That's The Way It Should Be, Like A Leaf Is To A Tree, So Fine.

     Only God, me, my mom, dad, brother, sister, grandparents, and a few friends from college know why on God's green earth, I, Evan Lane, would be awake at 5 AM.  I mean to get up, not because I hadn't gone to bed.  For those of you who don't know, it's nothing sinister as my narrative implies.  But as it stood, I was awake.  4:30 AM to be exact.  I grab Ted Dekker's Thr3e and read through to the end, I only had about 50 pages left.  I recommend it, great twists and a suspenseful story.  A bit lame in the slang he uses at times, but that's okay.  I move on to Donald Miller's Through Painted Deserts and read about 6 pages.  I am inspired by his tale of leaving everything to go on a trip to just live.  I fling myself out of bed, get dressed, and am about to fish through the cupboards for some breakfast when I remember Dunkin Donuts.  America runs on Dunkin you know.  I can understand why, their croissant breakfast sandwiches are to die for.  Or to run for.  Whatever.

     I was fresh out of cash so I decide to stop at the ATM before heading to Dunkin Donuts.  I planned to get a breakfast sandwich, coffee, and come back home to sit down and plot out a trip out West.  To the romance of the untamed world, roadside kingdoms, deserted oases, nature preserves unmatched in beauty, somber views of ghost towns that brought both sadness and happiness because like a friend who has watched a friend suffer in their last moments of life, it is known that while we wish they were still here, their presence would be dilapidated, forced, difficult.  This was my plan.  As it were, it was not God's plan.  Right across from the ATM sits a retro diner, Northside Diner.  I hadn't eaten there in ages and decided to go eat there rather than Dunkin Donuts.  The croissant sandwiches could be eaten anywhere at anytime.  I was only home on sparse occasions, and only awake in time for Northside breakfast on even sparser occasion.  I contemplate going home to get a book or newspaper to read.  I decide that I could use the time to soak in the cool atmosphere and just think.  It was one of the better decisions I'd made in awhile.

     I walk in the door to see six old men spread throughout the cafe, some in groups, some by themselves.  Those that sit alone sit far enough away to not intrude, but close enough to be able to commune and share stories when the time called for a recital.  They see me, and all seem to wonder who told the young guy that there is a life that can be lived before 12 PM.  I settle in to a booth near the back.  The seat is uncomfortable and I think about switching booths or sides but decide that I can bear the imperfection.  Further, I must bear it if I want the charm of this place.  It isn't that the place isn't a good establishment.  Only some traits are a bit ramshackle.  The food is not one of these traits, nor is the Wurlitzer jukebox that runs in perfect condition, nor are the framed hit records from different years joined by the original score sheets showing the top 30 hits from that day in that year.  If I was alone I would walk around and read each one, but it seemed that in that situation, not too many men would appreciate my jacket dropping dog hair into their coffee or eggs while I crane to read which song by Dion and the Belmonts or Diana Ross and The Supremes held the top spot.

     A nice woman comes to my table, "Coffee?"  "Yes, please.  Thank you."  I reach for a cream and two sugars.  It tastes delicious, and I peruse the menu.  Looking past Abbot and Costello, scanning just above Frank Sinatra's head, and glancing next to Elvis to realize he's on the lunch page, flip back to to the breakfast section.  Abbot and Costello suggest "Two in the Nest" a hearty dish of two eggs, potatoes and toast as you order them, and corned beef hash.  Coming in close second and third are "Two Chicks Went To Idaho", the same as "Two in the Nest" but without corned beef hash, and "Stacked Chicks", the same but with biscuits and gravy underneath it all.  I place my order and sit back soaking in the charm that our world has forgotten.  I know we haven't forgotten, and that we forcefully repressed the old.  I just prefer to think that we wouldn't forsake something so cool, so warming, on purpose.  I begin to find myself listening to the stories that surround me.

      Gripes about the nature of women, tall tales of when is best to go fishing, how crops are going, dramatic lovers who had a gunfight (I found this hilarious, shame on me), war stories of a personal medical nature (though I know some of them had real war stories too), and other assorted limericks and melodramas worked their way through the room around me.  I smiled with each, and wonder if any of them saw the weird young guy who was not only awake but sat with a queer smirk on his face while they had their day.  I was an intruder, it was clear that everyone else had undergone the necessary hours and initiations to be included as a regular.  Nonetheless, I enjoy my time as an alien.  I come in peace.  I merely enjoy observation.  I don't have any tubes or probes or cameras or forceps.  With my ears and eyes I dissect the little world inside Northside Diner, scraping away the years these men showed in their beard and sagging faces.  I see them with sweethearts, pals, Letterman's jackets.  The Wurlitzer doesn't sit quietly as it does now.  I prod around with my visual tweezers and it begins to rudely play an Elvis tune.  Upon the use of a magnifying glass, the waitress is wearing a long skirt and hair in a mature pony tail.  She wears signature 50's glasses, walks with a dignified kindness, and makes this little place her mission.  People laugh and eat and don't ever consider the fact that they will one day be what I see now.  They are young for eons, and never do they say never.  They are fighters, builders, formers of the world we know now, blazers of the trail the youth of today are straying from with machetes in hand, slicing away the vegetation of society that says "You don't walk here!  The trail is that way!  Ow!"  In a peculiar way, they are following the trail of the people they are wandering from because the past generation did the same thing, as did the one before it.  A generation cannot be called a generation of its own if it doesn't stray and head into certain doom like the past generation did.

