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?