I hated eggs as a kid. In any configuration. Scrambled, fried, hardboiled, didn’t matter. Eggs made me gag.
I learned to eat them at the Mini Gourmet, the diner on the corner of Bascom and Moorpark, a block from my cottage. Jack and I ate there a lot, before he went away, and I’d always have pancakes for breakfast. But I watched guys eat their bacon and eggs and was fascinated by their rituals — breaking the yoke and dipping the toast and taking a sip of coffee, then back to the morning banter — there was a rhythm to their breakfast that mine was missing. Not all conventions are suspect.
So one day I ordered two eggs over easy with bacon and hash browns and toast. Jack about shit. I broke the yoke and dipped my toast and sipped my coffee. I became part of a club that’d been denied me. I explored all my options — scrambled, sunny side up, over easy and — after a while (and with the help of salt and pepper and healthy dashes of Tabasco) I found that I’d grown fond of them. And I got to share in a new cadence of exchanges with the waitresses — “two eggs scrambled, bacon and toast, orange juice and coffee” — “anything else Sweetie?” — “no, that’s it, thanks!” I had arrived. I never ate pancakes again . . .
* * *
Weekdays it was men ate early breakfasts there before they started whatever work made up their days. No, you rarely saw women or children there that time of day, those days of the week, always men. Suits, hardhats, shop overalls — all stripes. It was an old school diner with the unwritten rules you’d expect in a place like that.
In those days the suits were not that far removed from the hardhats, generationally. Fathers of the suits were mostly working class, with very few silver spoons. There was a camaraderie evident in the conversations and accommodations — the last gasp of the post-war period in which a common world of handwork and industry supported most men, urban or rural.
Suburban professionalism was a relatively new reality and old patterns still held sway, even in the cul-de-sacs and communities of lazy sameness we’d built up after the war. Even in what was fast becoming “Silicon Valley” — a far cry from the Valley of Heart’s Delight, as the place had been known, before the intrusion of Fairchild and IBM and (later) National Semiconductor and Apple, back when the heady scent of blossoms from thousands of acres of apricot, prune, and cherry orchards perfumed the air each Spring. As a boy, growing up in a suburban development on the edge of an elderly prune orchard, that was a welcome time for me, what with the lovely smell of white and pink blooms on their backdrop of green and leafy canopies, hinting at a future more fragrant than the dreary present I endured then. That’s all gone now. And silicon has no scent . . .
* * *
Tina was my favorite waitress. She had long, thick hair — dirty blonde and straight — and she wore her white blouse tight across her breasts with the collar turned up and unbuttoned just enough — she was workin it and knew it and she loved teasing Jack — he had a beautiful face, despite the pain that imprisoned his mind.
She was slumming. Unlike her regulars, she came from money. Daughter of divorced parents, she drove the Porsche her daddy’d bought her — you get the picture. She pretended to go to college but it was clear that was not her path, at least not yet. She needed to blow off steam. Burn some bridges. Hurt a few and get hurt a few times.
And she was tight with Cindy, an entrepreneurial young lady who sold flowers just down the street from the diner (lady might be a bit generous). Cindy’d cut a deal with some old guy and he let her set her awning up in front of his house every morning, pretty much rain or shine. I’d walk by on my way back from campus and say hey, maybe chat a bit, and sometimes sit with her on one of the cheap folding chairs she kept.
Cindy was rough-edged — smoked Marlboros and stowed beers (and other indulgences) in a cooler under the folding table she used as a sales counter. She had a loud, wide-mouthed laugh that revealed an unpretentious credulity that was (oddly) in concert with her streetwise sensibility — she had eyes to see with and marked things well — yea, Cindy was a lot smarter than people gave her credit for. I admired her.
She wore her strawberry blonde hair long and mane-like, and had a habit of flipping it in just that manner that showed off its luster — and turned guys on. I was sure it was unconscious. She had an unrepentant, earthy sexuality that smelled of thighs wide and backs arched and bite marks on shoulders and necks. Cindy made no bones about her appetites. She knew how to work and everyone (everyone) eventually succumbed to her native cheer — its guttered provenance aside.
Tight jeans and low cut tops, selling flowers to all sorts — and weed and pills to them that knew — she was an unabashed sort, full of energy and it wasn’t just the speed. She had a lot going on. Despite the limits of an upbringing imposed upon her unawares, and the obligations and requisite rituals that worked to define her days — given who she hung with — she harbored ambitions beyond cut flowers and baggies of pot. Her wheels were turning. She knew to plan and had been gifted with both perseverance and patience. She’d make her own way despite the bounded corridors society demands that people travel together. That was clear.
And setting up shop and selling flowers where she did was no accident. Across the street was the county hospital. And the methadone clinic. Flowers for those heading to hospital bed visits, and weed for the junkies leaving the clinic by the back door. Brilliant really, and she did a banging business on all counts. Cindy was always thinking.
She was streetwise and used her savvy to tap connections for product to move. With a confidence born of native grit bolstered by the muscle she knew she could rely on, she tended her domain of opportunity and intent, wheedling bottom feeding dealers down in price and marking up her profit to gain the margin that she wanted. Yea, she was always thinking . . .
On occasion her boyfriend would haul up on his hog that he’d named Scoot, wearing his colors, and checking to see if she had time. Him, off work early and wanting some, and she was always horny anyways. If I was there to mind the store she’d straddle the seat, widelegged behind him, bikerwife style, and they’d be off, long hair streaming (ponytailed now) and engine roaring and rear tire spitting gravel til they made the pavement. She’d be gone for an hour or so while I held her fort down, taking in cash and drinking her beer in compensation for my time. I rather enjoyed it — no real responsibility, just write down what got bought so she could track her inventory — licit and illicit. I got to trade good vibes for cash and Cindy — well Cindy got to fuck her man.
Everyone came away smiling.