533. After the first twenty minutes, I started a stopwatch to see how long it would take me to write the rest...can't believe an hour and a half passed just writing this. The line in the middle is the twenty-minute mark.
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Summer had departed the city like a candle being blown out. The days had been rainy, dreary; the nights were so much like winter in their stillness, in the dark. Fewer people ambled up and down the downtown streets. Bar doors were kept shut and rarely opened to accommodate the traffic of night owls. Just past two, when the bars closed, the imbibing stragglers and other lost-and-found insomniacs seemed to congregate at Murphy's all at once. Dennis, the host/waiter/fry cook hadn't seen a night like this since the middle of July, when folks wanted nothing more than to keep pushing at the fringe of the evening, reluctant to let sleep or dawn or next-day reality wipe away that night's good times.
Dennis had sat half a dozen parties of two, a handful of fours, and a bachelor party that staggered in requesting to be seated together. Some shuffling was required. Finally, around three, there was nowhere else to sit the remaining loners but at the hightop bar, together. Dennis immediately regretted forfeiting his impending gratuities at the cause of the awkwardness this would cause the two men.
One of them looked to be about 45, with a full head of dark hair and rimless glasses sliding down his nose. Of course it was deep into the night, but this guy looked especially haggard. His clothing wasn't the issue - he was well-dressed in a collared shirt with a nice watch - but the way he kept tapping his left hand on the counter, occasionally stroking his left fingers with his other hand, suggested he was ill at ease and had been for a while.
The second man was perhaps a little older, or maybe just a smoker. He was rounder in the face, with a greying goatee and a heather grey t-shirt. In contrast to his neighbour, his stillness was unsettling. He didn't open the menu Dennis had given him. He barely allowed his body to come to rest on the stool. He was propped up on one elbow, starting at the counter like he was inspecting a coffee stain.
"Evening." Dennis himself was feeling the effects of working the night shift, and couldn't think of much else to say to the two. To his genuine surprise, the men looked up. "Can I get either of you anything? Hate to break it to you, but I'll warn you before you get your hopes up: coffee machine broke at dinner. All we have other than water or Coke is tea."
The two men each contemplated this disappointment in their own way. Processing. This was clearly a big loss for them.
"I'll take tea," the collared men said. His head still resting in his hand, the goatee nodded.
Dennis took a moment to prepare the two mugs of tea. Red, Red Rose. He passed the men identical beige mugs, a small tin creamer, and a nice, floral porcelain bowl of sugar that seemed extremely out of place. The men dressed their teas, the collared man taking sugar, the goatee taking sugar. They stirred the auburn liquid in their vessels, and settled into their individual distressed positions, though this time they came to face each other.
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"Funny, isn't it?" Collared man said, eyeing his hands again. In addressing his tea companion, he projected more than Dennis expected; his voice was clear, direct, assertive even strung onto so few words. Goatee man slid his eyes towards the voice. He said nothing, but his disheveled greying eyebrows inched closer together on his face.
"Being downtown, all these young cats getting pancakes after hitting the bar," collared man said, taking a moment to scope out the diner and its main demographic. "And we, these old guys, we're right here with them." He smiled, then looked up at goatee man as if he'd touched him. "I don't mean to be so wistful, sorry. Should just keep my words to myself, I've been told."
The goatee man gave a shrug of a laugh and at last removed his elbow from the sticky countertop. He stretched, raising his stubby hands above his head in a full-on sun salutation, then set his other hand beneath his chin. "No worries, brother. I know what you meant."
Dennis listened in from the next table, wondering if the two men would elucidate, but they fell silent again. Just sipped their tea.
The bachelor party ordered another plate of cheese fries. The remaining groups of two, mostly couples that looked to be on dates that had been altogether too long, began asking for their bills (separate). Dennis bussed several plates that bore the greasy remnants of hamburgers or Belgian waffles. When he returned to the men drinking their tea to see if they needed anything, he interrupted them in conversation.
"Which is really what makes this so hard, you know, because I can't connect the two parts of my world that mean the most to me, and in either case it seems like I'm the problem, my personality is the problem, except for that at work my personality is the solution. Or at least a very strong trait for the business. Anyways." The collared man ended his sentence with a sip of tea. He paused with the liquid in his mouth as if unsure of whether to swallow it, then seemed to lose himself in thought while his right hand itched around his left fingers.
The goatee man allowed for this break in conversation by taking a deep breath and switching out the arm that held his head. "I hear you," he eventually said. His voice softer than his companion's, certainly in volume but also in confidence. His brevity might have suggested disinterest if it weren't for his gaze, which jumped around the collared man in examination. He too had some of his tea, and Dennis skirted away so as not to interrupt.
The chill of the autumn night was starting to plaster itself on the inside of the diner windows, making dusty billows of condensation around the bachelor table, so mirthful and loud. Feeling a chill take over him, and also hoping for some caffeine to make it to the end of his shift, Dennis poured himself some tea. Using a soup bowl and sneaking some of the heavy cream from the cook's fridge, he sipped quietly in the back.
Moments passed. Dawn seemed to be approaching, not by any discernible evidence, but in the general way that the circadian rhythm makes itself known. The bachelor party had, at long last, abandoned their food and staggered out into the cold, leaving behind a breath of damp leaves as the door closed behind them. The diner contained just two patrons now, and both had requested more hot water for their teas. The second steeping of Red Rose looked a little browner, must have tasted more astringent, but neither complained or troubled Dennis for another bag.
At quarter to four, the goatee man resigned himself to two elbows on the counter. He cradled his head on his greying forearms, his cheek turned towards the collared man, who had asked him something. Goatee man nodded in response. Dennis approached with the kettle, freshly boiled.
"Yeah, and I thought our sector had it bad, phew. Were you December?"
The goatee man nodded again, closing his eyes.
"So, wow, that puts you at ten months. Right?"
Another nod.
"Wow. No I can't even imagine. And in this city, with this economy? Man." The collared man took a moment to share in the silence of his companion. Both smiled at Dennis when he poured them fresh water. Dennis was retreating to his own tea when he the collared man raised his hand to his brow and squeezed his eyes. "You know, and I thought I had it rough to split it all fifty-fifty, but you... You kind of lost the whole deal, huh?"
The primary redeeming factor of working the night shift, according to Dennis's manager upon hiring him, was that you only got interesting characters in and out at those hours of the night. So you'd hardly ever be bored with the crowd that got drawn in, craving toast or wanting something hot to sip on. Dennis had slogged through the busy summer nights encountering mostly drunk college kids and alarmingly apparent alcoholics, and so had formed the opinion that the manager had been lying to fill the desperately-needed, rarely-sought shift on the schedule. Dennis recalled his own hiring as he rang through collared man's bill. Two teas came out to 4.60. A slim price on such a long night at Murphy's. Dennis was glad when he was denied change from the collared man's ten, though. "Thank you, gentlemen," he remarked, as if he was suddenly in a fancy establishment and it wasn't nearly six in the morning. As he was clearing the empty mugs he watched the two men slap each other on the shoulders in the way he'd seen so many drunk people do: both resting their weight on and propping up on their partner on their walk home. The two men before him rose, collected their fall jackets from their stools, and shared a final, exhausted moment.
"Good luck."
"Take care, brother."
Once they left, the diner was silent but for the abstract sound of kitchen things. Dennis topped off his soup bowl and allowed himself a minute to sit down, unwind from his long shift, await the morning replacement. His tea was hot but cooling quickly, steam roiling off the surface in silky curls, losing energy to the chill of the autumn night. And soon it would be winter.
