Ernie's

It's raining this morning. I woke Nick up early. He has the PSAT's today, and he agreed, in honor of this momentous occasion, to actually eat breakfast. Nicholas hasn't eaten breakfast for almost ten years. He gets so nervous before school that he throws up sometimes. For awhile I could get him to eat chicken soup in the morning, but even that started making him sick. My father showed up at 6:15 am , in the dark in the rain, with a thermos of chicken noodle soup for him, but Nick had already agreed to go to Ernie's with me.
Art deco skipped our town: it left one building--Ernie's. Ernie's has green walls and black and white tile and red cushions on its counter stools and oxidizing old chrome on tables and countertops. I go there almost every day I'm not working. My father wouldn't step inside for years, because it used to be segregated, and he had gotten beat up by a couple of KA's in the 50's during a sit-in at the counter.
"I'm not giving them a dime." He'd say.
"It's not segregated any more."
"I don't care. It used to be and I'm not giving them a dime."
"It has new owners."
Eventually, we got him inside, because it was Lilly's birthday and that's where she wanted to eat. There was a middle-aged black couple sitting at the counter, which mollified my father somewhat, but not my mother. "Do the blacks hang out here much?" she leaned in and whispered, in a voice that could carry across a stadium. "You don't want Lilly being noticed by the black boys, they're so much farther along than the white boys. It's very hard for a girl to resist that." That's my mom.

This morning, there were only three people in the diner at 6:30 am. Talen, the waiter, who moonlights as a massage therapist, tattooed with native american symbols and dripping with significant jewelry--you know, stuff that probably has magical powers, that he received in some ceremony at the new moon or something--Racing Dave, who I'll tell you more about later, and Soupy Goldbaum, our town coroner/medical examiner.
Talen, once astonishingly, when Ernie's was really crowded one Sunday, actually felt me up. He edged by me and as he did so, gave my ass a loving, very thorough squeeze. It took a minute to register. I'm not the sort of woman this happens to. I'm sort of rumpled, as I've said before, and nondescript. At the time, I hadn't been on a date in 2 years. I stared at him, flabbergasted. Had this really happened? He gave me a wide grin and handed me a piece of bubble gum. I related this incident later that afternoon to my band (I play fiddle in a band).
"Groped!" James, our lead guitarist yelped. "Haley got groped at Ernie's! Did you like it?"
Actually, yes. Well, in my defense, it had been a very long time since anyone had shown any interest in groping me at all in any fashion.
Well, it never happened again, but Talen still hands me gum and remembers what I order. He's not the reason I go to Ernie's, but he might be one of them.
Soupy looked up bleary-eyed through his spectacles when we got up to leave, he hadn't even noticed us, which was typical. His hair was standing up in all directions. He was wearing a tie and a dress shirt, and typically, had forgotten to button the buttons underneath the tie. Soupy and my father have known each other since college. They're the same age. Soupy's a good man--he put one of my friends through nursing school. He sometimes forgets to tie his shoes, but he's a genius. He's our own CSI guy--I think they should make a show about him: Crockett County CSI. Las Vegas and Miami aren't the only place things happen! He helped me get through my first autopsy, taught me about shoving Vicks into my nostrils, instead of just beneath them, and we've been fast friends ever since. The first thing he said when he met me, in the autopsy room:
"Oh, dear, you look like an extreme vasodilator to me." Then he showed me where the bathrooms were, and every trashcan. I was a little insulted. Didn't I look tougher than that? But then he opened the thoracic cavity of the body on the table, a burn victim, and I started having uncontrollable dry heaves. I made it to the bathroom, but nothing came up. I just kept heaving, as if someone was punching me in the stomach. I started laughing, giggling hysterically, and heaving at the same time. Finally, Soupy came to the bathroom door and knocked. "I'm sorry," I said, laughing and retching at the same time. "I thought so," he said, nodding and handing me an immense jar of Vicks. "For you."
The sleeping girl (that's how I've come to think of her) was a ME hold, if she ever did die. I thought about asking Soupy. He'd know.
"Is this your son?" Soupy asked. "We never see him."
Lilly, whose school starts later than Nick's, is usually with me at Ernie's.
Nick nods and smiles. He's so sweet and shy.
"PSAT's." I explain.
"Good luck! I have to teach today, that's why I'm dressed up."
Should I tell him his shirt's unbuttoned? He looks so pleased with himself I decide against it.
"There's a rainbow outside," Soupy says, with his mouth full, gesturing toward the window with his fork. "Go see it."
Nick and I go outside and stand in the empty wet street. The sky is a weird yellow brown, but, sure enough, there's a rainbow arching over the town.
"Are leprechauns multi ethnic or just Irish?" Nick asks at the register, as I'm paying.
"I have no idea. They're probably mixed by now."
"Do rainbows actually end somewhere?"
"I keep looking," I answer, laughing. Talen takes my hand and places a piece of gum right in the center of my open palm. Then he flicks another piece at Nick. "Good luck on your test."
"Yep."