Hotty Toddy, Part III - The Rebel, the Waitress, and the Wardrobe

We awoke early the next (Saturday) morning, for the Idea House opened at nine, and we were determined to eat breakfast at one of Oxford's many fine dining establishments before we trucked to Taylor. We showered, shaved, shimmied, shucked the sleepy from eyes, and were dressed and ready in a jiffy. Penny, feeling renewed and full of it, wanted just to hop in the Jeep and see where the road took us. Yeah...as if. I had to remind Penny that the last time we let the spirits of Easy Rider and Two Socks sweep us away we found ourselves in downtown Pontotoc sitting at the restaurant-with-no-name*, whose trucker-hatted (even the ladies) and pine-straw bearded (even the ladies) patrons stared at us as if we were pariahs of distaste; a diner whose waitress glared down at us, Copenhagen leaking from the left corner of her lips, saying only, "'Spose you gon' want a high-char--ain'tcha;" where an eight-foot plaster-of-paris statue of Vegas Elvis stood in the corner, carrying a real hollow-bodied guitar onto which someone had scratchily carved in large letters, "Only Jesus is King." Penny shuddered and assented that yes, we should follow my itinerary.

We jumped in the Jeep, backed out of the parking space, and Penny asked me if I knew where I was going. I told her we were going to the Beacon. Did I know how to find it? Well, considering the restaurant's name, I told her we'd just look up in the sky, and we'd be sure to find it. Nu-uh. Not going to work. I called Patrick. He answered, huffing and gurgling. I asked him if anything was wrong, and he told me that he was practicing for the Neshoba County Fair's annual triathlon by competing in a triple Iron Man. He sounded very strange, short of breath, and I asked him if he was practicing right then. He was. What was he doing? He was doing the swim (just as Elvis did the clam), which for this particular triple Iron Man began at Pensacola and ended at New Orleans. He said he had just passed what he thought was Long Beach, and that I should hurry with my question, for he was soon to enter the Mississippi Sound and wouldn't be able to hear me. I asked him my question, he answered and hung up, I parked the Jeep, and we walked back inside the Congo.

"Okay," my wife said, "now that we're back inside, do you mind telling me why we're not going to the Beacon?" I turned to her, grinned, and tilted my head for her and the kids to follow me. We walked to Patrick's bedroom and entered his closet. At the far end of the eighteen-foot-long walk-in, a full-length Archie Manning poster decorated the wall. On the poster, right underneath the "1" on his jersey was a doorknob. I twisted and pulled the doorknob, and we all stepped inside...The Beacon!

Faux-wood paneling plastered the walls, small diamond designs spotted the linoleum floor, and pale-green linoleum tiles covered the counters. To our immediate left stood a paneled platform raised about a foot off the ground, and a waitress slinked down, cigarette in hand, smiling in her calf-length, black-sashed, maize-yellow, small sunflower-print calico dress, her brown hair parting her head to reveal a windshield of bangs, while the remaining shower curtain of locks dropping and curling up expertly at her shoulders. With three menus in her other hand, she showed us to an open booth. We sat down on the red, artificial leather seats, and the waitress put our menus on the formica-topped table. She turned to me--"Coffee, sugar?"

"Yes, both please."

She didn't register my response, and she left. Penny had a strange look on her face, so I asked her what was wrong. Before she could answer, Nicholas asked me, "Dad, how did we get here so fast? I don't see the Congo outside. Your friend Patrick must be weird."

"Well," I said, "Patrick's always been a bit, uh, eccentric. And he's a physician, so he's allowed to be as eccentric as he wants to be."

"Andy," Penny asked, "I don't like this. What's going on here?"

Nicholas interrupted, "Dad, I don't know what you mean."

"What I meant was that Patrick is a doctor who makes enough money--and is good enough at his job--and is so nice a person--that people don't care how weird he is."

"Kind of like you," Nicholas said. He laughed. Penny didn't. She repeated her question. I just shrugged my shoulders. Georgia cried out for bacon. At the opposite end of the restaurant, Bobby Gentry sang about this being another sleepy, dusty, Delta day. "Dad! Look! Those guys have hair as long as yours!" I looked behind me, and saw two sandal-footed gentlemen eating eggs at the bar, no one else near them. The waitress returned, poured us some coffee, and asked if we were ready to order. We weren't. She told us to take our time, she'd come back. She pinched Georgia's cheek and cooed. Georgia recoiled quickly, clinging to Penny, her free hand covering the cheek that the waitress grabbed. The waitress left.

