Steak and Eggs Kitchen
Joke.
Kid A: how many indie rockers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Kid B: I don't know, how many?
Kid A: What! You don't that know that already?
( I'm thinking that must be a line from High Fidelity or something, but I heard it from the tues afternoon dj's at WZBC)
Thinking about Derrick brought to mind a particular set of
incidents belonging to a Spring Break trip up to Worcester MA to
see his friend Alan Spears, the 3rd member of Exiled, and editor of
this book: Fast Talk, Full Volume: An Anthology of African-American Poetry.
I think, all told, I only met Alan three times. The University of
Maryland separated Derrick from a lot of his high school friends.
I remember three things about this trip. We had a tape of the
Dove album in the car with us. I thought it was great and listened to
it through several times. I wanted to buy it when it came out, but I
could never find it later.
I don't remember the name of the school in Worcester that
Alan went to. I remember standing in the kitchen of the off campus
housing he was living in. Looking down at the floor and being able to
see through the cracks and gaps of the boards the dirt of ground below
which was remarkable well lit for being under the house. This was
worker housing from Worchester's mill and factory days, perhaps one
hundred years earlier. I believe it took a certain amount of
imagination and joie de vie to consider that home and domicile, Things
that Maryland for all its creature comforts lacked.
The third thing - I can't recall whether this happended on the
way up or the way down. It was round about breakfast time. We decided
it would be nice to pull off the interstate and land at some diner to
get some diner breakfast. I was thinking scrambled eggs, eggs over
easy, eggs benedict maybe, and toast. Toast with some of those little
packs of butter and jelly that you have to peel this layer of
aluminized plastic back from to get into. We arrive at just such a
place. shortly after we get in; though, Derrick begins to seem slightly
uncomfortable. He starts to hem and haw. About half way to a delightful
red vinyl booth, warm and soft in the morning sun, he decides we have
to leave, and we have to leave now. So we go back to the car. I wasn't
puzzled by this for as soon as we walked in a half dozen conversations
stopped dead and the eyes from all those silenced conversations tracked
our progress through the diner."you'd think, Derrick said "that they'd
never seen a Chinese guy with green hair before." I'm going to stop a
moment and confess that I don't recall whether his hair was actually
green at that time or whether it was orange or one of the other colors.
I'm making it green in honor of Dean Stockwell - the boy with
green hair. He has a part in the show JAG these days, From war orphan
to Secretary of the Navy; is this a great country or what. I looked
over at Derrick and answered predictably "Well you know, Derrick, maybe
they hadn't." "Maybe", Derrick replied with a pause, "But I'm not going
to spend any time being the first."
Despite the title of the post, this didn't take place at a
Steak and Eggs Kitchen, That was a local place that used to stay open
all night long, it was on University Blvd, about a block or so before
Riggs rd. Right by the power line.
10:39:47 PM  ;;
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