Pete's diner was a small building with chipped and peeling yellow paint. A tattered green awning shaded the front window, but the grime and grease kept out the sun. It was surrounded by a gravel parking lot with two abandoned gas pumps.Pete was approaching his mid-fifties. He was thin with a sunken chest and only shaved on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. He wore grease-soaked basketball shoes, faded jeans, a white undershirt, a paper cook's cap with a jagged sweat stain, and an apron pulled tight around his waist. The apron was saturated with grease splatters, coffee stains, and dried blood. A tattoo of a dagger dripping blood was on his left forearm and a lightning bolt on the right. He had a cynical slant on life and his disposition was bitter and irreverent.
The door opened and the little bell above it jingled.
"You'll have ta wait for a while, we're kinda between breakfast and lunch right now," Pete said without looking up from a Louis Lamour paperback. Pete never served anybody between ten and eleven.
A young man, reeking of men's cologne, shut the door, straddled a stool, and sat down. The young man was dressed in jeans, a brown corduroy jacket, and a red plaid shirt. He had a clean shave and groomed brown hair parted in the middle and swept back on the sides. His cheeks were robust, red, and smooth like ripening plums. His black-rimmed glasses slid low on his nose and he habitually pushed them back even when they remained in place. He wrangled with his gum.
"I'm not here as a customer." he said, "I'm Justin Weeks of the 'Evening Ledger' and I came to do a story on you and the diner." He adjusted his glasses and sat proudly like a dog with a bone expecting some sort of adulation.
Pete sipped his coffee and said, "Take a flyin' leap.”
Justin wobbled on his stool surprised at Pete's indifference. "Have you ever read my column?"
”No," Pete said.
"Those whom I featured have noticed a substantial increase in business," Justin said.
"Already got enough business. I don't want no more," Pete said.
"What!" Justin said. The concept was completely foreign to him. He thought Pete was being modest and some persuasion might dislodge his stubbornness. "Nothing big just a little about the place - the history, your specialties, and maybe a few words from some customers."
From a smirk dangled a cigarette and from the cigarette dangled the ashes. His arms were folded with a cup of black coffee in his right hand. "There ain't nothin' ta write about here," Pete said. "The place is a grease pit."
Inside it was narrow and cramped. A green Formica counter ran the length of the room and the top was cluttered with etchings and initials. The counter had eight oak swivel stools, worn smooth and shiny like the butt of a rifle. The gaps in the hardwood floor were impacted with soil and grease and worn smooth like marble. Pete had two grills: one for breakfast items and the other for his specialty -hamburgers. The grill for hamburgers had two inches of liquid grease. The burgers were virtually deep-fried. Next to them was a deep fryer for French fries and a toaster. When the "burger crowd" arrived a jar of pickles, a bowl of onions, a jar of mustard, and ketchup were next. A ten-gallon stainless steel coffee urn stood at the end of the back counter.
Justin looked around the diner. ‘Indeed,’ he thought, ‘it is a grease pit.’
Above him were two ceiling fans that were gummy with grease, sometimes a glob flung across the room and splattered against the wall. The room was shaded in amber like a sunset casting its final ray into a musty forsaken room.
"Look how about just a small piece on the place and that will be it," Justin said.
Pete tossed the cigarette angrily to the floor and crushed it with his foot. He turned to face Justin. His head swayed back and forth like a willow tree in a wind storm. "Ya write one word about me or this place and I'll sue you, yer paper, and the horse ya rode in on."
Justin reached into his pocket and slammed a quarter on the counter. "Coffee, black," he demanded. "I said we're between breakfast and lunch," Pete said emphatically and punctuated with a fist to the counter.
"The sign on the door says 'open' and I want served," Justin said stiff-chinned.
Pete studied Justin's eyes, looking for the slightest movement or evidence of retraction.
Justin's eyes were dry and unrelenting.
Pete went to the urn and drew the coffee and sat it before Justin splattering some over the sides of the cup.
"Thanks," Justin said. He moved the cup to his lips blowing the steam from the surface. He squinted as he sipped. His face screwed up. "Geez that's the worst damn coffee I've ever had. When was it fresh yesterday?"
"That's pretty good," Pete said. "Now kin ya tell me what time?"
Justin displayed a shrinking smile, turned serious, and said "I can do a story on this place with or without you," Justin said, " and there is no way you can stop me." Justin rejected the cup sliding it away with the back of his hand. He rejected the attempted intimidation from Pete.
