(Male, 40’s) My wife and I were staying at this cheap motel and late at night, we got hungry so we went to the coin operated restaurant they had on the roof. It felt like a real restaurant with booths and menus even but there was no staff working there. Everything was a vending machine.
The place was hopping. I don’t know if the town was really dead for night spots or what but there were lots of “kids” and I’ll use that term to mean people in their early 20’s.
They were honky-tonk punks. That’s the best definition. They wore country western style clothes but all dolled up like they’d read about Elvis in history class. One guy had a big blond pompadour. The other wore a black shirt with silver shirt points and a bolo tie. The girl had a kerchief and boots. They were exuberant and dangerous.
They dropped a bunch of quarters in the jukebox and selected songs with a boom-chicka-boom chicka-boom rhythmn and a loud thundering bass. Rockabilly. They were up to no good, trying their best to kick up some shenanigans but they looked so gosh darned cute. I couldn’t keep my eyes off them.
The kid with the pompadour came over as my wife and I were leaving. We had words. I said something to the effect of “I like your style, kid.”
He snapped back, “You’re a dead man, old man.” He said it all syncopated, like he was a hipster hepcat or something.
“I’ve got a little living left but you’re right. You probably have more joys ahead of you than I do. But when I was young I remember not having much money. Let me pay for your time here.”
“Oh you’ll pay, Pops.”
He approached me and and flicked out a long stiletto knife. Like the rest of his get-up, it was more show than threat but it was still pretty dangerous looking.
By this time, I’d taken out my money clip. He moved in to grab me. For some reason I knew he wasn’t going to stab me outright, that he just wanted to take me hostage and torture me a bit to show off in front of his gang. As he grabbed me, I bent my arm up so I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and the edge of my money clip was right at the side of his throat.
He started in listing all the things a bored stupid thug could come up with to terrorize an out of towner, when I pointed out to him that with a flick of my wrist, I could sever an important artery to his head. Sure he could stab me but the blade would likely go into fat without hitting any organs. He’d be dead before he hit the ground.
The punk didn’t release me. I don’t think I convinced him. I was going to have to kill him, this silly small town would-be thug. At that stand off, the dream ended.