A diner

The ghost of the afternoon heat lingered in the diner and the smell of hamburger meat and cheep pie promoted a cat to sit at the screen door meowing softly. The evening dusk replaced the buzz of flies with frantic mosquitoes who hurried this way and that. The last verse of ‘love me tender’ by Elvis Presley played smoothly from the jukebox. A waitress who was in her late 30’s, though due to fatigue, hard work, and being a devout smoker for most of her life, looked much older, wiped down the counters, and thought about what would happen next in her favorite romance TV show. The cook, a plump, permanently sunburned man who was bolding in a rather unfortunate way, washed dishes in the kitchen sink, humming a song from last Sunday's sermon. The cook and waitress were an odd pair, yet they complimented each other quite nicely. The cook could talk for hours on end about how he is sure Tom Curby was the one who stole his car’s hub cap, or how the man on the radio, Harold Richison, was sounding a little dull these days, or how he saw Jesus when he was 16 years old: though he never gave details on this topic. The man could talk and talk, not with any conviction or purpose, he just talked. And the waitress would listen. Frankly, there was nothing else to do. The diner had long since been the place to gather, it now was only visited by truck drivers or old-timers who came just to saver the sweet memories of when they were young and carefree. 

The cook and waitress kept it going because they didn’t know what else to do. If it weren’t for Parkway Diner, there was nothing, they were nothing. So with this unspoken, solemn reality, the two bonded. 

The waitress had started working at Parkway when she was 19. It had been a real hot spot when she had started. People would come in and out all day long, asking for cheeseburgers or ordering 8 baskets of fries for everyone in the diner, and they would still run out. Those were the days. She had looked prettier then and people would flirt with her and she would slide them the last slice of pie and they would laugh and she would laugh and everyone would be singing and dancing and it was just, it was just how a diner ought to be in her opinion. 

The cook had started around the same time as the waitress he had been 26 and the action and liveliness had been his source of joy. He had known every lyric to every song in the jukebox, and with a lovely voice, he would attract requests to sing every night, sometimes two or three times in a night. People would cheer and sometimes even push 50 cents or a dollar over the counter and wink. People gathered there every night. It was a necessity for them, like air or food, the roadway diner was what they lived for. Anyone who was new to town would know about the diner within 20 minutes of unloading boxes. Everyone driving through would stop to peek in, wondering why all the cars in the town were parked outside. 

There had been 3 cooks and 4 waitresses. A 14-year-old boy who cleaned the bathrooms and the floors, an old couple who baked the apple, chocolate, and cranberry pies every morning. 2 supply delivers who loaded and unloaded goods from Kermount every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, two dogs who loyally cleaned up after any guest who left their burger unattended and the owner, Louisa, a cheerful older woman who lived in the small guest house outback. 

Louisa was the life of the diner. She was always there, always hurling about, yet never overwhelmed or in a sour mood. She was an excellent banjo player and would always find time to dance on the counter or put a child on her shoulders. She was youthful and strong despite her grey hair and spotted arms and face. 

It was a cool August morning when Louisa had died. It was said she went in her sleep. Peaceful. Painless. 

I didn’t even know she was sick.

I don’t think she was sick. Just died. 

She wasn’t even old, that’s the real tragedy. Maybe 67? 68? 

She was 68. I saw you, at her birthday party ‘couple months ago. 

That’s right. 

Sniffs and unsteady breaths. 

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe our Louisa. Gone.

She didn’t feel nothing. That’s what matters. 

The whole town froze everything they were doing for several days. It was like their very will to live had been buried with Louisa. What would they do without her? How would they live? Where would they find their joy? 

One of the cooks, Louisa’s nephew had become the owner of Parkway diner. And though he tried very hard to keep up the spirit, he simply could not live up to his aunt’s legacy. People still came and gathered at the diner, but there was much less jubilance and celebration and slowly, very slowly, less and less people came in. Less and less songs were sung. Less and less baskets of fries ordered. Less and Less dances had. One of the waitresses moved East, saying she was going to find a real restaurant to work at, One of those big ones with cloth napkins. But no one ever found out if she really had found work where paper napkins were inadequate. Within a year one of the cooks left too, said he couldn’t bear it, it was too hard to have it all quiet all the time. A few months after that one of the waitresses retired and the other got pregnant and said she wasn’t needed there anyway. A year after that Louisa’s nephew moved to California. He said he still owned it but he didn’t act like an owner. He didn’t pay the bills, he didn’t care for the diner like he use to. The remainder of the staff, the cook, and the waitress had taken turns paying rent and electricity and plumbing and so on. These two had cared for the diner the most, had needed it the most. And so they were the ones that had reminded.

The sun had disappeared now. Bugs gathered at the windows and screen door. ‘Love me tender’ had finished playing and the cat had run off chasing a glare from a headlight shadow. The door in the back had just been closed and locked up for the night. A faded ‘closed’ sign hung in the window and the dull raddle from the oven had died out. 

The diner sat in it’s silence and recalled the days when people danced and sang and ordered 8 baskets of fries and it still wasn’t enough.