"Why this place," Pete said.
"This is an institution! Everybody eats here some time or other and I think it would make for some interesting reading," Justin said. "Things like this give people a sense of community and tradition."
"I don't like it. Not one bit." Pete said barely opening his lips trying to hold his indignation. "That tradition and community crap is just that—crap. Ya just want a story ta keep yer tail outuv a sling."
"Why are you so dead set against it?" Justin asked.
"I got all the business I want right now, in fact too much," Pete said.
Justin braved another sampling of coffee. Knowing what to expect, it didn't seem so objectionable this time, but not the quality he was accustomed. To write the story well, he must have Pete’s cooperation. Pete's diner was too fascinating to abandon.
Pete examined Justin like a cat, cautiously pawing and probing at a creature they have no fear, but yet fearful of something it might do unexpectedly. "What is it you want anyway?" demanded Pete.
"Just want a story," Justin said. "What do you want?”
"I wanna be left alone," Pete said as if the words themselves would be enough to convince Justin to leave. "Go find someone else to pester.”
"My editor said to do this place and I'm going to do it," Justin said. He looked around the room while Pete was searching for words or an action that might change the mind of the young reporter. There was a sign against the wall opposite the counter, "Harry Truman Ate Here", with a picture of the former president below it. Below the picture was the added words, "and he thought the food sucked too."
"Did Truman really eat here?" Justin asked.
"I don't know. I suppose he did. The ole man who owned this place before me had that up there and I added what's on the bottom." Pete said.
"How'd you come to own this place?" Justin asked.
Pete puckered his lips. He perceived Justin was trying to get him to talk. "Ya print anything I say and ya don't have to worry about a suit. Ya gonna hafta worry about me, okay."
Justin flicked his hand slowly and said, "Talk."
Pete walked to the urn and drew more coffee for himself. He talked as the cup was filling. "I got outa the army twenty-two years ago this November twenty-first. I spent ten years in the army."
With the cup filled, he returned to Justin and hoisted his foot on a garbage can, and leaned forward. "They failed to recognize my genius," he said sarcastically. " so I quit."
"You were halfway to retirement," Justin said.
"Well as a soldier, I wasn't much good, didn't like takin' orders. When I left I just made E-5." Pete said.
"That's not good?" Justin asked.
"No, not good at all. When I first went in I had this hillbilly buddy and he was always a sayin' when he got out, all he wanted was a one-pump gas station, with a pop machine, a pot-bellied stove, on a deserted stretch of highway. I used ta laugh at that sucker for his lack of ambition."
Justin looked around the room and then stretched to look out the window at the two solitary gas pumps.
Pete lifted his foot from the garbage can and leaned against the back counter. He grabbed a boning knife and began to clean underneath his fingernails. Pensive facial gestures rose; raised eyebrows, furled forehead, and curled down lips. He resumed, "When I got out, I looked up that buddy of mine. He'd been out for eight years. He took over his Daddy's Chevy dealership and was livin' off aspirin, cigarettes, and antacids. All he had time for was a cup of coffee and a job offer. I just shook my head and left. He caught up with me before I got ta my car. All of a sudden he got real settled, like he used ta be. He shook my hand and wished me luck and then he said something’ ta me I'll never forget. He said, "'Take my advise and get yerself a one pump gas station, with a pop machine, a pot-bellied stove on a deserted stretch of highway."'
"So how'd you come to find this place?" Justin said looking at Pete cleaning his fingernails knowing that in a short time, it would be used without being washed to slice onions. Justin also entertained the notion, 'What if he should use it on me?'
Pete took the knife and stabbed it into the countertop. Justin jerked, straightened in his seat, and then relaxed, seeing the folly in such a notion.
"I started driving ta Colorado," Pete said, "Always thought I'd like ta live there, but I was a commin' down this highway, wanted somethin' ta eat and I was needin' gas. I saw this place and the sign above the building said ‘Pete's Diner‘. When I came in here I could see the old man was about to retire or die. His name was Pete Gaston. I don't believe in fate, but I do believe in convenience. I stuck around a few days made him an offer with the money I saved from the army and bought the place, but disaster struck.”
"How's that?" Justin asked occupied with trying to decide whether to finish the coffee. He could no longer deceive himself, it really was very bad coffee. He adjusted his glasses and continued to listen.
"The first year was good. I had a few customers a day in the diner, pumped some gas, and spent a lot of time sittin' and drinkin' coffee. Then all of a sudden Wesly Weimer comes in here one night."
