What I Learned From Charles Dickens 1

The Diner Story  OR  What I Learned From Charles Dickens 1

(Charles wrote whole novels in serial form like this. You ought to be glad I only have one five page story. Here’s the beginning of my favorite of my writing. Hope you like it too.)

            The Diner

            A short story in three parts

            by Leslee Clapp

All things being equal, a diner is a diner. Chick’s is like Eddie’s, is like The Glider, is like The Gourmet, is like The Summit, and is like The Wellsboro, or The County Seat, or The Tick Tock. No wait. Not the Tick Tock. Those New Jersey establishments put on airs. They sell you expensive food and even have tablecloths sometimes. If a diner doesn’t smell a little like cigarette smoke and old grease and hamburger and fresh bread, there’s no reason to stop and eat there. 

Young’s in Mehoopany can smell a little like dairy cows now and then. The good old boys come in from the farm and get a coffee, some pancakes, and home fries, before they go on about their business in town. And they don’t change from their barn boots, either.

If a diner makes you dress up, if you walk in the door and don’t see guys with baseball caps that advertise everything from Best Value Plumbing to the Yankees, if you don’t hear loud local accents and the waitress doesn’t call you Honey or Sweetheart, then you’re not in a diner.

If  blue or gray haired old ladies in plush pantsuits don’t sit as matriarchs with grown children and grand children crowded into the corner booth or the long table in the dining room, then you are in the wrong place.

And at The Blue Plate, not all the blue haired ladies are customers. There is Phyllis, for example.  She has been working here since 1956. She was younger then, we all were in our youth, and she zipped from table to table. She could load four plates on each arm. She could pour coffee quicker than anybody in Mountain Crossing and she never spilled a drop.

She was lighter than air, dancing from counter to kitchen to table and back again.  Her laugh made the old chrome gleam and she knew every song on the jukebox if you called out the letter and number. 

Dad, the greatest storyteller that ever was, reported all this to as the gospel truth.  After ‘Nam, I took over the county’s newspaper and kept one office across the street in the Chronicle building. But all the real newsgathering was done from booth five at Good Eats. 

Phyllis got married, the only weekend she had off in years, to a James Dean-type who road a big black Harley. She would be serving a customer coffee, pie, and banter and suddenly look up. Her regular face wore a look that was somewhat nice but tough. A look that told everyone she would joke but nobody could get fresh or push her around. That regular face of hers would suddenly get soft and dreamy. 

The regulars all knew that she had heard that motorcycle. She even blushed when her James Dean thundered into the wide paved parking lot. She even giggled when he came in the door and gave her flowers in front of everybody and stole a kiss. 

And soon happy Phyllis seemed to be carrying a basketball under her waitress uniform.  Soon she had a custom made, The  Blue Plate pink maternity smock, instead of the pink shirt the rest of them wore, and then she missed a whole week, a whole fortnight a whole month of work.

The coffee wasn’t as good. The pie was stale. The sugar jars were never full and there were ketchup fingerprints on a window or two. It seemed that the whole place was flat, like soda pop left open too long. Then one day . . . ( Come back on Tuesday and read more about Good Eats)