I opened the refrigerator door to get two beers and noticed that even at four in the morning there were still a couple of racks of long-necks left. No food to speak of, but plenty of beer. There was just the two of us left. All the others had straggled home or gone to bed. Judging from the overflowing trash barrels, which were strategically placed throughout the house in anticipation of some heavy partying, the night was a big success. And the house was a mess. We called our little co-operative living arrangement or ‘group house’ ‘Stone Street’, named after the street the house was on. Seemed appropriate. At any given time over the years, as people came and went, there were upwards of nine mostly young people living at Stone Street. Bikers, musicians, roadies, hippies, anti-war activists, Vietnam veterans, working-class heroes, runaways, ex-cons, groupies, even rednecks. Ten hours before, Stone Street was clean. But now the big rectangular table in the kitchen, where we sometimes prepared huge vegetarian meals for 12 people, looked like a bowling alley after an earthquake – dead soldiers milled about in little groups of fours and fives, and half-finished pyramids of Budweiser and Miller cans stood in the midst of empty munchie bags, pop-tops, bottle-caps and overflowing ashtrays.

Kevin took the beer I offered him, twisted the cap off, and lobbed it toward one of the barrels. It bounced off one of the empties and rolled on the floor. He looked at me and shrugged. I sat down again at the other side of the table. A little earlier we had both been waxing philosophical. But now all the talking seemed done, all the universal problems and mysteries had either been solved, or shelved for future nights. The house was quiet – a car whispered by the house. Probably some die-hards, I thought, some night owls like us who are used to being up this late and seeing the world unpopulated.

Kevin asked me if I was hungry. “Starved”, I said, “but there’s nothing to eat”. He looked at me with an amusing gleam but remained silent, as if he wanted me to guess what was on his mind. Then I realized what he was thinking. I said, “I don’t know Kev, it’s awful late”. But Kevin took this reply not as a definite no, but as a probable yes, and he began to tempt me. “C’mon”, he insisted, “let’s go to Egglies… I tell you what… I’ll buy!” He was bribing me! My stomach felt empty in spite of the beer. I knew Kevin had me hooked, but he didn’t have me reeled in… yet. “Maybe Eddie’s daughter is working tonight”, he winked. That did it.

We donned our jackets, grabbed a rack from the fridge, and headed out the door to Kevin’s Cadillac. His car wasn’t much to look at from the outside. It was a big, gold-colored ’67, with a white vinyl roof, which was all rusty and banged up. But the doors, when you slammed them shut, sounded as solid as the day the car rolled off the assembly line. The interior was something else. The few times I’d been in Kevin’s car I could never get used to the feeling of it. I was used to the cold, efficient, spartan interiors of the miscellaneous Chevys, Fords and VWs that I’d owned. The front seat looked nicer and felt more comfortable than the couch in the living room.

The car started up with a deep throaty roar. The dual glasspaks made sure of that. The dashboard lit up in a luminous green; and Kevin had installed some blue courtesy lights under the dash for ‘atmosphere’. The rack between us, the stereo on, an Allman Brothers eight-track tape locked and loaded, the road ahead of us, we headed into the dawn to Eddie’s Diner.

Kevin was driving real slow, as he usually does, when he turned the radio down a notch and took the bottle of beer from its resting place between his legs and raised it as if to propose a toast. He said, “you know, not many people understand me the way you do. I say things to people and they think I’m crazy”.
I said, “well, maybe it’s ‘cause I’m as crazy as you are”. Our bottles met and clinked. We both took a swig.

Kevin continued, “no, it’s not that. I mean, I don’t think you’re crazy, and I know I’m not crazy”. He thought for a second. “Vietnam”, he said.
“What?”, I asked

“Vietnam”, he repeated.

I said, “yea, wasn’t it unreal? It sure put my head in a twist”.

With the beer still in his hand Kevin made a sweeping motion to encompass everything outside the car that surrounded us. He looked at me and said, “this is unreal, man. Do you know what I’m saying? This is what’s putting my head in a twist. Not Vietnam.”

“Jesus, I know. You feel like you kinda don’t fit in, right?”

“I want to go back”, he said.

I thought for a moment, wanting to choose my words carefully. “I sometimes want to go back… but not back in time. The war sucked and I’m glad it’s over. Hell, it’ll never really be over for us, Kevin. But I wouldn’t mind seeing the place again… under more favorable conditions. What’s left of it is beautiful country.”

Kevin shook his head and said, “no man, I mean I want to go back to it all.”
“What in the hell for Kevin? The drugs?”

“No”, he said.

“The women?”, I asked.

“Wellll… not exactly”, he said.

“Not the war?”, I asked.

“No”, he said, “all of it, for all of it. Things were simpler over there. Black and white”, he insisted. “Your enemies were your enemies, your friends were your brothers, the lifers were lifers, the dope was pure and cheap… and all those women… and the nights were never this cold”.

“You really got it bad, don’t you?”, I said.

He looked at me, smiled through his thick beard, and said, “yea”.

We pulled into Eddie’s Truck Stop Diner on Route 1. Open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to cater to all the short- and long-haul truckers passing through the Boston/Providence area. A few rigs were parked alongside. Their diesel engines were kept running in the cold night while the truckers ate inside. We walked in. The four truck drivers at the counter turned their heads our way, then went back to their food. Kevin said, “let’s take a booth”.

