#pete's diner

[gifs-of-puppets]

The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)

[greenpointchinaman]

Southern Special

If the answer is “one” when they ask you “how many?” at Pete’s Diner and the floor is full — even the counter — you will be guided to a small table in a corner with a single chair. To the left is a half-wall, topped with poinsettias, hiding a cash register station. To the right is a table for four, set orthogonally to yours. Straight ahead: the coat rack, the front windows, and Queens Boulevard.

The last time I had biscuits and gravy was about three months ago, in Carlsbad. The waitress at Al’s Café had asked me how long I was in town for, because I should really come back and order the chouriço next time.

In Queens, biscuits and gravy tends to be a fleeting, mythical occurrence. Today it’s called “Southern Special,” and it’ll disappear from the menu next week.

“How you want the eggs?”

“Scrambled.”

“Coffee, amigo?”

“Yeah.”

The Southern Special arrives on two plates, with the potatoes segregated from the rest. I dig in but hesitate once I realize a glitch in my memory. There was another plate on another table at another time, sometime after Al’s. I forget the street, but it was in the morning or afternoon. A wide wooden table with the windows on my right. The coffee was bitter and terrible but I kept drinking it.

There was a TV screen on the wall behind me that I hadn’t noticed when we sat down but I knew it was there because she would keep looking up at it.

“I’m surprised you didn’t order something more local,” she had said.

I made a joke about this comment — it got a laugh out of her. And then, as if to excuse my choice from the menu: “I think I’m just hungry.”

“Fair enough...”

To my left, I notice a rustling behind the poinsettias. The waiter emerges with a fresh pot.

“More coffee, amigo? Is good?”

“Yes. Is good.”