Just back from a weekend with my father, during which we interred my mother's ashes and had a committal service. About which there will be more, later. But starting before that...
We took a different route from Montreal to central New York this time, driving through Ontario along the St. Lawrence and crossing at Thousand Islands to pick up Rt. 81 south toward Syracuse. It was getting dark as we drove past the wetlands and strange wild edges of the area known as the Tug Hill Plateau, west of the Adirondacks and east of Lake Erie. We were hungry, and decided to pull off at the small town of Pulaski after seeing a highway sign for the "Hometown Diner." It's a depressed working class town, full of yellow ribbons on pickups and "Support our Troops"stickers and flags, with a nearly-deserted old mainstreet of brick buildings and empty shop windows. We parked and got out of the car and, spotting a Chinese restaurant kitty-corner across from the diner, walked down to check it out too. Two teenagers were coming toward us on the dark sidewalk, a girl and a boy, when something fluttered out of a doorway and across our shared path at ankle level. The girl looked twice, exclaimed to her friend, "That was a bat!" and then looked at me as if wanting adult confirmation.
"Yep,"I said. "That was a bat!"
"That's so weird," she said, widening her eyes in mock fear. We moved on. After looking in the window at the grim, faded pictures of Chinese meals, where the egg rolls and noodles had turned an unappetizing green, we chose the diner and headed across the street.
Inside it was bright and smelled like French fries. Two waitresses in red T-shirts were busy running from table to table, while a teenage boy in a similar shirt loaded a dishwasher. We sat down at the counter and looked at the specials. It was Friday - fish fry night - and the short order cook, an older man with a balding head, muscular arms, wearing a white apron, and a surgical glove on one hand, which he used to dip the big pieces of fresh cod or haddock into the egg and flour mixtures, was in a foul mood. The dishwasher boy looked sideways, shook his head, and remarked, under his voice, to the dark-haired waitress, "Boy, he's had it tonight!" We found out later that this had been a record-busy night; everyone was exhausted and the cook, who worked two jobs, had another shift to go to after this one. The waitress brought us coffee and a pot of hot tea for me; J. ordered the hot turkey special and I ordered a fried fish sandwich. "That comes with a side - what would you like? We're out of the macaroni and cheese," she said.
"What's best?" I answered. "Is the cole slaw good? "
"That's my favorite,"she said, with a bright smile.
"Ok, I said, "Sounds good to me."
It took at least half an hour for the cook to get to our order, and in that time we looked at old photos of snowy Pulaski on the walls above the booths, and read all the signs posted over the prep area - there were many - some funny, some admonishing customers not to come behind the counter - "no exceptions!" We learned that the reason was that a number of regulars thought nothing of coming in and pouring their own coffee when the diner was busy, and the owner was afraid someone, including the help, would get burned. We also learned that our waitress's birthday was next week and she was hoping for money; she planned to let everyone at the diner know the date. Meanwhile Jim, the dishwasher, was unloading the steaming sterilizer and carrying on a conversation with a guy at the end of the counter who had come up from New Jersey to do some fishing with his wife. He picked at his dinner and when Jim asked him if he didn't like it, he said he'd had a lot to drink and didn't feel very hungry. He did, apparently, feel like talking.
"You go riding in the winter up on the Plateau?" he asked the kid.
"Yeah," he said. "When there's snow. Last year was a crappy year, but usually it's good." (The Tug Hill Plateau has a reputation for massive lake-effect snowfalls.) "A couple years ago at the Meet there were 20,000 riders up there. It was awesome." Up until then I had been thinking "snowboarding?" but when he mentioned that number it dawned on me that he meant snowmobiles. My mind went numb at the thought of the noise. The visitor asked him what it was like to live up here, and he answered that the only way for people to make it was if both the husband and wife worked.
"Guess I'll stay where I am," said the visitor. "I make good money down there and can come up here when I feel like playing."
Our meals came and were delicious, and she was right, the cole slaw - which had the surprising addition of pineapple - was terrific. We ate and listened to snips of the conversation at the end of the counter, which had turned from snowmobile racing to speeding tickets.
"I've had my license a year and haven't gotten stopped yet," said the boy. I looked at him as he moved skillfully between the dishwasher and the sterilizer, stacking the dishes so the waitresses could pick them up easily. He had an intelligent, good-natured face with the open expression I've always associated with local people in this part of the world, where so little happens in daily life that being social and talking to one another takes primary importance.
"You've got to be careful," said the visitor. "Them tickets can be mightly expensive." I looked over at him and wasn't impressed; he was wiry and had a hard look around his eyes and he'd obviously had too much to drink.
"Oh, I'm not too worried," said the boy, quietly. "My dad's a lawyer and he's good. He just defended this kid who had killed both his mother and his father and he got them off."
"Did you hear that?" I asked J. in a whisper. He shook his head and asked what they'd said; I told him I'd tell him later. I looked back at the boy, who was still working; he had a whole system figured out with the dishes. I had a sudden urge to reach over the counter and take hold of his shoulders and say, "Get out of here! Go to school somewhere and get out of this place before you end up in Iraq. You're a smart, good kid. Don't screw up your life."
Instead, the visitor and his wife stood up and were paying their check. "Hey," he said to the kid. "Give me your number and maybe we can hook up and go riding sometime."
"That would be cool," said the boy, as he fished a pice of paper out of his pocket, wrote on it and handed it to the man. They left and the waitresses rang up the two last checks; it was getting toward closing time. The dark-haired one took our money and turned toward the boy; taking hold of his left shoulder she spun him around so they were both facing the window, away from the customers.
"What are you doing, Jim?" she hissed close to his ear. "You should never give your phone number to strangers. You don't know anything about that guy!" And then, just as fast as she had grabbed him, she let him go, turned around and said, with a big smile, "Goodnight, folks," as she handed J. the change.
"Have a happy birthday," we said, and walked out into the night and drove away.