Part 1
The water fills the great potholes and roadside ditches and the smell of the earth rises from the fields as the sun comes out to dry them.
It shines in through the big diner window and makes the rounded metal of the napkin dispenser on the table dance in reflected light, putting a smile on his face.
Stephan looks up from his plate of flapjacks and at the big window. Pushed together by a breeze, water droplets gather together and run in trickles diagonally across the pane. He focuses just beyond the window and watches the drops still tumbling heavily from the roof into the gravel lot that surrounds the diner. He listens to the sound they make as they hit the ground. He closes his eyes against the warmth of the sun coming in and lifts his head to feel it on his face. Once, twice, he hears an automobile go by, their tires spraying road water to the sides as they pass.
Except for Stephan, there is no one else in the place. The large, well-built man behind the long counter watches Stephan with a curious, furrowed brow as he wipes a plate now and again, stacking them in the counter’s shelves. Even though he only sees the back of Stephan’s head as it remains turned to the window, he can tell Stephan’s eyes are closed and that he is smiling.
His body yawns and a pleasant cool tremor runs through him as he turns again to look at his flapjacks, and smiles, this time in wonderment at how much maple syrup he has poured on them. They have some kind of berries in them, obviously conserved over the winter. The flapjacks are delicious. Even without the berries, they would have been marvelous. Why has this place gone through so much trouble? And the coffee, it was hot, but not too hot, and with the sugar, absolutely perfect. And as he finishes a cup, the large, well-built man comes out with the pot and asks Stephan if he wants another fill.
He sure does. This is his third one. But the man hasn’t cleared the first plate from the table, which had been a couple of runny eggs, some farmer’s sausages, and buttered toast, on which Stephan had also spread some jam.
“Why don’t you get a waitress to help you? She could take the orders instead of you doing it, and clean off the tables. You wouldn’t have to pay her much, I suppose. She’d probably make out okay with the tips.”
“Why,” the well-built man says, “does the plate on your table bother you? I’ll clear it off if it does.”
“Oh, no, not at all. I just thought, with you being kind of the only one here, how –”
“Oh, no, son, it’s no bother, believe me. I found most of the time, and from my own experience, that taking just-eaten-off plates out from under people’s noses while they’re still eating can be very irritating.”
Stephan laughs at this, which cheers the man.
“As for a waitress, well, I don’t know. You know, I don’t think so, although that might work well enough in some other place closer to one of the towns round-about here. But as for this place, I’m out far enough that, well, you wouldn’t be able to imagine some of the characters that come in here, characters looking for trouble, unless you’ve seen them for yourself. Now, you get a nice girl in here trying to do an honest day’s work and them looking at her, and making comments, and then maybe the touching starts when I got my back turned, and then that starts the trouble, not that I can’t handle it. But I don’t need it in the first place, see, so as long as I can run the place by myself, together with my cook back there, I figure that’s pretty much what I’m apt to do.”
“Oh, um, I see.” Stephan takes in what the man says while eating his flapjacks again.
“Say, excuse me, but you wouldn’t mind if I put some music on, would you?” Stephan points with his thumb at the jukebox as he looks at the man.
“Oh, no, son, go right ahead. But I sure hope it’s not going to be any of that new-fangled, loud, exaggerated whooping-wailing-twanging-jumping stuff.”
“Oh, you mean Swing?”
“No, Swing’s all right. Makes your feet wanna dance. I grew up with it. I mean the newer stuff coming up these days, that I don’t know what it’s all coming to. I know I put that box there so’s people could enjoy whatever’s in it. But still, since you’re the only one in here, well, I’m just being frank with you, is all. It kind of gets on my nerves a little – well, maybe sometimes. I suppose it depends. Today’s turning out to be such a nice day.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I like the older music better anyway.”
“Well, go right ahead then.”
Stephan puts a coin into the slot and presses the buttons to make his selection.
Don’t sit under the apple tree
With anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
Anyone else but me
(No, no, no)…
Till I come marching home…
“Remember that one,” asks Stephan.
“Sure do,” says the man. “1942. My wife and I sang it to each other when she was my sweetheart and I was going off to the war…”
“That was a pretty positive song for such a serious occasion.”
“Well, that’s what the country was like back then. There was group confidence and individual pluck. That’s the way it had to be. Couldn’t be no different. Things are a little different now, son. It’s not the same.”
After the song, Stephan drops in another coin.
Kiss me once, then kiss me twice
Then kiss me once again.
It’s been a long, long, time.
Haven’t felt like this, my dear
Since I can’t remember when.
It’s been a long, long time…
“What about that one?”
“Yep! 1945. I’d just come home from the war and we were on a picnic and one of the cars had the radio on and this song came on, and I proposed to her right then and there!”
The song plays out. Stephan listens, enjoys the rest of his coffee back at his table, and watches the day clear through the window as the man goes back to the kitchen to talk to his cook. And then Stephan selects another song. He comments to himself as he sits back down.
“1939. Still the Great Depression. The heart of the country has been scarred by drought. Years of dust storms have swept across and devastated the Great Plains. The country is struggling, heartbroken, and humbled.”
And the song plays.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
…
Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly…
But just then, a young, short man whose overly large, almost deformed, forehead one couldn’t deny radiated a dangerous and attractive magnetism, wearing round glasses, saggy jeans, a plaid shirt and a beaten-up old fedora, walks into the diner and, as if on cue, takes over the song, waddling with small steps toward Stephan’s table, his arms out to either side of his ribs from his elbows and his palms turned up in rudimentary ham dramatization, singing over Judy Garland…
“… ooooohhh… bluebirds… die…
Birds die over the rainbow.
Why then, oh why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds… die…
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can’t I?”
As the ruined music ends, the young, short man stands next to the table, his crotch flush with its edge, his arms still out, smiling down at Stephan.
Filed by Jack Step, for Food Raider Quarterly, November 24, 2013