ESSAY: Nighthawk at the Diner

Published in The Emerson Review, Spring 2009:


I broke up with my girlfriend of three years because I wanted more time to myself. This being the single worst reason a guy can give to a girl, I have to ask: What the hell was I thinking? No closure, easily rectified. For me, though, it was the most honest route. I didn't want to continue the relationship because I didn't want to be in one.

Sexually frustrated, creatively stifled, I was the rogue brown seed ready to pop out of the brittle peanut shell of our shared experience. I played solitaire unironically, went on bike rides without destinations. I caught up on my reading and got ahead on my drinking. I listened to nothing but Tom Waits and Hank Williams. Single friends having slurred their goodnights, my mind its most lucid at four a.m., I began frequenting the only establishment in Boston that would accept me at this hour, in this state.

It's called the South Street Diner, and it is magical. The cooks look like garbage men, the waitresses like buxom housewives on the run. Its mustached owner, Sol Sidell, carries a money clip and probably hides guns in his trunk. The eggs are yellow and runny. Slices of pie are served from a dirty glass case. Lover, where have you been all my life?

The establishment has a long tradition of serving the solitary. Formerly the Blue Diner, South Street was built in 1947 by the Worcester Dining Company to serve local factory workers, gone now following Chinatown's expansion. Under Sidell's management for the last twenty years, the diner now caters to a seedier clientele, after hours and before sobriety. The restaurant prides itself on being the only eatery in the city to stay open so late.

With all Boston bars shut tight at two a.m., it better be. A guy can only take so many shots with his bros before needing a little cuddle time at home. But since I effectively tossed that possibility into the shitter, cuddling up to some pancakes will have to do.

Sleep spells death for the uninspired, boredom for the uncommitted. Stuffing my face at South Street Diner after drinking heavily isn't just the best way to end the night; it's the only option I've got to keep it going. I am often the only party of one present, surrounded by groups of intoxicated students, Chinese businessmen, dainty couples out for a midnight snack, a "rendezvous of strangers," as Waits would snarl. I pick a booth in the corner by the window. The steam billows up from my coffee, openin pores on my face. I bask in the glare of neon lights.

"Hiya, Steph," I croak to the waitress. A half-pack of cigarettes still scorches my breath. "Ready to order." And with a smile, Stephanie restarts my night. Rueben. Fries. Key lime pie. Coffee, keep it coming.

Alex, the former girlfriend, had an obsession with diners. She grew up in New Jersey, where they remain commonplace, not novelties. She immigrated there from Poland at the age of five, igniting a lifelong indulgence in Americana. Bruce Springsteen, horror movies, and muscle cars painted her worldview. The best food outside of her mother's pierogies was available at the nearest greasy spoon down the parkway. For all this reverence, she's not without her opinions. "I hate South Street Diner," she'd say. "The food's overpriced and you can't smoke inside."

Okay. The food is not overpriced by Boston standards or I wouldn't be eating there. And you can't smoke anywhere anymore. So what's the problem?

"It's just not the same."

And so it isn't. I can remember the night Alex and I first realized how we felt about each other. I brought True Romance over to her apartment. She had never seen it. I warned her that the movie is equal parts cheesy and violent, pretty extreme in both cases. She said she could handle it. Early in the movie, future lovers Clarence and Alabama meet at a kung-fu triple feature. Afterward, Alabama says, "You know what my favorite thing to do is after I see a movie? Get a piece of pie and talk about it." It's not five seconds until plucky Patricia Arquette asks sad sack Christian Slater is he'd like to hit up the nearest diner and split a piece of pie with her. They do. They fall in love. And at the same moment, so did we.

Things change. People drift apart. Drinkers become guzzlers. Pie for two becomes pie for one. Grease congeals on my plate and I notice that the key lime pie at South Street is fluffy and sweet, like it should be. In between silent bites, I observe this "graveyard charade," this "late-shift masquerade." People eating and laughing on the cusp of a new day. Myself in the corner, taking it all in stride.