A young man’s adventure in Spokane

Having hitch-hiked to Spokane for the sake of a bit of adventure, feeling both tired and somewhat like a lost child, he went into a working class café. It was late and he had the vague notion that if he drank a few cups of coffee he could stay awake long enough to . . . what?

SPOKANE

He was sick now, partly from a hangover, but mostly from his own thinking. The first time he had ever heard someone say that too much thought could make you ill was more than twenty years ago. Having hitch-hiked to Spokane for the sake of a bit of adventure, feeling both tired and somewhat like a lost child — although he was seventeen — he went into a working class café. It was late, about eleven at night, and he had the vague notion that if he drank a few cups of coffee he could stay awake long enough to . . . what? What on earth was he really doing, anyway? He was no longer enjoying his sight-seeing, for Spokane was something of a novelty since he lived in a small town. He wished that he were back home in the comfort of his own bed, reading a book. But he was alone, on foot, exhausted, and, as Frost once said in a poem, he still had miles to go before he slept. He opened the door to the café and stepped in. “Close that door, honey, will you? You’re letting the cold air in.” A woman looked at him from behind the counter where a man and a kid about his age were sitting. They both glanced back over their shoulders at him a moment.

He closed the door and felt the welcome warmth of the café. The smell of grilled food made him hungry. He decided then and there to have a hamburger, he had enough money, and he sat down on a stool at the opposite end of the counter from the other two.

“What can I get for you, honey?” the woman called down to him. She was in her early thirties. Her hair was black, parted on the side.

“Some coffee. And I’d like a hamburger, please.”

“We can do that,” she said. She lifted the coffee pot from the burner and walked toward him.

He turned the mug in front of him right-side up and watched her approach. While filling the mug, she glanced into his eyes. He met her gaze only a moment, then looked off to one side. He wasn’t accustomed to looking at people directly in the face for more than a few seconds at most.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,” the woman said in a friendly tone.

He looked at her and shook his head. “No, it’s the first time.”

“First time for everything,” the older man spoke up. Then he laughed.

“Oh, get off it, Wayne. God,” she said; and to him, “It’ll be a few minutes on the hamburger.”

“That’s okay, I’m not in any hurry, he said, trying to be pleasant. Fatigue came upon him rapidly now that he’d taken the weight off his legs.

“No train to catch,” said the man, again with a laugh.

“What’s that?” he said, having been occupied with his thoughts.

“I say, you don’t have no train to catch.” The man took a drag on his cigarette and blew out the smoke at an upward angle.

The woman went back into the kitchen. Soon he heard the hiss of a hamburger patty as it made contact with the grill. Since the woman did not reappear immediately he supposed that she was the cook as well as the waitress. He sipped his coffee and paid little attention to the conversation that the man and the kid were having. He supposed that they might be talking about him, but what did he care? He’d never see them again anyway. Besides, he could tell that they liked to joke around, and he wasn’t much good at jokes. Still, he didn’t like just sitting there, not saying a word. In fact he hated the feeling of being left out.

When the two of them had fallen silent, he said, “You know, I saw something pretty funny a while ago, before I got to this place.”

“Yeah, what was that?” the man asked, as if nothing he said could possibly be funny.

“Well, there was this guy and, like, he was having trouble walking. He was limping pretty bad. This woman was driving her car real slow right along side. She was trying to convince him to get into the car, saying stuff like, ‘You know you’re not gonna do yourself any good that way.’ Then she would swear at him and say, ‘If you don’t get into the car now I’ll leave you here.’ ”

The man nodded his head. “They must’ve been arguing about something.”

“I guess. Anyway, when I got right alongside him I asked him if I could help him any. He told me he had a bum knee and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Then the woman yelled out the window, ‘His knee isn’t the only thing that don’t work right!’ ”

The man was smiling a sort of sly, disparaging smile. “Then what? You ask her for a lift?”

He was surprised by the question. “No, in fact she told me to go mind my own business.”

This time the man burst into laughter. “Guess she told you,” he said and then let out a wheezing cough.

At that moment the woman came out of the kitchen carrying his hamburger on a plate. She set the plate in front of him.

“So what do you do?” the man asked. “Just walk around the streets?”

“Yeah, mostly.”

“For hell’s sake, what for?”

The woman, still standing across the counter from him, said, “Let the poor guy eat his dinner.” She moved away, toward the two men.

He ate quickly, aware only of the taste of the hamburger, the catsup and onions. He’d made his contribution to the conversation and now he could enjoy his meal, rest a little more, then hike to the edge of town and catch a lift out the highway.

He glanced up. The three of them were talking, as they had been when he first came into the café. The younger fellow hopped off his stool, went to the juke box and leaned over it.

A song began to play, one he’d heard many times before; in fact, he’d been recalling portions of the lyrics throughout the day.

“What do you know,” he said, as the younger fellow returned to the counter, “I’ve been thinking about that song all day.”

“Been playing through your mind, huh?” the man said.

He saw a mocking look in the man’s eyes, and now felt an instinctive dislike for him. “Sometimes it’s better than just plain thinking.”

“Sure, you got to watch out for that thinking. Too much of it ain’t good for you.” The man was grinning. He turned away briefly and nodded his head rapidly several times at the younger one, who gave out a kind of giggling laugh.

Suddenly he didn’t care to be in the café any longer. What was the good in trying to be friendly if all you got back for your trouble was a lot of joking around at your own expense? He hated that tendency in people, to make fun of someone else. Why couldn’t people be more decent?

He got into his jacket, an old army field jacket that he’d bought earlier in the day at a second-hand store, drank the last of his coffee and walked over to the cash register by the door.

“You’re not leaving us already, are you?” the man asked in a parody of surprise.

He didn’t say anything. The woman took the three dollars he handed her. When she returned his change, she said, “You have to realize those are hard people.”

He looked into her face to see if he could tell what she was really thinking. “At least you’re not,” he said.

She smiled faintly and said, “I’d like to think I’m not. Be careful.”

He thanked her and went outside where he walked slowly through the center of town, through the night’s pulsing glitter. In another half hour he would be standing at the foot of the exit ramp, hoping for a ride home.

Ends