Waffle House
For Christopher Gage
That the new tranquility of the south could conceivably put an end to [southern creativity] is one possibility; another is that it will bring on a new spiritual peace that will permit a more untroubled pursuit of culture and art.
— William F. Buckley, 1972
My daughter-in-law-to-be and I drive to Waffle House.
Saturday mornings I get up early. Eat big, drink a bucket of coffee, throw open the windows, burn a stick of incense for Apollo (not a cock, papa Socrates, we’re a half-vegetarian household) and clean everything sparkling before it’s time for class and rehearsal. But if anyone’s awake with me, we feed at Waffle House before the Big Cleaning starts.
Daffodils in full bloom, first red tulip uncurling, young sage fresh and fragrant. The radio comes on when I start the car. Ron DeSantis acting the clown in Florida.
“Should I turn off the news?” I ask.
“No matter. I’ve heard it already.”
Here’s this week’s news that my Black, anime-art-drawing, almost-daughter-in-law has heard:
A lawmaker here in Tennessee wants to bring back hanging as capital punishment
A law here in Tennessee has been passed that would allow county clerks to refuse to solemnize marriages based on personal beliefs — thrown in with a flurry of anti-trans bills, of course it’s just that, of course it’s not about anything else, of course it’s about those icky gays, it’s not a challenge to Loving v. Virginia. That’s only the mirror world, you flakes. Hysterical exaggeration.
Down in Florida, gag laws on discussion of race in schools
This isn’t part of our history. This is our history. This grappling. How will we live with each other? How will we live apart?
I turn off the radio. “Does this affect your marriage plans?” I could ask. But we had that conversation another week. Instead, today, I ask: “Will you stay?”
We’re all asking it. Social media, everywhere. Passionate pointless Facebook debates about whether it’s privileged to assume other people can just leave jobs and families, progressives as always cutting each other’s throats in the face of the outside threat. My foolish beloved people.
Everywhere, for several years now, but more frequently and more urgently this spring, the same conversations, the same answers: I’ll stay because it’s my city. My country. I’ll stay to help those who can’t leave. I’ll stay because I’m Cherokee, dammit, because I’m Muscogee, dammit, because I stepped on this soil in 1609, dammit, all variants of: I was here first.
Also: I already have a house in Boston. I’m thinking about Costa Rica. We’ve already moved to Vermont. We’ve gone before — New York, Chicago. We can do it again. I won’t raise my kids here.
I’ll stay to fight.
That’s my Almost-Daughter-in-Law’s answer: “"I’ll stay to fight. Oh — ” that sweet pixie face spreads in an evil grin — “I’ll make trouble.”
This is nothing new to her; white folks’ post-Trump vapors no surprise.
“It’ll be worse for mixed folks, it’s worse for my brother.”
I’m surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
She nods. Her brother is in high school. He dates white girls, they seek him out and I reckon he seeks them out. Not one — not a singular story, a wound — but many of them have left him because their parents wouldn’t hear of it. No college money, no nothing, if you don’t break up now.
“I understand this,” Almost-Daughter-in-Law says, “they’re young, they don’t have power, they don’t know any better. The ones I blame are the ones who date him for the adventure. As if he was a prop.”
Not one girl, you see. Most of the girls, the general pattern of girls. She isn’t even surprised. Her little brother. Kid in high school. Scholar, athlete, popular kid, all-American 2023 tale.
This is the conversation we have in the five-minute drive to Waffle House.
It’s a new sparkling Waffle House near car dealerships and a shop where they program controls systems for asphalt plants.
It’s a mixed Waffle House. Don’t believe me, you innocent? You don’t think there are Waffle Houses where heads turn if you don’t look right?
Folks in groups, workingmen here, a couple of white couples, four Black women in a row, a Black man with a white woman — a friend pair with lots of affectionate teasing — two white men in those fleece shirts that aren’t quite military issue but you can sometimes get away with wearing over ACUs. The men are my age, 50-some, have tight haircuts to match.
I always do a census when I walk in a place. American pastime: paranoia.
The waitress sits us by a plate glass window. We order so much food. “Two checks?” “I’ve got it,” I say. I love being old sometimes. Power rush. I don’t lie.
We talk about the schism. Something else everyone’s discussing these days. How will it happen? When? I reckon the clever states will just wise up and cut the south adrift when we demand it, I say; there won’t be much conflict. Good riddance, they’ll say.
If it happens, Almost-Daughter-in-Law thinks, the south will end up like something in South America, ruled by fear and threat until the people fight back. She talks about a guillotine and we both laugh and we get way out in nonsense territory, eating the rich and suchlike, just eat one and the rest will fall in line, and then it’s too much bloody revolution for a Waffle House and I just focus on her face, smiling and laughing and way too tired for almost-30.
“Look at you.”
Almost-Daughter-in-Law is wearing a pink-and-red plaid sweater, holding a pink Cherry Sprite, sitting against a red vinyl seat back. The sun gleams on the bubbles in the cup and glitters her skin, which absorbs light and spills it back like a Twilight vampire’s.
“I should take a photo,” I say.
“A Polaroid,” she agrees. “One of those old-time Polaroid photos.”
We’re both joyful. It’s good to be young and pretty and know it, and good to look upon someone who’s young and pretty and knows it, good to show your admiration in your eyes.
I agree we need to get a Polaroid camera. But I don’t get out my phone to snap the shot. The two stern-looking dudes are changing their seats, moving from the counter to a different table, and I in no way want them to think I’m taking their picture.
At this point I don’t know. You may be right, love. Paranoia? Hysteria? My eyes touch the two dudes, flicker to Almost-Daughter-in-Law’s eyes, back to them again, almost without thought. Not a warning, just a caution. This is our life. Everything’s almost always safe, almost always fine. At the same time, you never can tell. Anything that happens will erupt out of a quiet moment like this. Slow motion, then everything all at once.
The waitress, a woman my age or older with purple warfarin-looking bruises on the backs of her hands, takes a shine to me and tops up my coffee three times. I hold my cup for her each time, enjoying the closeness.
Behind us the two dudes are talking low. Standing to finish my coffee, I let my head turn just a hint. Trouble for someone, not me, not us, get a better lawyer, she’ll be afraid to ever do it again.
We collect a tray of food for my son and a second waffle for Almost-Daughter-in-Law and drive away.
Nothing has happened. Nothing has happened. It’s just how I made the light shine off the mirror. American paranoia, that’s all. Just an ordinary morning. An ordinary, joyful, cherry-apple red, plate-glass glimmer of a morning.
I clean my house. I check the clock. I check to see if His Nibs has answered me: no, never not ever.
I check up on my online friend the essayist. We’ll call him, because it will make him nuts, Bill Buckley. I fall in love with everyone, love, don’t take this personal. I find oh this beautiful barbed essay, part of a quest to purify thought and language, a sugar rush for a gal who knows by memory what kind of dashes several dozen clients use and whether or not they prefer spaces around their en or their em dash.
And then of course — that little poinard of course — what else but diatribes against this hysteria about melanin, about feelings.
His one line does what my 50 or 100 sentences do, and better.
But in the wrong line, in the wrong direction, blurring truth with wit and confusion, my heart is breaking, why abuse the beautiful gifts you were given —
It’s 10:47 on a Saturday morning.
Are you laughing, little brother? Are you amused?
Catch me again in five years, love. In 10. If this was hysteria I’ll fall to my knees. I’ll be so thankful I’ll give you all my toys.
[This essay intersects picks up concepts from some of my fiction. For His Nibs and the mirror world, look here. And folks are still talking about when and whether to leave the south in the New Confederacy stories, starting here.]