"Andy. Listen to me. I don't really want to go into detail--not here--not now, but we need...to go." Nicholas asked why, but Penny ignored him, saying to me, "We'll talk about this later, but I want you to politely excuse us all out of this place. Here's what you can say. You tell the waitress...." And there she stood.

"Yes, honey?" the waitress asked.

"Uh, no thanks," I said, "we won't need any honey, but I think I'm ready to order. Nicholas, do you know what you want?" Penny's stare bore a hole through my head.

"Bacon!"

"Uh, okay. Anything else?" He told the waitress what he wanted, and I ordered for the rest of us.

"Andy, look at Georgia." I didn't notice anything strange, so Penny said, "Georgia, let Daddy look at your cheek." Georgia didn't want to move her hand, so Penny had to move it for her, and Georgia began to whimper. I leaned over the booth, but her cheek looked fine to me, didn't look red at all. I told this to Penny.

"I know it's not red. It's white." I peered closer, and indeed a small area did look a bit paler than the remainder of her complexion, but I thought the discoloration didn't signal any signs of danger. "Feel it," Penny said. I did. I then felt her forehead; it was warm. I put my hand on her cheek again, and...."Cold," Penny said. "Ice cold!"

"I can pour you a new cup, m'am. I don't mind at all. Just let me set these plates down, and I'll get right to it." Penny jumped back in her seat, back to the wall, startled by the waitress's sudden appearance. She put plates of bacon, gravy biscuits, pancakes, eggs, sausage, and grits, more than enough to feed all of us.

"Andy," my wife said, "I don't think we should eat this," but she spoke too late, for Nicholas was crunching down on his bacon. She turned to him and began to tell him not to eat any more than he already had, but Georgia was already scooping eggs into her mouth.

"Might as well enjoy it while it's here; it just smells too good not to eat," I said. I stood up and took Georgia from Penny's arms and placed her in an old wooden high chair that the waitress must have at some time moved to the end of the booth. I dug in. A few minutes later, Penny did, too.

And it was delicious. Greasy, but...that was as it should have been. Best breakfast I believe I've ever eaten. I think the rest of my family felt the same, as we all devoured our food like rib-thin vagrant dogs. Nicholas, Georgia, and I wiped our plates clean, but Penny's plate still harbored one lonely link sausage. The waitress returned. "Let me clear that for you," she said. She gathered all the empty plates first, and then she grabbed Penny's plate.

As she started to pull it away, Georgia leaned up from her high-chair, grabbed the waitress by the wrist, stared her in the eyes, and said, "Don't take my mommy's plate!" The waitress froze and stared back. Georgia never averted her gaze. The waitress flinched, took a deep breath, and returned Penny's plate to the table.

"I'll just come back for this later." She took her free hand, straigtened her hair, her dress, and her back. She lay our ticket on the table and walked to the kitchen. We didn't see her again.

"Andy?" Penny said, but I didn't feel I needed to answer. I knew what she wanted. I stood up, took the ticket, and told Nicholas to come on. Penny picked Georgia up from the high chair, and they followed right behind us. I walked up to the platform and handed our ticket to a different waitress, though her hair and dress matched her co-worker's. She took the ticket, and Penny tugged at my shirt sleeve. "Andy. Look at these papers. Look at these headlines." One paper, The Oxford Eagle, announced the withdrawal of American troops from Cambodia; the other paper, The Daily Mississippian, sported a headline questioning the effect the President's lowering of the voting age to eighteen would have on the upcoming Democratic and Republican primaries. Before I had a chance to look at the dates, the waitress at the platform caught my attention.

"Sir, that'll be $3. 57."

"M'am?" I asked. "Could you, uh, say that again? I don't hear well sometimes." She repeated the price. I turned to Penny, my eyes wide. Penny reached into her pocket, never taking her eyes from mine, and handed me a five dollar bill. I looked at her for another second or two, but her expression never wavered. I handed the bill to the waitress and told her to keep the change.

"Come back again, y'all, when you've got more time to spend with us. Here, why, we've got all the time in the world."

We exited through the glass double doors and walked into Patrick's closet. We walked out of the closet and went to the living room and sat down on the couch. "Dad," Nicholas said, "can we go back there again tomorrow morning? That food was great."

"No, Babo, no. No, Babo, no," Georgia said.

Penny and I looked at one another. I picked up Georgia, suggested we drive to the Idea House, and Penny agreed. On our way out, Penny took a framed Sports Illustrated--with Archie Manning on the cover--on the wall near the door, and turned it around, its back now facing outwards. We went to the Jeep and drove to Taylor.