Twelve years is a long time to be spinning plates. Let me just put that out there. Waiting tables isn't usually what people call a career. It isn't half as long as my mom did it, maybe only a quarter in fact.
What folks don't know is I own this place. Not "I give the bank a lot of money to let me use the diner they actually own," but "my grandad built this place, my mom grew up in this place, I grew up in this place, and I'm still here." We don't just own it, my family is the reason there's a building here. Mom signed the deed over in exchange for a signature and a crisp $100 bill.
El's Diner, Breakfast and Lunch For Over 75 Years. It's right there on the sign.
The bell tinkles. Old fashioned bell like you see in the movies. About every five years or so, you have to replace the spring it hangs from. About every 20 years or so, you have to replace the bell. There's four retired bells, each hung on its own nail with its years of service on a little plaque, hung above the door.
Dad heats up the springs, cherry red, straightens them out, hammers them flat and forges them into knives. No kidding.
"Hey, Ellie." Grandad was the original El - Ellesworth, never ever heard him called anything but El. Mom is Eleanor and I'm Elizabeth. I'm not sure if names get chosen so the sign doesn't have to get changed, but whatever Grandad paid for the original sign, he's gotten his money's worth.
"Morning, Charlie!" I've been sliding breakfast in front of Charlie since I was 23, fresh out of college and certain I was going to make restaurant history, change El's into a household name across the land and win a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Still haven't worked out how I was going to do that last one but I was sure it was going to happen.
I haven't asked Charlie his breakfast order since I turned 30. It never changes. Coffee: big one - little tidbit here, Charlie has his own cup that lives on a peg behind the counter. It used to have his name on it, but I used to be 18, too, and we all wear down a little over time. Big bowl of oatmeal, a shy pat of butter and a shy teaspoon of brown sugar and a very, very shy one-quarter teaspoon of salt sprinkled broadly around the top of the mound. I've told him time and again, I can do more with this oatmeal, you know. You can have other stuff in it, we got strawberries, we got blueberries, shoot, I'll even drop in some chocolate chips if you like.
Charlie kind of took Grandad's place when he passed. Grandad went out kind of quickly, he just lived and lived and lived except for those last six months, he just sort of sputtered and ran down and then he got sick and died. Charlie was at the funeral that day, the first day El's had failed to open in a long, long time. So in a way even though he didn't get his breakfast, Charlie hadn't missed a visit.
I slid Charlie's cup in front of him, there's actually a faded streak on the counter because I've been sliding it to him in exactly the same way for so long, and poured it full. A short dollop of cream, put the sugar jar in front of him,
"Hey. Hold on."
I looked up. It struck me, suddenly, Charlie looked...old. "Say?"
"Bring that back." He waved at my other hand. "The cream." He waved a keep going gesture over the coffee until I had sloshed in about another quarter-inch of whipping cream.
Yeah, whipping cream. It's a dairy state, we don't go halfway on our moo juice around these parts.
He took the sugar jar out of my hand and tipped in another couple of teaspoons' worth.
Charlie's coffee usually is the cafe au lait of an ascetic, only lip service given to the luxuries. But not today. This wasn't syrupy but it sure as heck wasn't Charlie's perennial not-quite-black.
"I'll have your oatmeal up in a minute, hon," I told him. Yeah, after a while you start calling your regulars hon.
"No oatmeal today."
You could have run me over with a truck and that would have had less impact. No oatmeal? A river must be flowing backwards somewhere, this violation of The Way Things Happen was a tectonic shift.
"Uh, okay? Well, I'm sorry, Charlie, that's just rude of me. What can I get for you this morning?"
Charlie opened a menu. I don't think I've ever seen him do that in my life. Breakfast is oatmeal. He doesn't come in for lunch every day but when he does, it's a chicken salad sandwich with lettuce. Always. Even if I took them off the menu, I'd keep the fixings for them on hand because Charlie, sure as the sunrise, is going to order them. And he doesn't need to look at the menu to know I'll serve them to him.
"I think a steak. No. Yes. Yep. Butter fried steak. Two eggs over easy. Hash browns, you know, I've never had the hash browns. Are they good?"
"Holy cats, Charlie, you been eatin here for what, forty years? Eleanor came up with the recipe for the hash browns back around nineteen eighty-something and I can't get out of this booth without having a plate of that. You've really never had the hash browns?"
Maria is another of my regulars. She brings a newspaper, a cell phone and an appetite. She has some breakfast - hash browns are indeed a constant item for her - sets up three or four house showings, slugs back two cups of coffee and then does the crossword puzzle. In ink. Then she stomps out of the place to go sell houses, leaving the newspaper behind.
"Nope. Never had em. They good?"
"Honey. Yeah, they're good. Set him up, girlfriend, I'm pickin up this man's tab today."
