Breakfast With Champions
january thaw left the skiing iffy in vermont, all gray corn snow and frozen slush
so me and mike we head for sun valley, idaho where the sky is vivid blue and the snow piercing white but in between that midgut of the country, that bread basket prairie lying low
and featureless that interstate endless, somewhere around peoria
the car actin’ kinda funny stop at a gas station see what’s up
ya need a new starter the guy whose greasy shirt says he’s bob
i can get it going for you now, but yer gonna have some problems down the road.
so we take off. let’s make des moines by tonight, the landscape flat, road straight.
not a tree not a stick sometimes a distant grain elevator
the ground is white, snow sky is white, horizon a faint pencil line between them.
now a snow fog rises up can’t see it’s getting late we’re really tired.
des moines not far but how ‘bout we just pull off on the shoulder
take a rest, oh but it’s colder than a witch’s you-know-what
vw heater doesn’t work, feet are ice even with double socks.
among skis, snowshoes find the gas heater pilfered from a ski lift hut
fire it up so our toes don’t freeze off, but don’t breathe the fumes
get toasty then turn it off n’ try for some shut eye.
bright morning hear somethin’ look up and it’s an iowa state trooper peerin’ at me
over aviator sunglasses. he says can’t stay here in the shoulder of the interstate
not gonna fine a coupla hippies like you, but get movin’.
so o’ course the starter decides to crap out, he calls for a tow n’ the tow truck brings us to
a sinclair station the one with the friendly green dinosaur and the red sign
right outta your childhood still plenty of ‘em here in the midwest.
greeted by a guy whose clean shirt says he’s delbert. has a big smile, easy going, friendly like in a twitchy kind of way. yup, bob from peoria was right. ya need a new starter.
we’ll have it for ya in coupla three days. see there’s a big ole truckers strike and the national guard is at every highway crossroad makin’ sure nothin’ bad happens and that independents and emergency crews can still move. them truckers is mad as hell, have guns.
gonna take few days to get that part what with daily blizzards and white outs.
sit tight. ya kin stay right here at the station all day. motel a coupla miles from here but with no car, better we find a place for you to stay tonight dontcha worry.
we bide our time, no place to get food we’re right off the exit ramp snow is knee deep.
delbert shows me how to make a fresh pot of coffee, says don’t clean the pot too much.
he’s wired on maxwell house ever since his wife left him.
so we drink as much as we want, then i’m feeling kinda jumpy
i’m reading this new kurt vonnegut book in hardback it’s called breakfast of champions.
this guy kilgore trout is headed to midland city and i realize i’m livin’ this book about the flat flat
of the midwest this is crazy. and there’s even a fictional extinct giant bird.
then i stare at that sinclair sign with its dino the friendly green dinosaur
i’m wonderin’ how they came up with that old logo, prob’ly in the 1930s
and why they picked a herbivore. guess not as aggressive as t-rex plus it ate plants
and shit out plants in the jurassic and that became petroleum
made mr harry sinclair a wealthy man in a bygone era.
i’m getting punchy the caffeine is talkin’ and feel like i’m in a different epoch
maybe the pleistocene and we’re on the iowa glacier. but then the real dinos would all be gone and there’d be woolly mammoths and homo habilis with clovis points or maybe not and
i decide not to have another cup of joe.
delbert appears from out of the darkened bay where he’s been deep into a ’69 mustang.
it’s all set, yer stayin’ over my sister carol’s house.
but first we’re gonna take you hippies out for barbeque
the coffee’s eaten a hole in my stomach the size of wisconsin that free food will plug
meet carol and bart and their three kids all blond, round, jovial, apple cheeks.
bart wears coveralls and a down vest that can’t snap closed over his
bacon-for-breakfast, ham-for-lunch, pork-ribs-for-dinner belly.
go to some rib joint leave a giant cairn of bone and gristle in our wake,
then home to their house in a pork torpor
they put us up in one of the kid’s rooms with twin beds.
