The Treatment

Only two days after my first infusion in Hollywood Beach I decided I had to get out. Had a list of things to do. My 1998 Ranger pickup needed dash and left front running and turn signal lights and I went to get them. There was a Waffle House a mile or so further out and I would try to eat also. It was Saturday morning.

My mind was addled, I don't think I had combed my hair, what was left of it, and with my tooth challenged grin, I avoided grinning, must have looked the bum. Bum service is poor in an auto parts store and the clerk I choose tried to sell me expensive head light bulbs. Correct bulbs in hand I re-entered a very hot Florida and found my Waffle House.

Their was a line but I could see a seat open at the counter and wiggled and excused my way to it. The cash register was on my right shoulder, the dish washer station was directly and eighteen inches in front of me and the room was packed with four languages being spoken in earnest at an appropriate decibel level.

The director stood at the grill with his back to me, always, ten feet to my front and five to the right. First he turned waves of bacon on the grill to his left and then back to the burners his hands lifted again and again in a head bowed benediction to a wire basket above his head where he found two eggs again and again, broke them in little skillets while giving soft orders to his right. There was chaos behind him, fifteen people with a purpose and plates scurried around in that small place.

A Waffle House is not that big and with people spilling in the door of many races it still was well under control. It had a culture, people knew what to expect, there was order in the chaos. " Listen honey", that meant the person on the phone was a male, females were darling, "Listen honey we have people out the door we aren't taking orders over the phone, thanks honey." Klunk! The streaked blond was maning the cash register and phone and chewing something non regulation. Then a black girl, my waitress was over her right shoulder and taking the next ticket while the blond moved left and was washing dishes with dispatch in front of me.

A quick look and then another, longer, "You all right honey?" Not is everything all right. "Everything is fine", she had seen the rivulets on my face but took my answer in stride with a little nod of OK then. After all I was eating my waffle, my mouth was full, I had finished my eggs, bacon and toast, I would not finish the waffle.

You could see results from the chaos. Plates appeared with just the right stuff in front of the right people and everyone behind that counter was purposeful, busy and happy. South Florida had one great Waffle House and I was crying.

Men don't cry at least not from my generation and I was keeping it in except for the tears, my insides were cramping and I tried to breathe thru the waffle but I was crying. Crying with unadulterated joy at just being alive in that wonderful Waffle House with all those wonderful people on a hot Saturday morning, sick as a dog with a thin plastic tube connecting me to the bottle in my right front pocket.