The Breakfast Shift at the Usual New York Diner

This la-de-da woman waltzes in. Skinny. Shiny-lipped. Designer facelift.

Lenny, the crabbiest waiter, with his crater face, his cigarette breath, his lady-I-ain’t-got-all-day shrug, shuffles over to her booth.

She, in her crispness, looks up at him in the space of his wrinkled world. Her face cringes like Lenny farted. He hands over a menu, extra sticky.

“No specials today on account of the kitchen got fumigated last night,” he says, “Coffee?” Already, the pot is in his hand, already tilted toward the heavy, no-nonsense mug, the mug with no finesse, no delicate curve to the handle, no hand-painted violets with their provocative twine of leaves.

The tight-assed woman lifts her hand to stop him before the pour. “Cappuccino,”  she says. She sniffs, tries to inhale without breathing in the greasy air around her.

Lenny shrugs and shambles away. “Comin’ right up,” he says, the words tumbling in a mush over his shoulder.

He’s got better things to do. His regulars are here, in their usual places, with their usual orders so that he doesn’t even have to ask, he doesn’t even have to write anything down, he doesn’t even have to refill again and again because he’s left them their own pot of hot coffee on the table. His regulars are his bread and butter, his routine. They make his morning over easy and warm and sunny yellow.

And he’s seen this type before, knows how they want their toast cut into miniature points with those common crusts cut away, how they want the juice fresh squeezed and then sieved to remove the distasteful pulp, how they want their eggs coddled. He knows how they want a cloth napkin and a glass fresh from the dishwasher, and sparkling water and two thin, almost transparent, slices of lime, not lemon. No ice unless it’s finely crushed and catches the light like diamonds.

He holes up behind the counter for longer than necessary, then he brings back a heavier than necessary cup, sets it on the table where the woman is tapping her manicured nails louder than necessary in no rhythm, rather in impatient staccato bursts.

“Cappuccino.” He sets down the chunky mug. One sip, and she’s choking like she’s gonna spew, as Lenny might say. Regurgitate, as the lady might say. Vomir, as she might say if she were in a cafe in Paris.

“You should be ashamed to serve such a vile fluid,” she says. “This would be against the law in France.”

“Lady, it’s diner cappuccino,” Lenny says, “ya gotta understand.”

But this woman doesn’t understand at all, doesn’t even want to. She gathers herself, her oversized purse, her oversized sunglasses, and her oversized huff. She leaves the cappuccino on the table. She leaves no tip. She leaves Lenny without a backward glance.

Lenny wipes down the table, takes the cup back to the kitchen, pours the cappuccino down the drain. He washes his hands, wipes them on his apron. Another customer is in the booth now. He picks up a pot of coffee and shuffles over to take their order.