boom-down dead

This morning the B and I headed out of his small town to the small town down the road. The mission was breakfast. We knew of a place a few miles away that seemed like a good bet for a breakfast--a place that, from the outside, looked very much like the Wagon Wheel in Kato town, where you could lay a nice solid foundation of grease in your post-beers-in-the-garage-until-4-a.m.-stomach for all of three dollars, or the Blue Benn Diner, where I, for one short summer, spent every morning I could afford face-planted in buckwheat-blueberry pancakes and fake sausage.

The Eat-Mor delivered--yes, my omelet hung over the edge of the plate; yes, it was cooked on a flattop a few feet from where the B and I sat on faded red stools; yes, there were all of sixteen places to sit at the counter, worn smooth at the edges where countless elbows had been propped; yes, the owner's wife brought me bad coffee; yes, there was an illustrated dictionary, copyright 1972, and a single hunting magazine offered up as reading material.

A lot has been said about small-town places like this, and a lot about the joys of eating local and slices of Americana and stepping back into the old days, blah blah blah. I know it's nothing new to marvel at the experience that is sitting at a lunch counter in a tiny diner right off the river and listening to the locals talk about the recent weather (rainy), the current president (can't believe he won't just issue rebates for everyone--talk about stimulating the economy, heck, give me sixty thousand dollars and I can stimulate the economy), the burgers coming off the grill (fresh-shaped this morning; any that don't sell before 1 p.m. go into chili for the next day).

But you know, it's still pretty cool that these sort of places exist--that they haven't been done in entirely by Perkins and IHOPs. And if they are in Wisconsin, in small-town Wisconsin, the conversation is delivered in an accent that is oddly nasal and vowel-centric. It's not the Minnesota accent, and depending on your location in the state, it can vary--suffice it to say that it is delightfully Midwestern. And it is entirely enjoyable to sit back and let the conversation swirl around you while you wait for your ham-and-cheese omelet to be up.



The old guy next to us, wearing a WWII cap, wanted to talk about everything--his wife, dead seven years, who used to collect owl trinkets and filled their trailer with "all that owl crap," deer ticks, Lyme disease, how long horses live, turkey hunting up nort, do I know anyone who collects owl stuff, especially owl salt-and-pepper shakers? But then the conversation turned to dead people, and in particular the guy who had suffered a heart attack just last week. And fell off the same stool the B happened to be occupying.

"He was here a week from Thursday," said the owner, flipping the American fries once and replacing the grill press. "He came in and said he wasn't feeling well. Then he came back on Saturday to eat and boom-down! He fell off the stool."

The old guy looked at the B. "And he was a big guy--taller than you, even." The B and I both looked behind us. There was approximately three feet between the stools and the front wall. It was hard to imagine a six-foot-three guy wedged in there, having a heart attack. It was harder to imagine how the EMTs would get in there and treat a guy wedged in there, having a heart attack.

"Two ambulances came," said the owner. "And there were cops, too. Sixteen rescue people in here and not letting anyone leave."

"Hoo," said the old guy.

"They shocked him twice here and once on the way to the hospital," said the owner. I briefly reconsidered the giant plate of eggs and cheese I'd ordered. "Now he's in intensive care."

"Nooo," said the old guy. "They said he died. Yesterday." He jerked a thumb at the street behind us. It was unclear as to what either the they or the yesterday was in reference to.

"No, he's not dead. Not unless he died yesterday," the owner said. "He was alive yesterday."

"See for yourself," said the old guy. "They said he died."

The owner set down his spatula. "I'm going to call," he said. He disappeared behind two swinging doors at the end of the counter.

The old guy looked at us. "Craig died too," he said. "He was cutting somebody's hair and then--phbbttt!" He made a farting noise. "Dropped dead."

"Huh," said the B.

The owner reappeared. "Well, either he died or he's been transferred to Madison," he said. "'Cause I called Fort and they said they don't have a patient by his name."

"Dead," said the old guy.

"If he was in transit," the owner said, coming back to the grill at our end of the counter, "they'd have said in transit." He flipped our breakfast onto waiting white plates. "Who had the omelet?" I said I did.

We dug in and chewed for a while. The old guy and the owner chatted amongst themselves.

Then the owner's wife, who had been listening down at the other end of the counter during Is-he-dead-or-isn't-he exchange and had disappeared, came triumphantly through the swinging doors. "He," she said loudly, "IS NOT DEAD." Everyone turned to look at her.

"I called Barb at the paper," she said. "No calls in this morning."

"Well," said the old guy.

"Well," said the owner. He plated two bacon cheeseburgers for the guys down by the register.

"Well," I said. The matter had been settled--the woman in charge of the obits had no record, so the guy wasn't dead. Not yet, anyway.

The old guy got up. "I'm going," he announced. "See you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," said the owner. His wife brought us a box for our leftovers. We paid and left. I held the screen door so it wouldn't slam.

"That was ... awesome," I said. The B nodded, and we drove down the street, back in the direction of Whitewater and the stack of papers waiting for him. I looked out the window. We passed Craig's Barber Shop. In the glass door was a white sign: Craig's Barber shop is closed. Thank you for your patronage.