There are half a dozen customers in the diner when I arrive. The
Fixture is not one of them, again. He was always at the front corner
stool, and now he’s always not. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve
seen him. A few times I’ve heard someone ask, “Hey, where’s Frank?” but
nobody knows, and usually nobody asks.

ManBun is at a table near the front window. He waves at me like we’re
old friends, but we’re not. I slightly nod my head to signal, “I’ve
noticed your existence, and I don’t disapprove.” The woman he’s usually
with is nowhere to be seen.

Phil is at the counter, and there’s no-one sitting near him so he
looks up at me, but he knows I won’t sit nearby. He’s someone who likes
to talk, tell jokes, and listen to the laughter in response. I’m someone
who likes to eat, look around, and keep to myself. We wouldn’t mesh
well, sitting in proximity at the diner.

Except for ManBun and Phil, everyone eating this morning is a
stranger to me. Of course, even the customers I know, I don’t really
know. Most of us come alone, like me, and I generally nod or maybe say
hello, but that’s it.

A few days ago at work (which during the pandemic means ‘via Skype
from my bedroom’) I was chatting with a co-worker about our weekend
plans, and I mentioned having breakfast at the diner. “Why do you go to a
restaurant alone?” she asked, and then she couldn’t quite comprehend my
answer. She thought it was sad. Is it sad? Is it complicated or
mysterious?

This diner is my destination, once a week, because the food is
reliably good, it’s affordable, the setting is comfortable, and they
never stop pouring refills on coffee. I come alone because, well,
because it’s not really a choice.

At the counter, there are two strangers seated twelve stools apart, and I sit halfway between them. I like the distance.

Kirstin steps up, greets me with some kind words. It occurs to me
that they’re the kindest words I’ll hear this week, at least in person.
I’m not kidding when I say in italics at the bottom that I’m a hermit,
and the endless COVID lockdown makes it even more true. Forty-five
minutes in the diner every Friday morning is my social life.

She pours me a cup of coffee, and there’s suddenly peace in the
Middle East. She takes my order back to Harvey and Slim in the kitchen,
and soon there will be an omelet, and nuclear disarmament, and a plan
for kicking global warming’s butt. Life is good, and the coffee, of
course, is spectacular.

♦ ♦ ♦

A black guy comes in, mid-20s I’d guess, which makes him wet behind
the ears in this place. He sits at the counter, perilously close to
talkative ol’ Phil, and I know the new guy will be getting an earful in a
few minutes. If he wants solitude he picked the wrong stool, but if
he’s looking for conversation Phil can provide that.

He asks Kirstin for a menu, which clinches it — menus are for
rookies. She pours him a cup of coffee, answers his questions about what
exactly is in a Denver omelet, and that’s what he orders.

When Kirstin fades away toward the kitchen, Phil starts his patter
and within a few minutes the newcomer is laughing at Phil’s jokes. I
think that’s the only thing Phil wants out of life, and there are far
worse aspirations. By the time the newbie’s breakfast arrives, he and
Phil are old buddies.

♦ ♦ ♦

Bouffant-Walker comes in, and says good morning to me as he’s passing
my stool, same as he always does. “Good to see you,” I reply, and it
wasn’t a lie.

Bouffant is sort of a soft-boiled egg, but he belongs in this place.
Like Kirstin, like Phil, it’s good to see him, and like The Fixture
something would seem off if he wasn’t here. Seeing some of the same
faces every Friday is reassuring, like the perpetual roar and stink of
traffic outside. Even as the ongoing catastrophes continue — climate
change, the coronavirus, Donald damned Trump, and whatever’s next, a
plague of locusts, perhaps — the diner remains.

♦ ♦ ♦

Two old white men come in together, and take a table midway toward
the back of the diner. They’re the only people all morning who aren’t
eating alone. They’re not seated close to me, but the diner is mostly
empty and they’re a little loud, so every word carries, and bird is the
word — cuckoo birds.

They must have been wearing masks when they entered the diner, or
Kirstin would’ve turned them away, but now they’re saying, loudly, that
the coronavirus doesn’t exist. It’s all a plot, intended to topple
America and Donald Trump, which they seem to think are the same thing.
They’re vague on who’s behind the plot; first they say it was Joe Biden,
but later they blame “Deep State” and the Chinese.

Damnation, I am weary of the wingnuts. Are we being lied to by the government? Yes, of course we’re being lied to, but not everything that everyone says is a lie or a plot or a hoax. The world isn’t that complicated, and the bad guys aren’t that smart.

