Every community
should have its own diner.
WHAT
IS THIS PLACE?
It was Friday night, almost, and
Ralph was hungry and thirsty and lonely and cantankerous. He was hungry because he hadn’t eaten
anything all day, except for one slice of toast when he got up at six-thirty
that morning. He was thirsty because he
wanted a beer or two or three, and the local Legion had closed and he didn’t
want to go to the nearby pub for one.
With all the bare floors, clinking glasses and loud sports channels on
the televisions and the constant clack of pool cues on balls, a fellow couldn’t
hear himself think. Hard of hearing at
seventy-five years of age, his newfangled state-of-the-art hearing aids just
made the tumult worse. He was lonely
because his wife had died and he missed her planning everything to do with his
meals, like what he ate and where he ate and when he ate. So bloody right, he was cantankerous as he
didn’t know how to fix any of those things!
After a career in sociology, where
he’d only studied human group behaviors and reported on them to various
institutions which usually wanted to sell to, manipulate, or exploit that same
group, he felt disadvantaged as a single, hungry, thirsty widower. He didn’t fit into any defined group. No wife.
No siblings. No children. No family.
No Legion. Then he remembered the
restaurant his late friend Paddy had owned.
It was just several blocks down the road and should still be open. Brogan’s on 56th was only a diner,
an old greasy spoon that had been run by an old Irishman, but he could get a
meal and a beer and the walk there and back would do him good. He could hear his dead wife’s voice in his
ear telling him so.
By the time Ralph arrived at the
restaurant, he was even hungrier and thirstier.
Pushing open the door, he was surprised to see some walls had been
removed and others painted, and the diner now seemed more open and
inviting. As he approached the cash
register, a young woman serving a table waved at him and said to sit wherever
he liked. He chose a booth in the middle
of the room and sat looking around. Old
photos, posters and memorabilia splattered the newly painted walls. Toy cars and knick-knacks claimed all
available shelf space. An old and tired,
tall wooden stand with open shelves, now housed the diner’s assortment of
coffee mugs, no two the same. They
probably came from the thrift store three doors down. Then Ralph saw the one new addition to the
place. It was a brand new stage at the
back of the room, complete with two steps up, a safety rail, speakers and
microphones, and somebody who was singing.
“Who owns this place since Paddy
died?” he asked the young waitress, who brought him a menu and then the beer he
ordered.
“His daughter, Shannon, is the owner
now. She’s in the kitchen, talking to
her husband, Keith. He’s one of the
cooks. Did you want to talk to her?” she
asked.
“No.
No, I’m good. I’ll just sip my
beer and order some supper and listen,” he said, pointing to the stage,
thinking how unusual to have live entertainment in a diner.
After browsing the home typed menu
and placing an order instead for the daily special chalked on a board, he
sipped his beer and watched while the diner filled up. As people came in, they all seemed to know
each other, greeting other patrons by name, stopping to chat, giving each other
hugs and kisses. This was not regular
behavior in any diner he’d been to before.
Very strange.
His dinner arrived just as he
noticed some man sitting in a booth with a computer in front of him, singing
into a microphone and then calling somebody else to sing another song. The next singer sported a cowboy shirt and
cowboy hat and sang “Do You Know You Are My Sunshine?” When he left the stage he wandered around the
whole restaurant with a beer in his hand, talking to people who were sitting,
standing, or walking in or leaving. The
next singer up was his own waitress.
After that a woman dressed to the nines and wearing high heels to
showcase her long legs, got up to sing.
When she finished, she started clearing tables. Then a man wearing a kitchen apron came out
from the back to sing one song. Then two
ten year old boys got up and sang a rap song that was too loud, too long, and
too unintelligible.
Even though he’d eaten and had a beer,
Ralph was feeling cranky again. He
stifled his ire, though, when he saw the cowboy put down his beer and aid an
elderly lady with a walker to a table and chairs in the middle of the room, the
only place she could manage to sit down.
That was also when a young man with dyed black hair in a brush cut, and
an open shirt collar with a scarf tied around his neck, got up on the stage and
started singing “Love Me Tender”, one of Elvis Presley’s hits. Ralph remembered dancing with his wife to
that song many times through the years.
He coughed, to get rid of the lump in his throat.
Next to hold the microphone was a young
woman who sat on a chair with a three year old girl beside her, also holding a
microphone. The two of them sang
“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” together and when they were done the three year
old continued sucking on her thumb while her mother sang “Hallelujah” like an
angel. She stood up when she finished
and her clothes seemed to be splotched in paint, as if she hadn’t changed after
work. The paint on her clothes matched the
wall behind her.
Sporting a safety vest like the ones
worn in construction, the next singer was a woman probably in her fifties, who
belted out her song without holding back.
Then a man about eighty sang a slow, sad song. Next, a brown skinned woman wearing mukluks
sang a rock and roll duet with the cowboy.
When the cowboy finished singing, he brought two glasses of water to two
women at another booth. As he walked by,
Ralph waved at him and asked him to sit down and talk to him.
“I think I recognise you,” Ralph
said. “You used to play guitar and sing
at the Legion when it was across the street.
Am I right?”
“Oh yes. Those were good times when we had a jam
session happening there every Sunday,” he told Ralph.
“So what is this place?” Ralph asked. “It doesn’t fit any definition of restaurant
or diner that I’ve ever seen. Everybody
seems to know everybody else. You can’t
tell who works here or doesn’t. The girl
I thought was my waitress was up singing and so was the cook. One customer got up and sang and then started
clearing tables. Beer is available but
hardly anyone is drinking alcohol. Kids
are allowed in here but it seems like a nightclub otherwise. They’ve taken out a big table and people are
dancing in the middle of the room. What
is going on?”
The cowboy smiled and said, “Just a
minute. You can ask Shannon, the owner,”
as he motioned for someone behind Ralph to come and take his place.
“Oh, hi! Ralph, isn’t it? I know you.
You were a friend of my Dad’s.
How are you doing? Are you enjoying
yourself here tonight?” she asked with a radiant smile.
“Shannon, I’m so sorry your Dad passed
away. He was a good man. But what have you done to this place? It’s sure not the same as when he ran it. I’m a sociologist, you know, and this doesn’t
fit any scientific or commercial definition of a restaurant! What is this place?” he asked louder, trying
to be heard over two middle aged men holding hands and singing Johnny Cash’s
“Jackson”.
“It’s still a restaurant. We got another business licence to allow
entertainment. And we already had the
liquor licence. So now we have the
Karaoke happening two nights a week, and this is one of them. Isn’t it wonderful? The place just fills up those two nights,”
she told him.
“But it’s still not like any restaurant. The staff all get up to sing. Customers clear tables. Nobody sits still. People walk around wherever they want, sit
wherever they want. I don’t
understand. What is this place?”
Shannon looked wide-eyed at Ralph and
then reached across the table to pat his hand.
“It’s a family restaurant, Ralph.
That’s what it says outside, Brogan’s Diner. It’s family and friends and the lonely who
come to be together and have a bite to eat, and something to drink and maybe
sing a song and feel like they belong.
That’s what family is, Ralph, and you’re welcome to join us whenever you
want.”
Her name was called over the microphone
as she got up from the table and went to sing her own song. Ralph thought perhaps it was fortunate he had
retired. This place would never have fit
into any of his former research. It
certainly wouldn’t have made it onto any high end restaurant list for best
food, best service, or best entertainment.
Giving up his quest to define the place in concrete terms, he ordered
another beer and wondered if he still had the voice to sing for a crowd.
_________________________________
By Lisa A. Hatton
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