     I realize that across the restaurant is a man named Steve DePung.  I don't know how to spell his name but this is how it is said.  Steve taught me how to shake hands.  My mom's side of the family is large and somewhat of a dynasty in my hometown.  I met Steve at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) when some family function rented it out.  I was introduced to hi by my older cousin Mark.  Mark is a Marine, and Steve is a Marine.  I look up to Mark and Mark looks up to Steve and therefore, I look up to Steve.  I shake his hand, saying hello meekly.  His large white beard and stern frame make me shy away from eye contact and a firm grip.  He shakes my limp fish of a hand and stops.  Like a lumberjack he bellows "Hell no!  That isn't how you shake a hand.  You look the man straight in the eye, let him know you're his equal.  Firm grip.  Yeah just like that."  He walked away seeming a bit flustered, unsure of if we will survive the coming decades if youth like me are going to be at the helm.  Later that same night I met another man through my cousin Mark, and put Steve's lesson into practice.  The man seems intrigued and says, "Now that's a handshake.  You're going to be one helluva man someday."  I don't remember his name.  I think it's funny that we remember those who compliment us greatly less than we do those who chastise and teach us something that we didn't know before.  I'm glad this is the case though.

    This is the underworld of my hometown.  Boisterous youth doing pot and having sex behind their parents' back think they are the underworld.  But they're not.  The underworld is something that is forgotten, invigorating, and flagged by the rest of society as wrong.  The six men and few women working this Diner are the underworld.  I am pleased to be able to be a part of it all, if only for a few minutes.  I'm there for a half hour maybe, probably less.  As Steve gets up to leave, I follow him to the register.  After he pays he tells a man a story and in his passion almost bumps into me backwards.  He doesn't notice and I happily move aside a bit.  The man he is talking to notices and grins at me but Steve doesn't turn around.  I pay my bill, 9 dollars.  I pay with a twenty and leave the waitress the rest.  She strikes me as the waitress who cares for each customer as her own kin, and like many mothers, receives far less than she gives.  I know I can't rectify this with a ten dollar tip, but mothers scarcely want more than the occasional show of generosity.  They ought to desire more, but they're mothers and that's why they behave that way.

     I stand awkwardly and wait for Steve to say his goodbyes and follow him out.  Clear of the others, I say "Steve?"  He turns slowly and surely, and I say "Evan Lane."  I shake his hand firm and look him dead in the eye.  "You taught me how to shake hands like this."  He looks a bit puzzled and then laughs.  He doesn't remember me yet, but I'll bet he frequently corrects those who shake hands as though they are sickly.  I continue, "We met at a Ruge family function at the VFW, you know Mark Strudas obviously.  He's my older cousin, he introduced us.  I shook your hand like I was terrified and looked down and you pounced to correct me.  'Hell no!  That's not how you shake hands!  You shake it firm, look 'em dead in the eye.'"  He lets out a big cackle like only an old jolly man with more stories and scars than most other people can.  "I remember that!  Shoot, that was a while back."  I say, "You know, a lot of people have given me advice but none of it has ever been so clear and helpful as the advice you gave me that day.  He lets out a quick breath in a 'hmmm' shape, and says he was glad I told him that.  I go on, "I'm a freshman in college and I'm surprised how many grown men don't know how to shake hands.  There's obviously a lot more to a person than a handshake, but there is a lot that can be told and a lot in our perception of a man from a handshake."  He agrees.  He goes on about how he works with boy scouts at the VFW sometimes still, and I've not the slightest clue where this topic comes from.  Old people do this though, and I appreciate the awkwardness of the moment.  We chat a bit more, and I thank him again.  I  get in my car and leave behind this underworld of smiles and laughter and old friends that exists right beneath the nose of the world that says grimaces and sneers are the new way to go.

     I arrive home and my head swims with inspiration for what I'm writing right now.  I remember, and will for a long time, this trip to the underworld that warmed me inside and reminded me that there's not only a life to be lived before 12 PM, but that it is wholly superior to the life after noon.