HOWARD JOHNSON’S

Late 1970s.

Dusk

No customers…yet

I’m behind the counter

Wiping it

For like the fiftieth time

Wiping

Waiting

Wiping

Waiting

I and my nerves have been here for three days

At my first ever restaurant job

Tonight…not so bad

I’m not shaking

I’m waiting and wiping

Tonight I am not a mess

Okay Yes I am

I’m a clotted mess

I hate this

I am a jerk

A Soda-Jerk

Wearing an ill-fitting white chef’s coat and a paper hat and a name tag that reads ‘Ernesto’ because the powers-that-be here have yet to decide if I’m Howard Johnson material and when they finally decide that I’m one of the gang, then and only then will I get my name on my very own name tag, and in the meantime, I have absolutely no fucking idea what the hell I’m doing.

Why did I tell them I had 17 years experience?

Oh well

Lies got me here

Lies will see me through

A single lady walks in and slides onto a stool on my otherwise empty counter

Here we go, you soda jerk, buck up: She’s all yours

I caution a look.

She’s 75 maybe

Black felt skull cap

Shoulder-length silvery blond hair

Large square sunglasses

Gray leather gloves

No…

White leather gloves, sooty and soiled

Thread-bare shawl over expensive black jacket

Thin layer of grime

And

There’s that odor

Not mothballs

Decaying Elegance?

She takes up two stools: one for her, one for her bag

I don’t know why, but it bothers me

So

I shall playfully tease her

I point at the stool

“Saving that for someone?”

Startled she blurts out:

“No. I am alone. Always alone.”

I get the feeling she didn’t wish to say that because it was said with a touch of deep sadness.

I’ll let her off the hook.

I approach

Carefully

“Well, be that as it may,” I say, “Good evening.”

She says: “You have your opinion. I have mine.”

Bit of an accent.

German?

Swiss?

I stare at her because I am affronted by her brusqueness

And it’s my job to stare at the customers until they order

I venture into the melee

“So how are we, tonight?”

She snaps to seated attention

Shoulders back/Chin high

Like someone just shouted “Action!”

“I’m cold.”

More a regal announcement than a plea for warmth.

“I don’t know how to turn up the heat,” I say.

I am given the once-over.

“No doubt,” she says. Behind her sunglasses I sense rolling eyes.

“I was just saying that I don’t think I’m permitted–”

“And I was saying that I wish for something hot to drink.”

“Oh. Okay. Coffee?”

“Too common.”

“Tea?”

“No. No! No!! Even worse.”

Her immediate needs are not being met and it’s pissing her off. I’m not playing this right.

Oh, I know–

I say:

“Oh, I know. How about our Hot Chocolate? It’s quite good. I just had a cup.”

An acquiescent silence. Her lips move imperceptibly.

I can’t read her.

Is she attempting to convince herself to take the Hot Chocolate?

Or

Is she quelling a revolt of her dentures?

Maybe if I offer something else?

There is nothing else

Sunglasses off. Her pale-blue, stained-glass eyes are upon me. I can practically see the cataracts shifting

“Well?” she says.

I know that tone

She must’ve been Catholic once

Possibly a nun

“Hot! Chocolate!!” an exasperated demand.

“Oh. Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay…with the Hot Chocolate, Ma’am!”

Momentarily satisfied, she slowly removes her gloves. Finger by finger. Taking her time for emphasis, or because they’re really old and hard to slip off? She snaps the left one off and waves me away with it

I get to work

Hot chocolate is a breeze. All I gotta do is press the red button on the Hot Chocolate Machine. And remember to put a cup under the spigot.

This time I remember the cup.

A moment passes.

Another one.

We’re now at thirty-seconds…

“You had suggested Hot Chocolate?” she says.

“That I did.”

“Well?”

“It’s coming.”

Dear Lord, I forgot to press the red button.

I press the red button.

The Hot Chocolate machine shudders and whirs and spits cocoa powder.

The lady impatiently folds herself into a gnarled leafless shrub with sharp elbows and a twig-like finger pressed against her lips.

The machine stops.

It has miraculously produced a foamy, creamy cup of steamy hot chocolate.

I place the cup on a saucer.

Add a spoon…

“Whipped cream?” I say.

She nods.

I hope it means, Of course!

I Reddi-Wip her cup, heaping it high

Place it in front of her

“Enjoy!”

“Enjoy what?”

I point to her cup.

“How do you expect me to “enjoy” when you hold back the whipped cream?”

She throws her head back and hits me with:

“You stupid boy…”

…making sure to let me know that there are two syllables in “stupid.”

I grab and hold firm the back of her head and shove the nozzle of the Reddi-Wip can up her nose and squeeze 16 ounces of fake whipped cream into her brain

But no, I don’t

Instead I top off her cup. She regards the heap of whipped cream with dis-belief. She holds out a defiant spoon and bangs it against the Reddi-Wip can.

What the fuck?

What is she doing?

She bangs her spoon against the Reddi-Wip can again. But this time it’s a rapid assault.

Clank Clank Clank

I get it and squirt a heaping dollop of whipped cream onto her spoon.

She jams the spoon into her mouth.

Swallows without savoring.

Then she leans over, open-mouthed, and in one ugly gulp, sucks up all the whipped cream that sits atop her hot chocolate. She sits back, picks up her cup, holds it like she was the dowager in a Russian novel.

Is that a raised pinkie I see?

She manages a tiny sip and laps at her lower lip with a pointy tongue.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” I say.

“I do not need convincing.”

Not letting things go has always been one of my major bugaboos.

I say,

“Are you okay? I mean you seem very angry. And sad.”

Long pause.

Her lips are moving again

Like she’s trying to remember her lines.

“Where is my check. I must go.”

I quickly write-up and place the check in front of her on the counter. She drops a couple of bucks on the check, gathers her things, stands, and without looking at me, says,

“I am not ‘okay’”

Kimmie the short snotty waitress with the big head returns from break, smelling like a menthol cigarette. She spots my Lady in a holding-pattern at the counter.

“Ah, you waited on the queen.”

“Yeah.”

“Why she standing there acting like she just seen something bad”

“I asked if she was okay.”

“She’s not, you know.”

Kimmie leans in and whispers: “She thinks she’s Greta Garbo.”

My lady can’t get her gloves on. She shoves them in her purse, and walks off

She stops in the foyer, looks in my direction but doesn’t want to be caught looking in my direction so she doesn’t really look in my direction, merely scans the panorama, then exits through the heavy glass doors.

Outside on the street, she stands still for a moment, fixes her hair, looks about her, makes a decision, and walks north.