I guess the disembodied voice that warned me against going inside should have been my first clue that
this establishment might not be the best choice for a late-morning weekday breakfast.
"Are you going in there?" it hissed, as I unloaded a certain toddler I know from her cracker-dusted car seat. I turned around and a Lincoln Town Car idled behind me in the parking lot, manned by an elderly couple sharing a sour expression.
"Uh, yeah?" I said. Theoretically, this was a work day for me, but as anyone who associates with toddlers knows, sometimes these critters can, on short notice, cause your plans to change. "Heat's broken in there," scolded the wife. Now, I was sort of feeling a little uncreative at the moment, and couldn't really think of anywhere else serving mid-morning meals easily handled by persons under the age of two that was within immediate driving distance, and so to my way of thinking, a little chill was not the end of the world. This seemed a little rude of a matter to explain to my new friends, however, who clearly expected me to move on.
"Ah, sounds... cold," I said.
"We didn't think the baby would like that," she nodded, case closed. Their window then rolled up, and they cruised slowly away, eyeing me expectantly. I waited until they were out of sight, and then proceeded past the 7-foot carved bear statue through the front doors.
Inside, the nearly empty, cavernous interior had a foreboding, cool stillness I remember from
last winter's blackout days. Feeble midwinter sunlight crept in through frilly bear curtains. A dispirited kitchen worker in a greasy apron lead me to a u-shaped booth in a forgotten corner, flinging some crayons in front of the baby. There didn't appear to be any actual waitresses in the place.
While waiting to give our our order, we listened to patrons grumble about the cold. "The fans are stuck on!" they whined. "Cold air is blowing right on my plate!" The baby and I kept our coats on. "Hung-ry!" the baby insisted, dropping the hard "g" sound as she does, and I nodded. "We'll get you waffles," I said.
"Ah- no waffles," the kitchen guy muttered, minutes later. "Waffle machine is broken."
"Orange juice," I kept going, hopefully.
"Uh--"
"The orange juice machine is broken," I said.
"Yes." The baby looked at us expectantly. "French toast," I said. Was that my breath I saw? "Bacon."
"Down!" the baby said. She wanted out of her high chair. I lifted her out, wiggly and surprisingly heavier every day, or perhaps I'm just a day older each time I go to pick her up. Earlier that morning she'd fallen and scratched her face, this combined with my uncombed hair gave us the unhinged air of a single mother and her waif living in the back of a Buick, an impression I may have seen reflected in the disapproving looks of fellow cafe patrons as I walked the restless baby around the black bear knickknacks, statues, and paw print placards in the dining room.
Back in our seat, the food arrived. High chair refused, we moved on to a booster seat, whatever kept the wiggling in check. The baby began loading in French toast slices at wood-chipper speed. I looked out the window into the gray intersection, at the bus unloading cold-looking people onto the street. Does anything make you feel grown up quite like eating in a diner alone with your kid?
She'd never tried bacon, partially my fault, it seems so sinewy and unhealthy for a toddler, to me. I snapped off the tiniest flake and set it before her. She reached past this cautious offering, grabbing the entire fat-marbled slice, and poking it into a cup of syrup. "Dip!" she shouted. I blinked, and the bacon was gone.
"...and then I sat next to her bedside for weeks watching her waste away, watching the life literally drain out of her, and let me tell you, if anything will depress the holy Christ out of you, it is that." My booth neighbor concluded the story of his mother's demise, and his companion nodded grimly over her scrambled eggs.
"It's been five friggin minutes, and I'm still waiting for my coffee," said my neighbor on the other side, standing in a huff and stomping past the stone-faced kitchen-waitstaff guy. This latest bear-themed incarnation of the old steep-roofed 1960's diner building, formerly a smoke-filled Coco's, was clearly not long for this world. I put my arm around the little kid in her booster seat, now putting eggs into her face two hands at a time, and thought about these early years of her life, of which she wouldn't remember a single detail.
"Mama!" she grinned up at me. "Egg!"
