BREAKFAST AT THE DINER — #8

The Fixture was at his usual spot, the front corner of the counter, and Bald-Walker was at a table near the back. They were the only other customers in the diner when I walked in. A pandemic ain’t good for business.

The Fixture is a white man, casually dressed, who looks about forty years old. He’s The Fixture to me because no matter how early I arrive, he’s always on his stool, sipping coffee and talking with anyone nearby. Often he’s still there when I leave.

Today there was nobody seated near him, so he was jabbering at Kirstin the waitress, who didn’t want to interrupt him, so instead of saying hello to me, she just waved. She smiled, too, I assume, but wearing a mask, who knows.

At the back of the diner. Bald-Walker’s mask was dangling under his chin like a bib. He’s Bald-Walker because, well, because he’s bald and needs a walker to walk.

I was glad he came in before me, because honestly, it’s a frightful sight when he enters the building. He’s so precarious, even with his walker, he looks like he’d topple if anyone said howdy too loud.

The Fixture and Bald-Walker were seated far too far apart for conversation, and I took a seat at the counter, equidistant between them. At shouting range, not talking range, I was optimistic that there wouldn’t be much conversation. This brightened my mood.

♦ ♦ ♦

As I lowered myself onto a stool, though, I gripped the edge of the counter with my fingers underneath, and something was sticky there. Chewing gum, left under the counter, and now on my fingers. From its moisture and adhesiveness, I’d guess it was a few weeks old. My mood sank back to its normal low.

Kirstin said hello and poured my coffee. I said something semi-sociable, excused myself to the restroom, and washed the spearmint from my fingers. The coronavirus ain’t enough; I get gum spit out of some stranger’s face, aged under the counter.

The diner is generally clean, and doubtless even cleaner during the pandemic. It’s much more frequently and thoroughly sanitized than my own home or kitchen. Can’t expect them to inspect under the counter very often, so I ain’t mad at ’em.

♦ ♦ ♦

Returning to my stool, Kirstin asked how I’m doing, recited the daily special, and said, “What’s for breakfast?”

My breakfast at the diner is usually a house omelet with two pancakes, unless the daily special sounds enticing. It’s been years since I ordered anything but my usual omelet or the special. Maybe I’ve never ordered anything else at this restaurant?

Last night, though, I watched an old Humphrey Bogart movie where he ordered ham and eggs at a bar for breakfast. As soon as Bogey said it, I knew I wanted it. “Ham and eggs, please,” I say.

“Nope, that’s not what you want,” Kirstin said, looking at me and scrunching her eyebrows. “You want a house omelet and two pancakes.”

I laughed, but insisted on ham and eggs. She wrote it down and sighed heavily and nodded ‘nope’, like I was making a big mistake that I’d soon regret.

♦ ♦ ♦

While my breakfast was cooking, I read The New Yorker and sipped my coffee, and at the corner of my ear came the sound of a chair scraping on the tile floor. Bald-Walker was rising up from his table, or trying to. He’d lifted himself halfway-up by pushing down on the table, but the table is only supported by one post in the middle, so it tilted as he pushed.

He was still standing and so was the table, but both were wobbly. The salt and pepper toppled and rolled over the edge, clattering loudly on the tile floor. His plate would’ve fallen off too, but it was pinned against the old guy’s frail midsection. A plastic ketchup squeeze-bottle hit the floor,.

What I was thinking was, Should I dart over and help? But nah, I’m no hero, and anyway I couldn’t have gotten there quickly enough. Old guy was going down, and I was going to watch — but Slim was suddenly there.

Slim is one of the diner’s cooks, the pudgy one, and who knows what brought him out of the kitchen, but he was at the right place at the right time. He wordlessly slid a hand under Bald-Walker’s shoulder, slightly lifting him but mostly just steadying him as they stood. They were awkwardly close, but both men were wearing masks. With his other hand Slim nudged the plate back onto the tabletop, which bounced a bit but then leveled itself.

