Hiraeth Fodern

The only waitress at Marvin & Friend’s diner was accustomed to spending the late hours of her shift smoking a cigarette and listening to Hall & Oates on the old, crackly speakers. She didn’t know who Marvin was, or why he’d opened the diner, nor did she care. There was no cook behind the small window into the kitchen - on the rare occasion that a trucker or drug addict came into the diner late at night, the food was packaged and ready to be heated up. She just went back into the kitchen, threw it in the microwave, and played with her brown hair in the reflection of the stainless steel fridge while it “cooked”. Then she’d wait for a few extra minutes to make it seem freshly prepared, and serve it up to whatever tired old man or hopped up young person wanted it. They never complained. 

Marvin & Friends was in the lonely part of America - one of those parts where everyone “knew thy neighbor” a little too well, and saw them a little too much. No one ever just “stopped by” this little town; there wasn’t a highway within ten miles. The only truckers she got were lost ones, and the drug addicts were her former highschool classmates. Mindy Smith once had dreams - New York, Paris kinds of dreams, and she once had the will to act on them. But when her father died, her and her low-life brother had to get jobs just to make ends meet. Moving wasn’t an option. If they couldn’t afford life here, then they couldn’t afford life anywhere. 

That was eight years ago. Now, those dreams had vanished into the air like the smoke from her endless line of cigarettes. She was used to the rigamarole - used to not having dreams anymore. When she was off work, she kept herself drunk enough to forget any dreams she was currently having. Mindy was also used to spending her Saturday nights at the diner, hopped up off cheap coffee and buzzed from nicotine. Her mind would wander in the plain corn fields of her subconscious until it was time to close up at 4:00am, listen to some music, and perhaps she’d put on the TV in the corner and catch some Cheers. God, what she wouldn’t give to find a man like Sam Malone… but her body had gone the way of her aspirations in the past eight years, and she now looked ten years older than she was, and she felt ten years older than that. 

But tonight there would be no Sam Malone on her television. A man sat at her counter, and he may have been the strangest man she’d ever seen. He was a tall, thin man dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and dark green tie. His watch was simple, yet looked sturdy, and his face was slightly pinched and bookish, but overall amicable and topped with a lazily parted flop of jet black hair. When he had first come in, she’d frozen in shock as he sat down calmly and lit up a cigarette. She’d quickly recovered and asked what he wanted, and he said, “Just some decaf coffee, please,” in a soft voice. 

Now he sipped that coffee in between puffs. She knew what the obvious thing to say was, and she couldn’t help the words coming out of her mouth. “You got a name, sir?”

“Not sir… just call me Tommy.” 

“You’re not from around here, are ya Tommy?”

He smiled, but it was tight across his cheeks and didn’t reach his brown, contemplative eyes. “No I’m not… Mindy.” He squinted to read the nametag on her yellow shirt.

“I’m sorry, it’s just-”

“You don’t get many visitors around here, I take it?”

She nodded. “Can I ask… Do you work for the government?”

Tommy let out a quick laugh. “No, I don’t work for the government.”

“Then… Why are you wearing a suit?”

He shrugged. “Because I like suits, I guess.”

There was a long silence, only broken by Mindy asking him if he wanted anything else, which he politely declined. The quiet was deep enough to be broken by the old speakers’ empty crackling, but Tommy didn’t seem to mind.

“I’m sorry… I just have to know what you’re doing here,” blurted Mindy, surprised to hear the eagerness in her own voice. 

Tommy smiled and looked around. “Well… since it’s just us, I suppose I can tell you. I actually work for the mafia, and I’m here to kill a man.”

“What?” she gasped. 

He laughed deeply. “I’m joking!” They shared a smile and Tommy continued, “I’m only passing through… I’ve been on the road for quite some time… trust me, every diner I stop at gives me the same questions.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologized again. 

“For what?”

“For,” she struggled to find the words, “For… being repetitive.” She ended lamely.

“Don’t be. There’s a reason I stop at diners and not motels. I enjoy the company.”

Once again, they fell into a deep silence. Mindy knew there was more to this man’s story… His eyes held such depth in their dark folds that there was no way he was just “passing through”, and even though he acted like he loved the silence, his hand was tapping rapidly on the counter, and Mindy even saw his fingers tremble as he held his cigarette. 

“You a rich guy, or somethin’?” asked Mindy, ashamed at her own question but unapologetically curious.

“That depends on who you compare me to, I guess…”

She felt a flash of annoyance at his unwillingness to give a straight answer. “You must be a politician,” she said harshly.

He arched his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

“Because every time I ask you a question, you run around and don’t answer it!” 

Tommy chuckled. “I’m sorry… it’s just… I tend not to give too much away to people I don’t intend on making long term relationships with. My routine is simple - get a coffee or a small meal at a diner late at night when no one else is around, and sit there until I feel I should hit the road again.”

“I suppose every diner waitress asks you where you’re from?”

“They do.”

“And… what would your answer be?” In truth, Mindy was starting to enjoy this little game. It was the most intellectual stimulation she’d had in years.

“My home,” his eyes darkened, “My home… It was beautiful. I’m from the Northeast, originally.”

“Wow… you’re a long way from home, then,” she said with surprise.

“There’s that word again… home.” He paused, but then added after taking out a new cigarette, “You live around here, right? That’s your home?” She nodded, and he continued, “I see… You like it here?”

She chewed on her words for some time. “No… Actually, I hate it here.” 

“Why?”

“Because… Well, if I told you, we’d really be here all night.”

“I have time,” he said quietly. 