I’m weighing words in my mind, getting ready to say something rude
and angry to these fools, but I don’t have to say anything because
Bouffant-Walker jumps in.

“People who don’t know what they’re talking about,” he says. It’s not a properly-structured sentence, but it hushes the room.

Bouffant is a precarious, gray-haired cartoon character who walks in a
walker and speaks in a strangely squeaky voice with the hint of a
stutter. He frequently fires off unexpected sentences to nobody in
particular, but mentally he’s present — he’s in the diner, not elsewhere
or absent. “You’re idiots,” he says after a brief pause.

He’s at a table facing me, his back to the wingnuts, but he’s talking
to them and they know it. They’re frozen, one of them in mid-chew.
“Corona is real,” Bouffant goes on, “and anyone who says it isn’t is real stupid.” I hear Phil laughing from the other end of the counter, and he hears me laughing.

One of the conspiracy kooks swallows his bite and says, “You must be
one of those people who believe everything you’re told,” but I’m
guessing at what he said past ‘people’, because Bouffant launches his
response without waiting.

“I hear the sound of stupid,” he says, looking around comically, then
turning, slowly and perhaps painfully, to face the stupid behind him.
His chair scrapes loudly on the tile floor as he twists it. “You can
believe whatever horse doodle you believe,” Bouffant says, “but I don’t
have to listen to the sound of poop plopping.”

“Crazy old man,” says one of the wingnuts.

Kirstin steps out from behind the counter with a coffee pot, and she
says, “Can’t we all just get along?” She fills Bouffant’s cup.

“We’ll get along fine if the old guy just shuts up,” says one of the COVID deniers.

Kirstin walks toward the wingnuts’ table, and says, “More coffee?” They nod, she pours.

“He started it,” says the other idiot. “We were minding our own business …”

“‘Out of your mind’ -ing your own business,” Bouffant begins — a
retort clever enough I didn’t get the joke until I’d almost finished
writing it down.

Bouffant and both wingnuts are all talking at the same time now, so
I’m only getting the gist here, not an accurate transcript, but Kirstin
says, “If you boys would talk a little quieter —”

The first wingnut — let’s call him Oliver — says, “I get to say whatever I want to say,” and Stanley says, “That’s right.”

“Please keep it down,” Kirstin says again, now pouring coffee for Stanley, and without spilling a drop despite all the drama.

Oliver is staring at Bouffant and says, “Anything else you want to
say, old timer?” Bouffant interrupts with his response, but I can’t make
out what he says because Kirstin has raised her voice.

She’s loud enough that everyone in the diner can hear every word, but
she’s still smiling as she says, “I’ve asked you to be quieter but
you’re louder instead. Time to pipe down, or I can box up your
breakfasts.”

Sometimes I think Kirstin is secretly a superhero. Maybe she’ll do
some kung fu and topple their table? Of course, she does have back-up:
Slim is standing at the boundary, where the counter ends and the dining
area begins, just watching. Harvey has something cooking on the grill,
but I know he’d let an omelet burn if he’s needed.

He’s not needed, though. Stanley says he’s sorry, and Oliver glares
at Bouffant, but then adds cream to his coffee and stirs. Bouffant’s
chair scrapes the tile again, as he turns back toward his breakfast, but
he’s still talking. “Reality as we know it is someplace you’ve never
been.”

Kirstin says something — Bouffant’s real name, I think — in a
slightly scolding tone of voice, and he’s immediately silent. Another of
her superpowers, apparently.

The diner is now quiet, except for the new guy, who’s standing at the
cash register, chuckling and waiting to pay Kirstin for his breakfast.
“This place is wild,” he says. “Is it always like this?”

“Always it’s like this,” Phil says from his stool. “Sometimes more so.”

 

I’m a grumpy old man who lives alone and has few friends —
basically a hermit. Once a week I have breakfast at my favorite diner.
Most weeks it’s my only in-person interaction with other humans, which
is not my strong suit.

Yeah, I’m aware of the coronavirus, so I go to the diner at dawn,
before it gets busy. I wash my hands before and after, cough into my
elbow, spray Lysol on my food, pay at my plate, tell the waitress to
keep the change, and hold my breath while leaving until I’m outside.
It’s a little more dangerous than staying at home, but life would suck
without breakfast at the diner, so get off my lawn.

And remember, decent people leave a generous tip. Breakfast at the Diner
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