The day before, I was in Casper, Wyoming. My savings were getting low so I was hitching rides instead of taking the bus. It'd been slow going, although people seemed a little more inclined to pick up a stranger in the winter, so that had been working in my favor. The plan was to hitch down to San Diego. I wanted to be some place warm for a few months, and I've spent enough time in the Gulf states in previous years. Time for something fresher. I stayed the night in a little motel where a trucker dropped me off, just south of town on Hwy. 220, then in the morning I stepped out of my room into the frosty dawn and headed to a diner across the highway to get a hot breakfast before catching another ride. No telling how long I'd be standing in the cold with my thumb out.
I held the diner door open for a tiny old woman with a huge black purse who was just getting there as well. She acknowledged my gesture with a curt nod, moving in that slow, hobbling gait the elderly use. The one that lets you know that they've spent a whole lifetime hurrying to get places and they aren't going to let themselves be hurried anymore, that's for damn sure. I figured anybody who moves that slow had to be a local. No way to get her to travel too far from home. Probably took all day to run a couple of errands. Her silvery hair was permed close against her skull and she wore black horn-rim glasses, and a thick black sweater. A dark gray skirt, wool maybe, with a hem below her knees, baggy dark stockings, and low-heeled black shoes. A study in monochrome.
She stopped inside the door, looked around, a determined set to her jaw. A waitress hustled by with a pot of coffee and a plate of French toast, said we could sit anywhere. There was a long counter with chrome bar stools, and booths against the window on both sides of the door. A scattering of customers filled in some of the blank spots in a few of the booths. A trucker wearing a greasy Peterbilt hat and a vest over a plaid shirt sat at the end of counter down to the left, nearest the restrooms, wolfing down an omelet.
I waited to see which way the old woman wanted to go. She turned left. I turned right and took a seat in a corner booth where I could see the front door. The old woman stopped. She peered at the booths ahead of her. Then she rotated herself in a circle, counter-clockwise, a half step at a time. First one foot, then the other, until she faced in my direction. She studied the booths on my side of the diner and hobbled forward until she made it to a booth bathed in the weak winter sunlight coming through the front window. She swung her huge black purse onto the seat, hitched it over to make room for herself, then sat down with her back to me, two booths away.
The waitress came back and scribbled down the old woman's order, poured her a cup of coffee into a mug, one of two already on the table. She called the old woman "Pearl." A local, no doubt about it. Next she came to my table. There were two coffee mugs on my table, just like Pearl's. I nudged the one in front of me toward the waitress.
She poured. I ordered. "The pancakes, and hash browns with the sausage links. Thanks."
"Be right back with that." She gave me a quick friendly wink, and hustled away. If it was a bigger tip she was hoping for, she'd get it. I'm a sucker for the wink.
Pearl was fidgeting in her seat. She had her back to me but I could tell by the movements of her shoulders and upper arms that she had a napkin or something in her hands and she was twisting the hell out of it. Her glance kept going out the window and I got a good look at her profile. Pearl was probably never what you'd call a beautiful woman. Her features were course, broad, but there was a dignity and strength to them as well. Her jaw was working as though she was biting back the words of an argument she wanted to have.
The waitress came back with a bowl of oatmeal for Pearl, then a few minutes later she was at my table with my own breakfast. She laid it out in front of me with a smile that implied there was no place she'd rather be.
"Let me know if you'd like anything else," she said. I was leaving town, so I didn't tell her what else I'd like.
For a while the only sounds in the place were some tinny big band music over the diner's sound system, and silverware scraping on ceramic. Then at the far end of the counter, the trucker swore and slammed down his fork. The waitress approached him hesitantly.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"You tell me! Is this roach part of the omelet? What kind of place are you running here?"
"I'm so sorry, sir! Can I get you another omelet? No charge?"
"No, you can't 'get me another omelet!' You think I want to have more after almost eating a damned cockroach?"
Heads were turning to look by now. A cook came out from the back, wiping his hands on his grease-stained apron. He was a short, Hispanic man with a thick accent. "What ees the matter?"
"He says he found a roach in his omelet," the waitress replied.
The trucker slid back off of his stool and said, "When I get back to my radio, I'll make sure I let every rig on the interstate know to stay away from this place!"
The cook said, "Please. There ees no charge for your meal. Next time you come, you have whatever you wan'. We don' wan' no problems. Please."
"Well, you got a problem!" With a sweep of his arm the trucker cleared his place setting and coffee mug off the stainless steel countertop. The crockery shattered on the tile floor, the noise making the other customers flinch in their booths. He turned and stalked toward the door.
He stopped short.
I was standing in his way. The diner was quiet, everybody watching to see how this was going to play out.
"You don't want a free omelet," I said. "Maybe you're upset and you lost your appetite. I get it. But you're not walking out of here without paying for those dishes."
"The hell I'm not!"
He was an average sized guy. Average height, average weight. Which made me more than half a head taller and fifty pounds heavier. He couldn't get around me unless he pushed me aside. Wasn't going to happen.
He glared at me. I looked back at him, nothing but love for my fellow man on my face. There was a patch stitched on to his vest that read, "Ron" in embroidered cursive letters.
"Ten dollars to get by, Ron."
His face was turning red, a vein on his forehead, throbbing and pumping furiously. He stood there for another five seconds or so, then he pulled a leather wallet out of his hip pocket. A thick silver chain fastened the wallet to his belt.
He pulled out a ten dollar bill and slapped it down hard on the stainless steel counter, then he spit on the tile floor and turned back to face me.
"You didn't leave a tip," I said.