PEOPLE OF THE NIGHT

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Sometimes late at night, I drive to an open all-night diner. Alone, I sit in a booth with a novel and drink coffee. I sip the coffee slowly. I don’t really need the caffeine after midnight any more than I need to read a book in a restaurant. Beside my coffee spoon rests a pen. These nights I am more interested in people who are accustomed to being out and about at a time when most of their fellow citizens are home asleep.

I wonder if the people who find themselves in diners at midnight or later — or is it considered earlier? — than most are different at this time of night than they are in daylight hours. Night workers are different than day workers. Their whole routine has shifted. Midnight may or may not be their dinner hour, but it is certainly the beginning of their dating time. Where does one take a date this time of day?

There’s a small bar near the Interstate that operates on a 24/7 basis as do many convenience stores, laundries and restaurants. Obviously, enough customers make these hours bankable and the businesses are satisfying a public need. Libraries and bookstores are closed. I suppose that means those establishments are not required around the clock. I suppose reading is not a necessity for some. Only – what if the bookstores were open for the graveyard shift society? Would anyone come? Has anyone tried to keep a bookstore opened for night workers?

My gym opens at 4:00 a.m. and closes at 11:00 p.m. In a lot of cities, walking or jogging at night, whether alone or not isn’t very smart. What if someone wanted to exercise off some frustrations after clocking out at or after midnight?

Checking the phonebook, I see an ad for an urgent care clinic open 7 days a week, but only open from 8a.m. – 8 p.m. What happens if a nightshift person gets sick or hurt between those closed hours and you don’t fall either into the insured or poverty-level areas where a hospital will treat you? If these clinics were open, would there be enough ill people to pay for the costs of keeping open?

The always-open bar I mentioned is a wood-shingled rectangle without windows that looks like a kind of out-in-the-woods shack that appeals to a certain type. The building sits in the center of the property like a castle surrounded by an asphalt moat of a parking lot. The reason it’s situated in the center (or so I’m told) is so patrons may park in the back if they prefer and remain somewhat anonymous to the passersby. Most of the patrons are having drinks with friends or at least co-workers just as those working the more common 9-5 would. (And yes, some day workers park in the back also.) Although alcohol doesn’t taste any different at 7:30 a.m. when you’ve worked the midnight-7 shift, the walk in the morning light from the bar to your car does.

The story I’m writing deals with People of the Night. There are more of them than I had first considered. Of course, there are the pimps and prostitutes, drug runners and burglars, but also police, firemen, doctors, nurses, computer technicians, custodial staffs and obviously those operating 24/7 establishments. And yes, some writers burning the midnight oil either of their own choosing or because they are running against a deadline and need a change of scenery to court the Muse.

At the diner, there are a group of people in scrubs, the men in plain green, the women in wild assorted prints. This group is laughing and this meeting is obviously a ritual, having pie and coffee before heading home after work.

Two barely-out-of-their-teens are huddled together on one side of a booth, staring into each other’s eyes and sharing a plate of French fries, although he’s eating more than she. I don’t think they realize others occupy the diner.

An older man sits alone and chews every bite of his breakfast plate as if he is pondering the world’s problems and will find an answer if only he grinds the bacon or wheat toast or sunny-side-up eggs harder between his teeth. Perhaps he will. His demeanor as much as his clothing and calloused hands suggests he works hard for his living. The worried brow says something has been bothering him for some time.

I am the only female sitting alone, which no one seems to notice but me, which is nice. I’m not here to be noticed, but to notice.

I scribble a few notes in the margins of the book I purchased at a garage sale for a nickel. I never could get past the first chapter, but have come to treasure the amounts of white space surrounding the dialogue. It gives me lots of room to write details I won’t want to forget.

Things like:

• the hospital workers are smoking like there’s no tomorrow. I wonder if that’s due to the new smoking ban on hospital premises — including the parking lots.
• the teenagers are cuddled as close as the homeless near a fire beneath a bridge in the midst of winter although even way past midnight, the temperature and humidity make tonight at best balmy.
• the lone man seems lonely and doesn’t blink much. I wonder if he’s afraid of missing something — or perhaps someone?
• new pots of coffee are brewing almost constantly and their scent mixes with those from a grill that never cools.
• the waitresses — no matter their age, shape or hairstyle — wear a frazzled smile when the customers are looking that fades when they return to the pass along the order to the cooks.
• the cooks move relentlessly from one ticket to the next without changing expressions or talking much to those surrounding them. Their hands seem to be in constant motion.
• the manager whistles in spurts and garners both surprise and mild annoyance from the clientele. The workers seem not to notice at all.
• looking through the window to the street outside, the traffic moves quicker than during the day, but then, there is less congestion, except for the Interstate traffic which is constant, but mainly comprising trucks transporting products we all need or think we need.
• just like during the day, people are talking about the high cost of fuel, family problems and successes and what they’re planning for the weekend or their days off.

As the sun peeks across the horizon, I finish my umpteenth cup of coffee and leave a healthy tip to the waitress who never questioned just how long I intended to take up space in her section.

It’s time to go. Day People are arriving.