Neon Soliloquies(scene 2)

A burst of drunken laughter greeted me as I stood at the register waiting to be seated. I looked over to the booth that was crammed with six college-aged young men who were howling over a private joke. I continued my quick examination of the cafe and was surprised at how crowded the place was. I checked my watch. It was two-thirty in the morning. The bar crowd was here.

“I’ll be with you in a sec, honey.” a voice beckoned. I turned and smiled as the waitress who had spoken to me hurried by, carrying four plates to a table near the center of the room. I had a few more moments to look around before the waitress flew by me again.

“By yourself tonight?”

I nodded yes.

 “The only thing available is at the counter. Just go find a seat. My name is Linda, I‘ll be back in a little bit.”

“That’s fine.” I replied, although Linda was already moving away carrying a pot of coffee in each hand, heading to the tables and booths.

 I found an empty stool at the end of the counter and sat beside a trucker. He offered a polite nod and then continued his debate with another trucker to his left on whether the President was making a killing on the high fuel prices.

“I’ll tell ya one thing. Bush is smiling every time the price of gas goes up. Every time you step on the pedal, you put more money in his pocket!”

I looked at the booth to my right. Two elderly couples were engaged in quiet conversation. One of the women read from her Bible while the other three listened and jotted notes in their spiral notebooks. The woman passed the Bible across the table and scribbled her own notes as the new reader picked out his own passage.

“Can I get you some coffee?”

Now Linda was standing in front of me behind the counter.

“Yeah, thanks.” “How are the omelets here?”

Linda joked, “Pretty good if you don’t mind a few pieces of shell. Just don’t swallow them and you’ll be ok.” She was smiling as she looked over her shoulder at the cook who was pretending that he wasn’t listening.

After she took my order Linda placed the ticket on the ledge of the wall that separated the kitchen from the counter.

“Need a Denver omelet Gary” she called to the cook. Gary turned and shyly made eye contact, took the ticket, then quickly turned back to the grill.

After another round of pouring coffee, Linda returned and asked Gary for a cigarette. Gary pulled one from the pack in his apron pocket and with an almost reverent look on his face, lit Linda’s smoke. I watched as Gary’s face reddened when Linda flirted with the truckers. His shoulders would tense whenever she laughed at the tired lines that the truckers were tossing at her. Gary would forever be lighting Linda’s cigarettes, admiring her from afar, never working up the courage to step away from the grill and approach her. Linda knew this and would let Gary keep supplying her with cigarettes while she kept an eye out for that man that would someday walk through the front door and take her far away from the smells and colors of the café. Each of them acted out their parts even if they didn’t particularly enjoy them.

I ate my breakfast and watched and listened as the stories of the visitors of the café swirled around me. I felt their disappointments as well as their triumphs. I felt their never ending belief in hope. I knew where they were coming from. I understood them. Their stories were my stories. They were the stories of life as it is presented every night in cafes all over the world, just like this one. The same scenarios, just different actors.

I guess that’s why I like finding places like Delbert’s. Places like this remind me that you may not be on the stage that you wish to be, but there’s always the hope that you can re-write the script until you find the role in life where you feel the most happy in.

If you can do that, then your time on the stage of life will find it’s place among the countless stars that look down upon us, cheering us on to our final curtain call.

Take care.