Through the doors everything is the color of brown. The linoleum floors and the absolutely-don’t-fuck-with-me polyester pants on the fifty-nine year old waitresses. The amber light fixtures are just the color of coffee watered down, of bargain scotch in a plastic glass.

My waitress has the rock of ages etched in her face and talks like a beer frauline at Oktoberfest. Knockwust, batwurst and saurkrat. Do you go home at night to Strauss waltzes and German translations of romance novels?

I’m at the counter, which means I’m in between spaces, officially fallen though the crevices, and I like it. The lunch counter is the space in the cracks of America, a place where you can be no one and nowhere. No family in tow, no apple-eyed girl to hold hands or argue with in the parking lot. No, I am free, a dust mote on the dashboard of God’s minivan, stuck between the cup holder and the square wedge of plastic below the radio.