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.

The Move

I just moved from New York City to Florida. Hollywood Beach just south of Ft. Lauderdale. It's June and its hot and muggy. I drove. In the past when I have driven south I always was on the lookout for the first Waffle House. Ate my first grits at a Waffle House.

Somewhere in Georgia there it was. I was the only customer. It was good. Had to make some noise to get someone to take my money. Other than gas this was my first stop since DC and the only such stop till Ft. Lauderdale. That night just north of Ft. Lauderdale and well past Midnight on I-95 a gray ghost appeared with a high whine, for a second, no lights, the rider leaning to the right a bike slipped past at over 200 mph.

Florida, South Florida, has changed since Arthur Godfrey ruled and I was there selling Paradomes to Montgomery Ward. Murf the Surf had recently found a home in New York after being caught with the Museum of Natural History's Star of India Diamond. His beach bum friends were all still there on Key Biscayne along with Candy Mossier and her defense team and the press. My boss, former member of Murf's posse and me were there too every night. He had flown to Miami while he had me drive a Ford Falcon station wagon, no air, with a Paradome in the back. The restuarant was packed and everyone stayed late eying each other. Candy was the star for awhile then attention drifted to stories of big fast boats, rum running, breaking and entering on the inter-coastal and women.

Florida was hot then too but much more laid back. Boss had a gun runner friend also with Roy Rogers and Nixon as neighbors on Key Biscayne, large house. A modern day Huntsman look-alike of 50 something with a 22 year old Daisy Mae friend, correctly outfitted, who served us spiked lemonade or something that made me very jealous of all things gun runner. His current trade was to Selma.