One Good Turn

I completed a four-day trip to my hometown in North Carolina, and back – and, as usual, there is so much material to write about that I mysteriously can write nothing at all. Just as when a tree bears more fruit than a busy, satiated person can consume – I feel glutted by the incidents and want to turn away from writing for a while. The most insignificant of them, however, is the thing that elbows me . . .

It’s the Waffle House experience. There was a retired sort of fellow who had been hired to be a “greeter” there; he was thin and dark around the gills, but full of energy and the seriousness of his job – he jumped to open the door for me in salutations of Good Morning! and Welcome to Waffle House! as I approached the door with my newspaper before the last 100-mile run of a 500-mile journey. He hurried to the only remaining table – a booth – where he cleared away plates and wiped the table clean, beckoned me to sit down while placing the plastic menu on the wet Formica top. I knew what I wanted as soon as the buxom woman with the raspy voice came over with the coffee pot and the honey moniker which she gave to everyone. She yelled out the well-rehearsed codes and equations that represented my order to the cook – and though he never acknowledged hearing her, she never doubted that he did.

I felt my kingdom undeservedly rally round me as I spread out the newspaper and she placed my drinks of coffee on one side and orange juice on the other – and I noticed the 6 people crammed into the 4-person booth in back of me and the 5 people crowded into the other booth in front of me. It was later, when my food was almost ready, that she apologetically leaned over and said, “Honey, now don’t feel ye need to do this, but would ye mind if we moved ye to a spot at the table o’er yonder so those four men might have a seat – but now honey, ye don’t need to 'cause it’s yer booth and ye was here b’for ‘em – don’t feel ye need to, honey.” And I saw four burly men standing outside the Waffle House talking to the friendly greeter because there wasn’t room for four such big men to stand inside the doorway while waiting for a seat . . .

So I said that I already felt guilty for having so much space to myself and that it would be fine to move – “Honey, ye don’t hafta . . . “ she repeated.  I want to, and I was already trying to manage the coffee and newspaper when the friendly greeter came inside to help me with my orange juice and to escort me to my new, made-for-one, cozy seat in the back – and he gave me his profuse thanks all the while we walked – my generosity and such . . . No, not at all, I’m happy to . . . that sort of thing, back and forth.

My kind waitress brought the food and continued to care for me, even though this wasn’t her station, and she gave me thanks each time so that my new neighbors began to understand the story. That’s when I took notice of the corner where I was sitting – which had at one time been the "smoker’s section" of Waffle House, I presume – that is, before the laws in NC were changed last year to prohibit all that smoking indoors.  But the smokers still remained – but without their "fix" – for they all had the eyes of withdrawal and trauma and reproof – eyes that had settled into sockets like sludge in a pond – suspended – eyes that reposed and fixed upon me – perhaps because of the animation I gave to eating and turning pages while they sat with fingers rendered motionless by the Law.

My waitress came back frequently to refill coffee and ask how I was doing. One of those times she swooped up the check and said, “Honey, ye don’t hafta pay this – they insist – now don’t ye say a word about’t ‘cause they insist” – and she was gone with my check and the coffee pot before I comprehended what she had meant by “they” and “insist” – that the four men had insisted on paying for my breakfast because I had given up my spacious booth for them . . . and what would I have said anyway?

I sat finishing my meal and drinking my coffee, all the while contemplating what I ought to do next – and all the while sensing that the smokers without their smokes were thinking the same thing – what’ll she do next? And then I came up with the plan to leave a nice tip for the friendly waitress since I felt the need to pass it on – this generosity of spirit. But I was not sitting in her station but rather in the smokers’ waitress’s station – and she had not yet acknowledged me. I think she had somehow taken on the demeanor or outlook of the smokers in her care – for she had large, dark pools around her eyes and a fishlike emptiness in her mouth, and she moved very slowly too. And so, after much thought, and as my perpetual onlookers waited in anticipation, I decided that when I left I would thank the table of four men and give them the tip large enough to cover the cost of my meal so they could “add it to the tip” for our waitress – and so I did, thanked them, and left the tip for our waitress with them – and of course they said they were more grateful than I was for having the booth to sit in, and that they would gratefully give her the tip – but then she passed by to refill their cups, and then she became grateful – and the booths full of people to either side noticed the exchange and, like ripples spreading in a pond, they too began to smile. I was feeling in the center of things too much, and so I began to back out of the door, but ran into the friendly greeter who in turn began the gratefulness cycle once again – and I said, No, you are the one who started this whole wheel turning with your friendliness at the door – and he just smiled as though already understanding the seriousness of his job – and it seemed the whole place became abuzz with gratefulness. When I looked over to the smoking section, I saw a different kind of trans-fixation in the eyes – they were still transfixed, but it was almost like someone had budged them loose from their orbit just a little bit and they had been able to move their eyes to a place outside their own realm for just that instant.

I emerged from the magical Waffle House and got into my car, feeling that I had just left some swirling tunnel of light – a kaleidoscope where various colors will mix and match, one upon another, to form patterns of hearts or clovers, stars, rings or golden links – the more you turn it . . .

It seems like such a small experience – and I really have more important ones to write about, ones that could add to the book I’m working on but can’t settle into this morning. I felt a curiosity as to whether the place really existed or was just a figment of my imagination – and so I got online to find it – and there it is – The Waffle House at 164 Tunnel Road – really – in Asheville, North Carolina.