Eddie’s never changes. The yellow tile walls that may have been white at one time, the old red-covered pedestal stools at the counter, some of which swiveled and others that didn’t. On the counter was the old green Hamilton Beach mixer, and the pyramid of little boxes of corn flakes, rice krispies and coco-puffs, and the big chrome cow – one nipple regular, the other chocolate and always dripping.

I saw Eddie facing us through the food service window as he worked the grille. Eddie always seemed to be here. I often wondered if he slept, or if cooking was so routine he slept while standing in front of that grille. Eddie looked up from the pile of home fries he was turning over with his grille spatula. Wearing his usual white t-shirt and white apron, he had his perpetual Old Gold Straight hanging from his lips with the ash an inch long. Kevin said, “how ya doin’ Eddie!” I added, “hi Eddie!”

Eddie would say hello somehow without saying it. He never was one to mince words. We sat down.

Eddie’s daughter was working the tables. Cute kid. About nineteen. Real cute. No place for a pretty teenage girl to be, with all the hungry, horny men around. I bet she was the reason for many second cups of coffee. Probably made some of the truckers want to deliver their loads and get home real quick.

“What’ll it be guys”, she asked us as she cleaned off the worn and faded formica table. We always ordered the same thing – we were regulars.

“Scrambled two, home fries, sausage, toast, and coffee”, I said. Minus the coffee, she echoed the order to Eddie. And Kevin, who always called the place ‘Egglies’, ordered, “two eggs over easy, ham, toast, milk, and no home fries”. He always said, “no home fries”, and always got them anyway.

Eddie was fast. Never seemed to take more than forty-five seconds and bang, his daughter’s back, sliding the steaming plates of food to us. Kevin looked down at the home fries on his plate, then looked at me, shrugged and laughed. The coffee was great. Kevin didn’t know what he was missing. I began eating in earnest while Kevin flipped through the little chrome selector for the jukebox that’s attached to the wall. He dropped a quarter in. There was quite a range of selections: Loretta Lynn, Frank Sinatra, The Temptations, The Doors, and even some of Eddie’s favorite Polkas. Kevin punched the letters and numbers for three songs. The Doobie Brothers came up first.

So Kevin starts telling me that he often goes to ‘Egglies’ alone because no else stays up as late as he does. It figured. The only thing I ever saw Kevin prepare at Stone Street, maybe once a week, was a store-bought chicken pie by the brand name of ‘Willow Tree’. Said like some old weathered cowpoke, he’d call it ‘Hangin’ Tree chicken pie’. So he got to talking with Eddie, which was a feat in itself. Eddie told him he’s worked seven days a week for the past seven years – no vacation either. To Kevin, the Lord of Leisure, this was unthinkable. Eddie told him he used to hunt and fish a lot up in New Hampshire.

“Eddie”, he told him, “you should go fishing, get away for awhile’.

Eddie would nod, think, say, “ yea, yea, I know”, shrug, then continue cooking.

So every time Kevin went to Eddie’s from then on he would say, “Hey Eddie, have you gone fishing yet?”

Eddie’s daughter came over and gave each of us a bill. As she walked away I bent my head toward the aisle and said to Kevin, “God, she pretty”. Kevin thumped me on the arm with his hand to get my attention away from her retreating backside. Kevin’s eyes looked tired and old beyond his years. Not just from drinking all night. I wondered if my eyes looked that way to him. Kevin said, “hey you know, about everything we talked about in the car? Let’s just forget about it, alright?” “I already have”, I lied.

We left a dollar tip for the pretty one and got up to pay our bill at the counter. Kevin nudged me, nodded with his head in the direction of Eddie, and said, “watch this”.
“Hey Eddie, you take that vacation we were talking about?”

Eddie looked up, squinched his face up, and shook his head no. He put his spatula down, lit a cigarette and came over to the cash register. Kevin said, “Jeez Eddie, you oughta take a vacation – go campin’ – take the wife, she’d love it”.

Eddie said, “yeh, I’ve been thinkin’ about what you said. Some day soon, real soon”.
“He’s always saying that”, Kevin said, “someday soon”.

A man of his word, Kevin grabbed my bill, paid for both of them, a buck eighty-five each, and we got back into the Caddie.The sun was already up. I said to Kevin, “its sure getting cold out… winter’s coming and I‘ve been thinking of moving south… maybe to Florida”.

Kevin said, “yea, I hate the winter. Ever since ‘Nam, I can’t get used to it”.

“I’d better start saving my money if I’m gonna go”, I said.

A few weeks later we were again at Eddie’s Diner and Kevin asked Eddie the same question. We expected the same answer. It was becoming kind of a game with Kevin and Eddie. But instead, Eddie told us that recently a big restaurant chain offered him big bucks for the land the diner was on.

“Where are you moving the diner?” I asked.

“I ain’t”, he replied.

Kevin said, “what do you mean?”

Eddie smiled. The first time I’d ever seen him smile. He said, “I’m taking that vacation. I’m retiring. I’m going to go fishing and hunting as much as I want. I’ve just about flipped my last egg”.

We were stunned. Kevin looked up at me and said, “no more Egglies?”

I shrugged and said, “no more Egglies”, then whispered to Kevin so Eddie couldn’t hear me, “and no more Eddie’s daughter”.

Kevin shook his head and said, “Jeez, I shoulda kept my big mouth shut”.

On the way home Kevin looked at me and said, “you know, Florida doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.”

.

- © by Mark S. Foley