Pie Snack

The narrow restaurant stretches away from the bright windows along the sidewalk at the front into dark shadows at the back. On the left, a few people sit mostly by themselves at tables along the wall. On the right, the eatery bar is covered with preparations for the coming dinner rush.

A young, thin waitress neatly places two forks on each table-for-four. Another larger waitress dishes up salad into bowl after bowl lined up on the counter. A man in his fifties with trim-silver hair, a white shirt, black bow tie, white apron, and white pants paces back and forth behind the stool-lined bar, making sure everything is ready.

We ate not too long ago. We are not here for dinner. We just came in for a snack. Helen, gray-haired with curly locks, takes our orders for pie: lemon meringue for the boys, black raspberry for me, and Trudy spots some chocolate creme and sends Helen off to the far counter for it.

Before she returns, a second gray-haired waitress standing at the counter asks me from a distance (under her breath so Helen won't hear her), You want ice cream with that?

I smile and quietly say, I'll ask her when she gets back.

A man at the small table behind us laughs out loud. So does a second man finishing his meal at a small table along the wall. The second waitress smiles and nods.

Helen returns with Trudy's chocolate creme pie and turns to me and asks, Would you like some ice cream with that?

Yes, please. I say.

She walks off, soon returning with my black raspberry pie with a massive scoop of ice cream on top, by which time the boys have devoured their slices and Trudy has begun to dig into hers.

Another waitress in the room finishes reading a newspaper, folds it neatly, and sets it down in front of her. The man sitting by the wall finishes eating, sets down his napkin and looks at her.

Am I in the obituaries, today? he asks.

No, she says.

Well that's a relief! he says as he gets up and limps to the cash register at the front.

The restaurant is beginning to fill up. The waitresses are all busy taking orders. Plates of hot lunch entrees (BBQ backbone, backbone and kraut, chip beef, beef and noodles, ...) are being served.

Helen walks back from one of the tables at the front and shouts out, Ham-and-baked and beef-and-baked!

The man in the bow tie responds, Well bring the ham out!

I am! she says, walking quickly by him as he mutters to himself, wondering if the baked potatoes are done.

A man emerges from the kitchen somewhere in the back carrying a platter with a slab of meat on it and a large bone protruding.

Is that a ham!? I whisper to Trudy.

She looks at it and shrugs -- not like any ham we've ever seen.

But then neither was the pie. Too bad we didn't want dinner.

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Balyeats Coffee Shop and Eatery, since 1922, Van Wert OH

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