morning comes fast still pitch dark. it was the winter they kept daylight savings
so people would use less electric in the evening great for us in the east coast
but out there in iowa it stayed dark till 8:30 in the mornin’
the kids off to school in blackness zero degree weather that’s why they stoked themselves
with animal fat and bundled up like nanook of the north.
delbert picks us up and brings us to work at the sinclair station.
maybe the part’ll come in today he muses but somehow i think he wants it to take longer
he wants to know about us he wants to know what makes us tick
what’s it like in new york city? ya been to a yankee game, ya been to a broadway show?
times square on new year’s eve? he’s really smart about practical junk
like runnin’ an orderly gas station. we make small talk all day while he’s working
he puts on the radio and i get to dancing around breaking up the tedium
sounds like the same country song over and over.
i get good at making fresh coffee without cleaning the pot too much
strong just like delbert likes it. mike’s pretty quiet,
giving me a little look now and then. what’s up?
delbert drops hints about me being cuter than the wife that split
oh she had problems. he’s wonderin’ what i’m doing with this hippie blond ski bum
when i say i used to be a teacher, but don’t tell him anything more.
don’t have to. passing thru and i can be anyone i wanna be.
the starter doesn’t come and there’s a buzz about a shoot out between
teamsters and guards over in illinois somewhere
so another night at carol’s and we try sleeping in one twin bed try to have some fun
but it’s no good. back in my own kid bed i’m thinking about delbert
his neat hair and open face starting to grow on me.
far off we hear a siren.
morning at the diner and delbert in another crisp green shirt with his name in script
introduces us ‘round to the regulars—the hippies from the east i was telling you ‘bout
yep they need a new starter and with this strike with the national guard mess,
it’ll be ‘nother day or two. stayin’ over carol’s place with bart and them brats.
ethel takes our egg orders. i can tell she’s a lifer. blue eyes watching like a hawk.
knows just when to replace the sugar and ketchup, when you’re ready for a refill.
she gives service with a smile and knows how pete takes his coffee and what rick means when he says burn me an english. no, you never have to repeat your order for ethel.
she’s way skinnier than ethel mertz from i love lucy her uniform kind of hangs on her.
she wears sensible shoes support hose that make her fast on her feet. knows how to save steps. organizes the plates and utensils makes every trip to the table count.
she wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t ugly either. she’d given herself lots of those toni home perms and used little clips to keep wisps from hanging free.
a red kewpie doll line around the lips, a tiny curl with the mascara wand
and done up for the day.
she smoked but only on breaks after eating half her lettuce sandwich on white toast with a smear of mayo because she’s so sick of looking at two sunnysides staring back at you and the smell of burger grease and the color of the hash browns that come off the ancient griddle that gus didn’t wipe down properly and sick of the deep ocher of the french fries knowing the fryer fat hasn’t been changed forever even when the ceiling leaked last spring and plaster fell into it with a sizzle.
now rick he owns the hardware store and pete sells INsurance with stress on the IN.
pete’s uncomfortable wearing a cheap tie. he slouches, but straightens up when he sees
me lookin’ over at him from the other side of the banquette.
they talk about this whole OPEC crisis, price of gas, nixon goin’ to china,
nixon and this new watergate thing. then they turn to me.
they ask about skyscrapers and traffic and how rude new yorkers are. yeah, i’ve been,
i’ve seen. tell ‘em just enough with a toss of wavy hair that i haven’t tended to in days,
wearin’ road-weary tight jeans, black turtleneck, toothy smile and a splash of jean nate.
shame about jack’s son, they lament. that would be the sheriff’s son. wrecked his pick up
slammed into the overpass of the interstate goin’ like a bat outta hell last night.
only nineteen was gonna be a trooper. high on somethin’ and jack’s heartbroken.
i think of the siren last night, the aviator glasses peering in at me through the car window.
the part comes that day; it’s a ten-minute job, the car purrs, time to leave.
delbert gives me a serious hug a couple of seconds too long.
give him a quick peck when mike’s checking under the hood.
even the other guys in their smeared weary coveralls wave us a fond goodbye.
i slip in shotgun, mike pulls out and i look back at dino and think of
my own existential essential extinction.
