The Wrong Guy

June 21, 2004

My friend Fee was heading to North Carolina to sail his vintage two-man wooden Fireball in a regatta. I went with him as backup crew. Since I had zero experience crewing on a sailboat, we were both relieved when his more experienced first pick came through.

During our stay, we ate a breakfast of warm grease every day at Cracker Barrel. It was right next door to the hotel, and the only game in town.

If you don’t know, Cracker Barrel is a greasy chain restaurant attached to a crappy souvenir shop. In front, they sell T-shirts, hats, assorted jellies, candies, books, mugs, et cetera, and in back, they serve scrambled eggs to busloads of tourists. The waitresses wear brown aprons embroidered with gold stars. Fee noticed that some of the waitresses had two stars, and others three. One woman even had four. So when our waitress came around to refill our coffees, Fee asked her: "What's the meaning of the stars?"

"The more stars we have," she said, as she poured, "the better rate we get on our health insurance."

"Oh come on."

"No, really. Cracker Barrel is one of the only restaurants that offers its wait staff health insurance."

"So how do you accumulate the stars?"

"They test us on Cracker Barrel trivia."

Apparently, if you fill your head with frivolous minutiae about the Cracker Barrel chain, you get a better rate on your health insurance. Weird.

A little while later, our waitress came around again with the coffee pot. "Y'all want a top off?"

"Sure," I said, “Hit me.”

"Y'know, some people get awfully mad if ya mess with their blend."

Fee was still marveling over the health insurance/trivia connection and decided to quiz the waitress. "So when was the first Cracker Barrel opened?" he asked.

"Oh no!” She got embarrassed and put down the pot. "Don't quiz me." But she answered anyway.

Fee asked her a few more things, and then she asked us questions. Like, what the hell are a couple of New York City slickers doing in bumfuck North Carolina? It turned out that our waitress was from Texas and didn't have anything nice to say about the area. When she walked away, Fee wondered how a girl like her wound up in that town.

"She married the wrong guy," I said.

"You think so?"

"I know so."

When she brought us our check, Fee continued to small talk with her. She spoke wistfully about the Texas town she grew up in.

"How'd you wind up here?' Fee finally asked.

"Got married," she said. Then sighed and continued, "Not married anymore, though."

______________________

"It’s the summer solstice,” said Fee. “The longest day of the year.”

"It sure feels like it,” I said. Nine hours on the road will do that to a person.

The air was invisible as we approached the city, which isn’t always the case, but when it's clear, the city sparkles. After those few days in the woods, seeing the New York skyline is a mindfuck. I always try to understand it -- try to imagine how it all came to be -- but it sends my thoughts into a tailspin. The only way out is to simply accept it as beautiful.

We'd passed cities like Richmond and Baltimore and DC, and cruised by their weak gravity with ease. But our little car was powerless against the pull of the big planet. Once New York was in our sights, I don't think Fee even had to touch the accelerator. We were just sucked in like a helpless satellite.

I often wonder why I live in New York, but when we finally stopped moving, and I stepped out of the car and onto the earth, I nearly understood.