Breakfast in Payson
I’m a big fan of Garrison Keillor. He once said that if you drive around the country, stop in small towns, and sit down with the locals in their breakfast cafe, you never know when you may hear something interesting, surprising, or even profound. John Steinbeck also believed that. He took his dog and drove across America, talking with ordinary people and collecting stories. They went into a thoughtful and entertaining book titled “Travels With Charley.”
Well . . . I came to the desert town of Payson, Arizona. I ordered breakfast in a small diner there beside the road. The adjoining booth was occupied by a local man, sitting by himself, talking on his cellphone, his voice lowered. He had long, unkept hair and a long, unkept beard. His clothes looked as worn and tired as he did, and his speech had the lingering of alcohol about it. I heard him use the word “innebriated,” a term less confessional and more respectable than the word “drunk.” But meaning the same, of course.
The man was talking with a woman. You could tell she was someone he missed, someone he owed something to, someone he needed to have around and planned to see again.
The man was doing most of the talking, mostly about nothing, until the end of the conversation. The woman on the line had apparently said, “I love you.”
Now, a man in those circumstances must say something. As a man myself, I know about this moment, that pause that needs a response, as the woman awaits one. I didn’t expect a memorable response from this man, but I heard one.
There was a moment of hesitation, and then: “I love you . . . no matter what I say or do.” …