“I hate my job… I hate that I have to provide for my family… I hate my brother, who bounces around from job to job and spends all his money on weed, and I hate my mother, who acts like she was the biggest victim when my dad died… she refused to get a job, y’know? Absolutely refused. She said she had to take care of the house, but we live in a one bedroom apartment that’s one step away from being a trailer. It’s been years of living paycheck to paycheck, but not once has she taken responsibility for the money and thought about getting a job. And then she has the nerve to tell me that I need to work more hours?” Mindy realized she was breathing heavily and looked into Tommy’s eyes, which sat under raised eyebrows. She blushed and said, “I’m sorry, I got carried away there.”

“That’s okay… hearing you talk about your home, it… it made me think about my own.”

“Oh really? The Northeast has lonely towns like this?”

He shook his head. “Not lonely… but too busy. I spent my life living in a city where I was surrounded by people who I didn’t know… who didn’t care about me, and I didn’t care about them… and that included at home. My parents, they… they always pushed me to be like my father… to work on Wall Street and run the rat race until I was on the top. Well, I did that. I was almost at the top, but then… then I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep lying to myself - telling myself that everything was okay, that it didn’t matter how many people I knew, or how much I worked… so long as I had a family and so long as I was working towards something. But that ‘something’ ended up just being more work, and my family… I just never felt like I was enough for them.”

Mindy had no idea how to respond, so she whispered, “Damn…”

“Growing up, they never told me they were proud of me… they never said they loved me… they only asked me how I was doing in school, what my grades were like… what I was doing for my future. I had dreams once… when I was a kid, I wanted to be a paleontologist. I wanted to dig for dinosaur bones… and I wanted to have a dinosaur named after me one day. But my parents didn’t care about that. They threw away my dinosaur toys when I turned six and put me into extra math classes.” 

“Tommy…”

“Sorry, now I’m the one venting my whole life to you.”

“It’s okay,” she said, smiling suddenly, “Y’know, I feel like I should be wiping a counter while you regale your life’s stories to me. Isn’t that what they do in the movies?”

He smiled, but again his eyes remained dark. 

“So how’d you end up here?” she asked. 

He paused, looking away from her. When he looked back, his eyes were wet. “I ran away five weeks ago.”

“What? Why?”

“I was sick of it… I was sick of them, I was sick of the job… I couldn’t stand to stare at one more Wall Street snake… I could see their intentions behind their eyes - even when they talked to me about deals and a promising future, they wanted my head on a stick and they wanted their feet on my desk. Bastards… I just couldn’t deal with them anymore.”

“Then why-”

“Why am I so emotional about it?” He wiped his eyes with a quick, angry swipe, “I don’t know… I don’t know. A part of me… I think a part of me misses my life at home… and maybe a sick part of me misses the rush I got when I stomped out another man’s career, or when I sent in a report which set off fireworks at my company.”

Another bout of silence in which Tommy smoked the rest of his cigarette with shaky hands. Mindy looked out of the diner’s large windows and saw a Mercedes parked outside. “Is that your car?” she asked, pointing.

“Yes.” he replied curtly, “That’s my car. I bought that thing when I got my first position at the company, and now… now it’s a reminder of everything I hate about that place.”

“Is there… is there a part of you that doesn’t want to let it go?” she asked tentatively.

He fixed her with a sharp gaze. “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know… you only have one home, I guess… You only get one set of parents.”

“I might’ve said the same thing to you when you were talking about your mom,” said Tommy a little harshly, “What would you have told me then? You would’ve told me to go to hell, and I would’ve understood.”

“No, I-”

“Don’t deny it,” he snapped. After a few seconds of a deathly quiet, the ice in his eyes melted. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to-”

“You’re right,” she said quietly, “I would’ve told you to go to hell.”

“And you would have been right to do so,” he whispered. 

They stared at one another for an unknown amount of time, understanding more about one another in those moments than they had in their whole conversation. Mindy finally asked, “Do you think you’re going back?”

Tommy pondered her question, and then said in a tight voice, “No… no, I won’t be going back. My parents don’t know how to find me, and neither does my company. I've taken great lengths to ensure that.” 

“Do you want to go back?”

“I can’t go back,” he said firmly. “If I do… I won’t ever be able to leave again.”

She knew that said something about her original question, but she decided to leave it be for now. “D’you need a refill for your coffee?”

“What?” He seemed startled by the question. 

“Sorry, it just looked like you were out.” She blushed again. 

He smiled. “I’m alright. Probably should be heading out soon anyway.”

She couldn’t hide her disappointment. “You’re leaving? Are you going back on the road?”

He paused after he got up. “Maybe not.” He turned to her and there was a sparkle in his deep brown eyes. “This town seems nice… Strong people, and all that… Maybe I’ll stick around. You know any good inns?”

She smiled widely, perhaps wider than she had in eight years. “Yeah, sure… Try Marilyn’s - just down the street, you can’t miss it. She’ll be up, too. She never sleeps.”

Tommy returned her smile and patted his pockets, throwing a five dollar bill onto the counter. “Keep the change as a tip and… as a promise that I’ll be back. I gotta try out your food next time.”

“Of course! I’ll be working tomorrow afternoon, if you wanna swing by.” Mindy couldn’t help but feel her heart kick into overdrive. 

“I’ll see you then.” 

He turned to leave, and in the last look they shared Mindy could see the pain of leaving the city behind still present in Tommy’s eyes. His resolution was clear, and there was no doubt in the strength of his will. Mindy often had fantasies about running away herself, if she had a means to, but in Tommy’s melancholic journey she saw that that would be harder than she knew, and perhaps she’d made the right decision by staying at home. She watched the Mercedes pull out of the parking lot and start down the street. Maybe this lonely part of America was about to get a little less lonely, and that was a hope she could sate herself with.