‘Second Helping at Conchita’s Diner’ by Mitchell Toews

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From Pulp Literature Issue 50, find the First Runner-up of our 2025 Raven Short Story Contest! In ‘Second Helping at Conchita’s Diner’ by Mitchell Toews, someone new enters the usual spot. Read an excerpt of this story below, then find the rest in Issue 50, Spring 2026!

Second Helping at Conchita’s Diner

by Mitchell Toews

I’m sitting at my usual spot in Conchita’s when a fresh-washed bull hauler painted the deepest possible shade of morning-glory violet pulls into the parking lot. It’s a truck I don’t recognize. The driver climbs out, sniffs at the exhaust fan perfume of hot grease and fried onions, and heads towards the diner door. He passes through the rows of eighteen-wheel, long-haul majesty, studying each rig. He’s tall, slim, and looks more than a little road-weary. Older than me, I’d say.

He drifts along the last row and stops in the sunshine, thumbs hooked in his pockets. He makes a feral grin, more frown than not, as he stares at a big yellow Kenworth. In he comes after a minute or two. Sits down at a table facing out and keeps peering at that truck. He orders scrambled eggs and coffee. Gets served, peppers the eggs black, grabs the fork like it’s a Harley handlebar, and gobbles everything down, cheeks huffing in and out to cool his mouthfuls.

“Take your plate?” Conchita says, returning to his table and slinging a wipe rag over her shoulder, her broad back signalling mind your business to us eavesdroppers.

“Best you do, Connie, or I’m liable to eat that too. Say, would ya gimme one of them rhubarb pies to go, please?”

“Still hungry?”

“Nah, it’s just my partner, they love rhubarb anything, and if your pie is half as good as your eggs, they’re gonna love a piece or three.”

Conchita chuckles. “You got it. Nice to see you, Taffy.” She comes my way for a coffee warm-up and gives me a smiling wink. “Quite the charmer, that Taffy. He got him some fangs too, though,” she says as she fills my cup.

Any friend of Conchita’s, I decide. I glance at Taffy’s reflection in the window. I didn’t want to stare, but it struck me that this windburned trucker was holding a hole card. Not sure what, exactly. I expect I’d have to spend some time with ‘Taffy’ before I could understand.

Up close, he’s six feet of weathered fencepost. A face like a chrome bumper after a run to Thunder Bay in fish-fly season. Skinny boot-cut jeans, so worn you could spit through them. A little busted up, sure, but maybe a man who learned something from the busting.

Read the rest of this story in Pulp Literature Issue 50, Spring 2026!

Mitchell Toews is the author of the collection of short stories Pinching Zwieback (At Bay Press, 2023). His literary fiction examines themes of fairness and intergenerational relationships within the Canadian context. A prolific writer with 150-plus credits in journals like Fiction on the Web and Sky Island Journal, Mitch has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (four times) and the Journey Prize. His short fiction has previously appeared in issues 20, 27, 38, and 48 of this magazine, and his collection Myths and Troubadours is due out from Pulp Literature Press near the end of 2026.