached for her newspaper to read as they sipped their hot coffee. The two let out a light sigh in unison, thinking about their long work day ahead.