HOLLOW GOLD

Tables wiped down before you sit but remain slick and greasy as the water the bussers wipe them with is gray and oil laden. Each booth has its own personal jukebox. I play Roger Miller King of the Road. Mom sings 'eight hars pushin broom buysa four b'twelve cubit room' line. Selections are few. There's Merle and Waylon and Hank Jr. and some Willie. "Granny" is at the table to take orders before King of the Road is over. She is shrinking old and her eyes are sunken yellow treasure of prize sport drinkers. When her shift is done and she has rolled her silver and clocked out and taken her apron off and thrown it in the TO WASH bin she walks next door and buys a liter of Heaven Hill. Every night.

They are out of chicken pot pie and rutabagas. They are almost out of cobbler so you want some best order it now. Everyone does meat and three except my sister and she gets grilled cheese and fries and Sprite. Willie sings On the Road Again. The restaurant is full and loud and theres a trucker who's so fat he sits half out in the aisle so his belly can distend and he fixes his hat and sweats through his denim shirt to wheres its dark navy and when his order comes it fills the table and he drinks hot coffee throughout the meal and picks his teeth for half hour before he leaves seventy five cents next to the biscuit basket and honey bear.

Tea so sweet you can stand a butterknife in it. Collards taste like smoke and meat and the mac n cheese is mostly american cheese and little elbow noodle and the barbecue chicken tastes like smoke and not meat and its sauce is a red bright as what coats College Park Fire Engines one and seven. Engine five is neon yellow. Engine four is white and decommissioned. Its on the tour and you get to hang on it while it sits without an engine neath the hood but its lights work and are blue and white and sirens about as loud as anything you imagine even louder than DC-10s taxiing in only hundreds of feet overhead Hartsfield where we stand at the chainlink our fingers in the diamonds rusted from rain the engines screaming so loud we have to shut our eyes and hold hands over ears and when dad talks his mouth moves and we hear nothing but he keeps talking. It's like being underwater.

Suns down. It was light when we got here and the flouresecent lights go on inside and almost makes it seem smokier since you now see the smoke and its everywheres and spinning and rolling across tables littered with plates and gnawed bones and slops of sauce and spilt honey. Joe is at the counter and he's fatter than the trucker who couldn't fit in the booth. He says, how yall doin, to everybody. There are cans of boiled peanuts for sale by the register and gumdrops from Rotary Club and donation cans for Shriners, Civitan, and Loyal Order of Moose. Joes a deacon at College Park Baptist. Wears same black suit ever Sunday. His funeral suit. He looks just like Shoneys Big Boy but has a chinstrap beard like a Quaker. He's married to a mennonite woman named Rebah and she makes her own clothes and homeschools their children who have bible names that are weird but I can't remember what they are.

Outside lights come up. My favorite is the orange neon. It traces the roofline and if you lie on your back in the car when you leave the place it spills into the back window and looks like blood. Whole car is red and looks like blood. My sister goes, raaaaar I'm dead look I'm dead raaaar, and does her hands out like a zombie. There goes Granny dad says. She walks into the store and comes out with a tall brown paper bag and she has to stop before walking back to the restaurant because we are coming and dad waves at her and she just looks at us with her yellow eyes not knowing us nor waving or anything. My sister goes, raaaaar Granny's dead look raaaaaar, but it's no longer red in the car it's just dark and Bettie Davis Eyes is on the radio and my clothes and hands and hair smells like smoke.