"I wasn't done ordering, Maria, I can't..."
"His check comes to me today, okay Ellie?"
"Yes ma'am."
Maria nodded at me. "Get what you want, Charlie. It's all good. I've had everything on the menu, you won't be disappointed by any of it."
"Well..." He looked the menu up and down. Really, with the steak, eggs and hash he's going to have a pretty big plateful and Charlie, at about six-two and I swear around eighty years old, if he weighs 160 it's only because he's got five pounds of rocks in his pockets. He's lean as a rake, as Dad would say. I don't know where he's going to put all this food unless he carries half of it out in a to-go container. "I think a slice of pie."
"We have lemon meringue, chocolate cream and sour cream apple pie."
Maria made a sound. "Charlie, you get that sour cream apple pie. They only make it a couple times a month and trust me, you want it."
"All righty. Sour cream...really, sour cream apple? I've never heard of that."
"Trust me, honey." Maria seemed to be speaking directly to the crossword puzzle.
"Well, I'm not arguing. You heard her. Sour cream apple pie."
"Coming right up." I put the ticket on the carousel and swung it back. Maria's already on her second cup and a couple of to-gos went out a few minutes before Charlie sat down; as a retiree he usually doesn't come in until the morning rush has tapered off and we can slow down.
Jackie poked his head out the pass-through. "Hey, he want garlic on that steak?"
Charlie's head swiveled around. "Hell yes he does!"
Jackie saluted with his spatula. "Attaboy," he said and disappeared, only to reappear a moment later. "I got some onions back here lookin' for something to do."
"Son, you got a mind to add root crops to that steak, you just follow that hunch."
"Hey Jackie, don't give away the entire farm, okay?"
"I gotcha Ellie, I just never got to make Charlie a steak before and I'm a little excited!" Jackie's New Jersey accent comes out when he gets excited but let me just say, the man can cook a steak. "How you want this thing, Charlie? Burnt? Mooing?"
"Just a bit of pink inside, please. Done all the way, just a bit of pink."
It was a few minutes and Maria was growling into her phone, me wiping tables and sliding racks into the dishwasher until ding, Charlie's breakfast was at the window.
I've served this exact combination probably a couple hundred times. It falls into the range of what I call a construction worker's plate: plenty of protein, not shy with the carbs, very savory. The pie is just as common an addition too - more carbs but as sugars they hit a little quicker.
Charlie paused, as if saying grace. I don't think I've ever seen him say a blessing over his food, though some do even at a place as casual as El's.
Jackie had commended himself to the steak. It came up with a nice crust, running with clear juices as Charlie sliced off a bite, put it in his mouth, and chewed twice. He closed his eyes, and paused.
"Problem?" Maria looked over at us, me on my side of the counter, Charlie on his. He was so frozen, I was afraid I might be looking at a heart attack. "Charlie."
He resumed chewing. When that bite went down, he opened his eyes and I was startled to see they were full of tears. "It's great. It's really great." He tried a bite of the hash and paused again. "Oh, my."
"Told you." Charlie turned to nod at Maria, but she wasn't looking at us anymore.
Over about the next twenty minutes Charlie methodically worked his way through his big breakfast, finally wrapping up with the pie that set a look crossing his face like a child seeing the ocean for the first time.
As I took the plates away, he covered his face with his hands and, by the way his shoulders were shaking, I could tell he was weeping.
Charlie spent a few moments wiping his face with his napkin, which I took away and replaced with a fresh one.
"My dog died yesterday." He fiddled with the fresh napkin but it seemed he was done crying. Maybe. "I can die now."
"What?"
"I didn't want her to be alone. I didn't want to get sick and make her worry, or get sick and die and she have to go to a shelter or die if nobody figured out I was gone or have to learn a new family. So I was really careful with my food and always got some exercise and look both ways crossing the street. So I'd outlive her and she'd be safe and happy the whole time. And she was, right up until..." he needed a moment, but just a moment. "Anyway. I can die now."
"But I'm going to have more pie first." He dropped a twenty on the bill. "See you at lunch." And he went out the door.
I looked over at Maria, who had been watching and listening. "Does that mean he's ordering steak because he's no longer concerned about his health?"
I tucked the twenty into the cash drawer. We had all forgotten about Maria picking up his check. "No, I don't think that's his angle. I think he loved the dog more than himself. He wouldn't let himself have nice things that might be even a little bad for him because he didn't want her to ever be sad or scared."
"Wow. That's devotion. But...what about all those years before?"
"I don't know. Maybe he had dogs then too. He was married but she passed a few years ago. I don't know about kids."
"Think he might get another dog?"
"After seeing how he reacted to breakfast? I hope not." I remembered the look on his face, the joy. "Never mind dying, I want him to live, to live for himself.
"I want to serve him a lot more pie."
No comments:
Post a Comment