The Regulars

I used to work at a diner as a teen. The characters I encountered there, both customers and coworkers, fascinated me then and continue to haunt me eleven years later. What follows is a glimpse at a few of the frequent customers, or regulars, who formed an integral part of the colorful landscape that was "Daisy's Diner."

On Sunday mornings, a motley bunch of regulars descends on Daisy’s Diner. Sometimes we get to know their names.

Shorty is a skeletal old man with exceptionally bowed legs who limps in at exactly six-thirty every day of the week, clad in a tattered denim jacket, equally worn blue jeans, and russet-colored cowboy boots. You can’t live in Mayville for long without noticing Shorty. He walks miles across and around the town each day, first to Daisy’s for breakfast, then here and there on errands, followed by a stop at the Shanghai Café for lunch, then on to St. Mary’s for evening mass, and finally to Bob and Millie’s house on Tree Street for dinner. From time to time, I pass Shorty on my way home from Daisy’s after my double shift. He’s just left Bob and Millie’s and is making his way home, a few streets west of my place. I honk my horn and wave, but never offer him a ride. Shorty hasn’t set foot in an automobile in over a decade, not since he killed a little boy on his way home from the Westridge Pub one evening.

Slick Sam shows up around eight with his brood of bastard children. He’s thirty years old and already has six kids with four different women in Mayville. Sam is the owner of Slick Sam’s Auto Body Shop on Union Street. He also sells weed to a few of my neighbors, so I see him frequently, creeping up the drive in a glossy red and white Corvette. Every Sunday, Sam picks up each of his kids from his baby mommas’ houses and takes them out to breakfast. He always makes a grand entrance, showing off each child to the waitresses and grinning smugly as if he’s expecting someone to crown him Father of the Year at any moment.

Maud is a middle-aged librarian whose astonishing obesity requires some foresight on the part of the restaurant staff. Each time she comes in, the hostess keeps her entertained for a few seconds while one of the busboys adjusts the corner booth so poor Maud can squeeze in. We began doing this after an incident three months ago. Maud was maneuvering her gut in the most fantastic fashion so as to fit into her usual booth when her colossal ass hit a nearby toddler’s high chair and sent the poor kid flying across the dining room and smack into the arms of a waiter who was carrying several bowls of oatmeal. We have tables and chairs, but Maud insists upon sitting in the corner booth. Whoever said that the customer is always right must have been a first-class dumbass.

There are nameless regulars whom we know only by what they order. There’s the hot chocolate guy, who reeks of sweat, beer, and cigarettes and comes in every Sunday morning to drink exactly four cups of hot chocolate. He has a long, gray beard and resembles a down-and-out Santa Claus. Peggy always serves the hot chocolate guy because she’s the only one who can stomach him. He sits at the counter for two to three hours, sipping his cocoa, talking to a filthy  little stuffed panda, and plucking hairs from his beard. After he’s finished his fourth cup of hot chocolate, the old man tips Peggy six quarters and a carefully arranged pile of coarse facial hair.

The seven peppers man is a professional panhandler. He’s not actually homeless.  He lives in a shabby little duplex two blocks away, which he pays for by begging outside the shopping mall downtown. Every Sunday around noon, the old man barks his order at Dolly, the timid waitress who works the counter. “YOU LISTEN HERE! WRITE THIS DOWN SO YOU GET IT RIGHT FOR ONCE. I WANT A TUNA SANDWICH ON SOURDOUGH WITH EXTRA TOMATOES AND SEVEN PACKETS OF PEPPER! SEVEN PEPPERS, YOU HEAR? NOT FIVE, NOT EIGHT, BUT SEVEN PEPPERS!” When Dolly nervously asks the old curmudgeon whether he wants his food “for here or to go,” he scoffs at the question and replies that if he stays, he will have to tip her “sorry ass.” The seven peppers man is not the tipping kind.