On the last morning, before the waffle irons went cold and the pictures came down, before the lock refused to lock, before the claw crashed through the roof, the old man paced.
Tap, tap, tap. Bud Powell’s aluminum cane led the way as he circled the floor of Bloomington’s Waffle House. His Waffle House.
That Wednesday in September, the owner didn’t know what to do with himself. The smell of frying oil, the same greasy perfume that had greeted customers for 46 years, wafted into his nose as he wandered past the vinyl booths. He sat down, then stood
up again.
Bud — everyone called him Bud — checked on the dwindling supply of breakfast sausage, peered into the nearly empty freezers, tried to explain to his regulars why it had to be this way.
“It’s time,” he said over and over.
Do read the whole thing. It's a very good piece of writing. It seems to me that there needs to be a name for this mini-genre of writing, in which writers make you miss places you've never been.
3 comments:
I've been to that Waffle House. It was terrible.
OK. Doesn't change the quality of the writing in the article, though.
Down the block from that Waffle House is the best beer distributor I've ever been to, anywhere. (Actually, a package store, but the wine and liquor section was just pretty good-- the beer cooler was what was amazing.)
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