“Mmm! Coconut custard pie! Heart attack on a plate,” he murmured, as the waitress laid it in front of him. ” Pie first thing in the morning,” he mused, “with some black coffee, it’s like a sore dick, you just can’t beat it.”
“Best water in the Midwest, right here in Kearney county. My plan is to bottle it and sell it.” She remarked..
It was still very early and the bright light of the interior of the diner had the effect of making the darkness of the outside pitch black. If you swiveled around on your stool, you could try to peer out into that perfect blackness through the large windows of the diner. Stare into a starless space. But you would not see any stars. You would only see yourself and the reflections of the diner. If anything existed out there it had not yet entered the world of the diner.
The tick tock diner at 4:00 a.m. , surrounded by the inky black sky before dawn, then took
on a bizarre aspect. The bright neon Clock outlined in Red made the interior appear like the nucleus of a spaceship. The windows like some vast viewing portal. All the metal implements for eating and drinking, meaningfully laid out, seemed the settings and apparatus for some kind of intergalactic space travel. Even the jukebox looked like a control panel awaiting instructions.
Eli, who liked the occasional outer space movie, found the whole atmosphere of this diner at this particular time of the morning most satisfying. The fact that it was a solitary, vibrant core of light in the total emptiness of the Nebraska expanse only served to enhance the eeriness of it to him, the other worldliness of it all.
The pretty latino waitress, behind the counter, kept her back to him. She
was now busy replacing stock and making a few notes on a small notepad. She finished off her chores and then turned round to re-fill Eli’s cup with coffee.
“I hate those damn prairie dogs,” she blurted out, “if I saw one around here I’d freak.”She stared sidelong at him as if analyzing him.
“Oh! they’re not so bad. In small groups they’re quite playful.”
She squirmed a little making a slight noise of disgust then headed for the back grill.
“I’ll bring you back one if you like?” he shouted. She turned her head, giving a small grimace, and then disappeared.
Eli’s job took him all over the western plains. And he loved it. His friends called him the ‘prairie dog’ man, but that did not bother him one little bit. When they were stuck in the city inside stale offices, he was outside in the clean air. While they saw cars and yet more cars, he saw blue sky, rugged landscape and dirt, mounds of dirt, but what the heck, he liked the feel of the earth.
Like a lot of naturalists Eli was essentially a bit of a loner, (the waitress already had him figured out on that one) and if you cornered him on the subject he’d probably admit to you that he preferred the company of animals to that of his fellow man. But he was not what you would call anti-social. He would rather communicate one on one, and socialize in smaller doses and in less congested conditions than most of his peers appeared to do. A solitary naturalist if you like, but he was easygoing and content with his life and career choice. He was born to observe, hard wired to make connections. No fuss; no yapping on about things, just quietly observing and keeping notes. He’d been like that since his childhood, ever since his mother encouraged him to keep a diary.
So doing field research for World advocacy, a non profit organization dedicated to the preservation of wild animals, was the ideal job for Eli. Observation, note taking, and solitary field trips, what could be better?
Throw in some Coconut custard pie, a cup of black coffee and I imagine he would tell you that nothing could be better… except maybe Prairie Dogs.
