default diner

short story

The diner is where they go when they can’t decide on where to eat; they eat there often.

It always goes something like this:

“Where you wanna eat?”

“I don’t know, where you wanna eat?”

The car (Toyota Rav4, 2016 edition) smells like weed by way of fabric softener and Axe body spray—the softener from their clothes, fresh out of home appliances purchased by their mothers and fathers long ago, and the body spray from sad attempts to disengage from the awareness that they might smell like anything else.

“You feelin’, like, fast food?” Nick asks.

“Mmm, nah man, let’s sit down?” Marcus stipulates. They speak above the radio volume, which is considerable. It never dips below 20, as though thudding bass were intrinsic to the car’s anatomy and function. ‘Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare)’ by Kid Cudi.

“Maybe, like, somewhere I can get a wrap? A buffalo chicken wrap,” Nick says, his bushy and voluminous hair bouncing in time with the music as he signals over into the left-most lane that will ease them to the predestination.

“A buffalo chicken wrap...I don’t know if I want a wrap.”

Complicating things are the abundance of choices they face on the strip of stroad they cruise along, devoid of sidewalks and parking spots, four lanes across and punctuated with streetlights, a suburban remedy designed to allay the most American of fears: not getting what you want.

The restaurants on offer include: Five Guys, Red Robin, 99 Restaurant, Pizzeria Uno, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Popeyes, MacDonald’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Chipotle, Starbucks, Ruby Tuesday’s, Outback Steakhouse, and Applebee’s.

After some back and forth that includes at least three retorts of “I dunno, where do you wanna go?” in either direction, they settle on the default.

The diner is the compromise because diners have it all. Want a shitty steak? Sure. A breakfast omelet? Alright. You can even get clams at the diner, however inadvisable.

A couple of years later, they (a government, a businessman, aliens, or whoever, et. al.) will tear down the diner and its adjacent lot and put in a Cheesecake Factory.

For now, though, it’s the sole place for a couple square miles that doesn’t have a headquarters in a far away city. It’s called The Spaceship Diner because that’s sort of what it looks like; a rounded square, tube-ish somehow, all chrome and windows in the style of retro 1950s diners, a big revolving sign with a cartoon spaceship on it. Art deco to the max, making sure to transport its guests back to the time when America went to space, when certain demographics felt all dreams were attainable because, well, we went to the moon, damnit.

It’s owned by an angry Greek man who rolls his eyes as they enter because of how they smell. The young men look at each other and grin. Part of the reason they like going there is the absence a “Please Wait To Be Seated” sign. No hostess needs to show them to a table they can see is perfectly empty and clean.

They find a red upholstered booth. A booth provides insulation, protection from other eyes and ears, a tall picket fence.

“How much you wanna bet we get Carla,” Marcus says, picking up a sugar packet and slapping it with nervous energy against the table.

“I don’t know, man. I wish we could choose which waitress we get,” Nick opines, playing one of the creamer cups with his thumbs like it’s a little bongo drum.

“Would you always choose Carla? Every time?”

“No doubt.”

Carla is a regular waitress at The Spaceship Diner, a shapely, good-looking woman who is only slightly and indeterminately older than them and who they are both convinced gives them preferential treatment for some reason despite there being no reason for her to do so. Their assuredness comes from a mix-up in brain signals accompanying their marijuana high which grants latent Oedipal caregiver status to any female that brings them food.

“Would it really be better, though, if we got to choose?” Marcus points out. “Like, how would that even work? They line up at the entrance? Then it’s like, we would pick Carla all the time for...reasons, and then...”

Their waitress comes and shuts them up. It’s an older lady (much older than Carla) who introduces herself in accordance with her nametag: Rosa. She gives them waters and straws in wrappers. When she leaves to give them time to decide their orders, they immediately rip the tops off and blow them at each other. The rule is that if you hit the other on the forehead, they have to pay. Both dodge successfully this time because they are equally stoned. The check will be split.

Rosa comes back with their sodas, which they always order as Pepsis, as no waitress at The Spaceship Diner has ever told them they are a Coca-Cola establishment. They’d be very sorry if they knew this, because they think they know the difference and they think it is important to them.

“I guess sometimes I’d pick Rosa to be our waitress,” Marcus says, after Rosa the waitress very sweetly tells them to take their time with the menus she’s deposited.

It’s a tome, this menu at The Spaceship Diner, presenting an array of problems much like the stroad they pulled in from. Marcus tries to peruse it and decide on something that will satiate the particular sort of hungry-but-not-hungry-but-I-need-to-munch feeling he gets when high, but Nick keeps distracting him with lobs of flicked coffee creamer cups.

Eventually he erects the menu as a barricade, but every time he flips the pages, his eyes glass over their already considerable glassiness.

“It’s exciting, though, to see if we get Carla or not, right?” Nick suggests, discreetly folding up the straw wrapper into a spit ball. “Like a nice little surprise when we get here.”

“Yeah, that’s true I guess,” Marcus says.

Disaster strikes as Rosa returns and he’s yet to make up his mind.

“What’ll ya have?” she asks, pointedly turned to Nick in a manner that is clearly practiced to be indicative as to who should give her the order first and avoid confusion.

“Buffalo chicken wrap,” he says in an assured and mellifluous manner, handing her back the menu.

“And you?” Rosa turns to Marcus. She’s a vet, no need for a notepad, she’ll yell it to the kitchen and they’ll make pretty much anything, on the menu or not.

He opens his mouth, suddenly cottony and dry, or maybe not so suddenly, but noticeable now. A drink from his Pepsi (Coke) to grab some time, in the penultimate second before saying:

“A buffalo chicken wrap as well, please.”

Marcus hates it when this happens, hates it more than anything. It’s a crassness of desire that cannot be helped, an impulse toward mimesis and a sick deferral of choice, the origins of which he traces to some failure within himself he cannot name, let alone begin to heal.

He cannot help but wonder: what would he have picked if Rosa had chosen him to order first?

Nick hits him in the ear with the spitball.

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thanks for reading this story involving a lot of brands. even if you didn’t like it, maybe click the little heart button so that people who might will find it. if you want more, maybe even subscribe.

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BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS:

• What do you think Nick and Marcus’ wider relationship is and how does it affect their choices?

• Do you think an abundance of consumer choice is a good thing or a bad thing for our collective psyches?

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thanks for reading PNP, where we love buffalo chicken wraps. if you liked this story, you might also like my novel, the big T, posted here on Substack:

the big T