Once Bald-Walker had both hands on his walker and seemed stabilized, Slim loosened his grip. The old guy grunted twice, or maybe those grunts were words; it’s hard to tell. He didn’t say thanks; instead he said clearly to Slim, “I didn’t really need any help.”

Slim tilted his head as if to say, Whatever, and then he walked back to the kitchen.

“Are you OK?” Kirstin asked.

“I’m OK,” said Bald-Walker, “and I didn’t need the help.”

He’d finished his breakfast, which is why he was getting up in the first place, and as he passed my stool on his way out, I masked up and said, “You needed the help.” Said it with a chuckle, but I wasn’t joking.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. No shame in it, but c’mon.”

“Nah,” he says. “I might look flimsy, but I’m all right.”

“All right,” I say. “You have a good one, then.”

It took him a minute (seriously, 60 seconds) to walk to the cash register, where he paid his tab. Then he pushed his walker out of the building, slowly, very slowly, with a brief struggle at the door as he shook and nudged the walker past an ever-so-slight bump where the tile ends and the doorjamb begins.

♦ ♦ ♦

Now it was just me and The Fixture, who had his wallet open to settle his bill. He put cash on the counter, nodded at Kirstin, and said to both of us, “That guy did need the help.”

We both nodded, and then The Fixture was gone, and I was the only customer in the diner.

♦ ♦ ♦

Kirstin brought my ham and eggs and refilled my coffee. I ate breakfast and read my magazine, and that’s it. For the next half hour or so, all through my meal, nobody entered or left. No eavesdropping, no
interruptions, no annoyances, no other customers. It was sweet, but strange.

“There’s no predicting business any more,” Kirstin said as she refiled my coffee. “Some days we’re busy almost like normal, and other days there’s no-one here for an hour at a time.”

Slim shouted from the back: “Fuckin’ pandemic!”

“Yeah,” said Kirstin. “Who thought a pandemic would be a good idea?”

I read, sipped coffee, and ate. Kirstin filled salt and pepper shakers, wiped down cream and ketchup containers, topped off my coffee, loaded the dishwasher, took an order over the phone, washed her hands, topped off my coffee, etc.

She was right, by the way. I regretted the ham and eggs. Nothing was wrong with them, they were good, very good, but … if I could do it all again I’d order a house omelet with pancakes.

♦ ♦ ♦

I’ve often wished that people in the diner would shut the hell up, and twice I’ve told other eaters to do exactly that. Sometimes I’ve been the diner’s only customer, but not often and only for a few minutes. Today was the first time I’ve been the only customer for an entire breakfast.

Enjoyed the quiet, but I don’t like what it portends for the diner … or for myriad other small businesses … or for humans.

Mask on again, I paid and tipped and exited, climbed into my ancient, rusted car and started the engine. A baritone voice on the radio said that the coronavirus is still on the rise across America. That isn’t news, of course.

Our national leadership hasn’t taken the pandemic seriously, so it just rolls on and on, making more people sick, more people dead.

The irony, of course, is that I’m defying the common wisdom myself, eating breakfast inside a restaurant once a week. Call me a dumbbell and I won’t argue the assertion.

Here in Wisconsin, the number and percentage of positive tests is trending upward, as are hospitalizations. The Governor is a decent guy, a Democrat but spineless. Early in the pandemic, he enacted state-wide safety rules, but Republicans control the state legislature and Supreme Court, and they’ve blocked any restrictions. The Governor hasn’t pushed back, hasn’t said or done much of anything lately, and there are no state-wide rules to speak of.

Local government is run by non-morons, though, so I won’t be surprised if there’s soon another county-wide decree that restaurants must close, or retreat again to offering only carry-out. Hope not. Hope I’ll be back at the diner next week, but cripes. Fuckin’ pandemic.

7/17/2020
Republished 2/23/2025

Breakfast at the Diner

itsdougholland.com
← PREVIOUS          NEXT →