House Away From Home

Fog is the blanket under which the people of south central Kentucky sleep. The fog is pervasive and carries a power that sags the air, heavy in the way that makes you feel weightless like you're swimming in an ethereal swimming pool. Corbin itself feels thick. The coal industry has pushed the limits of the town's soul; it bulges until the cold gray of steel and fog and smoke stacks flood the streets, through the Taco Bell parking lots and running the 15 red lights in the one and a half mile stretch of highway 25-E before it connects to I-75.

I worked the day before, 4-11, driving pizzas around town while trying to beat the clock. Then I started on my 8 hour drive to western Kentucky to see my college roommate and his family. All this is to say that I had gotten comfortable being let alone.

At 3 a.m. driving through Corbin, I decide to go to Waffle House in that “Well, why the fuck not?” way most people do right before they find themselves staring at a plate of greasy eggs. I'm not even hungry, or thirsty, or tired. I just need something to do with my hands besides swerving lane to lane rolling cigarettes in the dark. I walk in and ask which side is the smoking section (the ban in Kentucky is by county) and choose a seat in the far corner. From there, I can see the door, a couple chain smoking a few booths in front of me in the near corner, and the cooks in the reflection from the windows, dripping with condensation as they are.

A waitress no older than I takes my order, “Okay honey, we'll have it for ya in a few,” betraying the presence of her old soul. The hash browns, grits, and coffee arrive together, all plain as they come. I put out my cigarette, grab the ketchup, and get to work. No, I don't need a refill, thank you. Sure, I'll politely smile and nod when you add “darlin'” to the end of your pleasantries. The man half of the couple in front of me has a sleeveless t-shirt on with the name of (I'm assuming his) landscaping company on the front and a big right arm wearing a faded blue tattoo of the Tasmanian Devil cartoon character. His woman is dressed more appropriately for the sub-freezing weather: pants, boots, a leather jacket that I assume is his. Their talk is indiscriminate. I watch the cooks in the reflection in the window, calling out short hand orders and joking with the local patrons.

As I'm about to get up to pay the bill and leave, I notice the sound of what seems to be a male baritone voice singing a Spanish opera (although in retrospect it may have been a 70's country song. Regardless, there was oddly no music playing before), and simultaneously a man enter the cooking area from the back room, as if the music were to mark his arrival. The mood was changing. Tall and lean, he strides with the confidence of a mafia don, a man in complete control of his surroundings, a gait few men of his age (at least 60) keep through their 40's when they realize they don't have to fight anymore, that they can resign to the world and become rocks in the wake instead of oars. His white hair is pulled into a ponytail and bound by a couple of rubber bands, and his white mustache and soul patch hang on his face like memories of fallen comrades.

Taking this in, I forget that he can see me as well in the sweating windows. I guess I was staring, but not in an offensive or aggressive way. He locks his eyes on mine and instantly looks across the room to the sleeveless man sitting in front of me. The bouncer, his muscle. The man nods, and The Chef turns. Neither look at me the entire time afterwards.

I pay, thank, and tip the waitress. I also neglect to tell her that she made a mistake on the ticket and that I should have been charged for the grits, but we've already done the dance. I open the door and the fog instantly clings itself to my clothes, wilting my collar and closing in on my resolve to drive 4 more hours in the dark. “Hey boy, I like your tattoo.” I know without need of proof it is the Tasmanian Devil. He looks like his voice, a little gruff and regretting his wardrobe choice. I turn around to meet him, to steady myself against what may be punishment for crossing an invisible (and ridiculous anyway) line. Did I unknowingly look at either The Devil or The Chef crossways? I damn sure hope not. His woman is there at his side, swimming in the fog or the jacket or the situation. “I like yours, too.” He takes a step towards me, his woman takes a step towards him. “Is that supposed to be funny?” His woman puts her arm in his, pulling him towards a truck the fog, or even a flood of biblical proportions, couldn't clean. “Come on, let's go. It's goddamn late and he's a young man with out of town tags,” she says, looking at my license plates and my cleanly shaved face.

They get in the truck, rev the Hemi a few times, which I assume is my cue to get the fuck out of there. Halfway into my car, I hear him stop. I can't help but look. A blackened window rolls down, and from inside, I think I hear “'Cause it wasn't.”

I have realized why guys like that, the guys that love Larry the Cable Guy and spend more money on their trucks than their trailer homes, love the Tasmanian Devil cartoon. They can identify with him. He has a mullet, you can't understand a goddamn word he says most of the time, and time has pushed him to become a caricature of himself. Over the years, the simplicity of what he was has been refined, distilled, until all we are left with is a cartoon image, comical in its exaggerated defining features. I suppose we can say the same of the Devil himself.