Justin leaned forward and interrupted, "The guy who killed his twin brother and ate his remains to get rid of the evidence?”
"One and the same." Pete said and continued, "Hogs down about four hamburgers, and holds a gun on me, tellin' me to rid out my cash drawer. Well, I did just like he said and he took out of here like a bat outa hell. I didn't even have time ta call the law. Seems they were after him and they came in here just as he pulled away. I told 'em what happened and they took off after him. They found him five miles down the road heavin' his guts out. They put it all in the newspaper. The world is so full of curious and sadistic people. They all wanted ta have a hamburger from the place that made a cannibal barf."
Justin was at first enthralled with Pete's story but now a skeptical smirk lit his face like gasoline being dashed on a dull fire and suddenly brought to a furious blaze. "Does the story come along with the coffee or did you just throw it in for free."
"You work for the newspaper. Check it out for yerself ya little wise-ass, April fifteenth, nineteen seventy-three. If you's any type of reporter at all you'd have known that already," Pete said contemptuously and gulping coffee.
Justin nudged the cup towards Pete for a refill. When the cup was returned Justin tried some cream and sugar.
"Ya don't believe it do ya?" Pete said.
"Sure I believe ya. It's kinda funny." Justin said. "I mean it's really funny." He labored to restrain his laughter.
Pete turned on the fryer and the grill with the two inches of grease on it.
"Inside a few months, I had so much business I had ta stop pumpin' gas and it ain't been the same sense," Pete said. "Ever eatin' here yet?"
"No, heard about it, but never ate here," Justin said.
"Stick around for about ten minutes and see what I mean," Pete said.
While Justin experimented with different combinations of sugar and cream to make the coffee somehow more palatable, Pete was busy preparing for the lunchtime crowd. He removed a tray with raw hamburger rolled into balls about the size of plums. They were divided into several layers with wax paper separating them. Onions were sliced and diced with the knife he used to clean his fingernails. Ketchup, mustard, and pickles were taken from the refrigerator and placed on the back counter. He stacked packages of buns next to them and tore them open for quick access.
Pete turned to see two cars speed into the gravel parking lot with a rooster tail of dust behind them. He reacted quickly by dropping the hamburger balls into the lake of gurgling grease. They sunk to the bottom and bobbed to the surface like apples in water. He took a spatula and smashed them against the bottom of the grill to make them flat. From the freezer, he took frozen French fries and loaded them into the fryer. They sizzled, steamed, and crackled like some mysterious evil caldron.
The two men entered the diner. With his back to them, he called out, "How many?”
"Six everything, two fries," the one man said.
"Next," Pete said.
"Eight, two mustard, pickle, onion, two ketchup, onion, four mustard, onion, and three fries," the other man said.
Pete quickly laid out fourteen buns and applied the ordered items. His hands moved delicately and nimbly like a harpist as he dressed the buns. With a serving spoon, he poured grease over the hamburgers. When the hamburgers were done he placed them in the prepared buns and tucked them in a sack without wrapping them individually. In a moment the two men were gone.
"In five minutes this place will be crammed with people," Pete said.
"Why do they come here?" Justin asked.
"It sure ain't for the food," Pete said. "I ain’t never said, ”'Thanks for eating at Pete's."' A person won't get that crap here. Those other places with pimple-faced, gum-chewin’, straggly haired, empty-headed freaks say they are glad ta take yer order but they got an attitude for everyone who walks in. I don't hide it. I got a bad attitude. They still come. How do ya figure that? I guess I'm charismatic." He waited to see Justin's expression and laughed.
The diner filled. It was loud and busy. Pete was rude and brusque.
Justin pulled a quarter from his pocket and called to Pete,
"Call it!”
Pete said, "Heads!"
Justin tossed the quarter, caught it, and trapped it on the countertop. He lifted just one side of his hand as if it were going to fly away. He peeked at it. It was a tail. "Heads, you win. I don't write the story."
Pete's mouth curled up—only the left side. It was almost a smile. "Thanks," he said. "How 'bout a couple burgers on the house?"
Justin looked at the floating burgers on the grill saturated in grease. His upper lip flexed as when one sees a dead and mutilated animal. He raised his hands slightly from the counter and said, "No, no maybe some other time."
Justin left the diner.
When Pete watched his car leave the parking lot, turned to the picture of Harry Truman, winked, and said, "We sure gave 'em hell didn't we Harry."
