The thing about a Waffle House in Western North Carolina is that the smoking section is the entire House. People in the bar area smoke as they eat, dangling their legs over rubberpad stools while hunched over waffles and eggs. Near the bathrooms folks like to be more isolated so they smoke alone, turning and rustling pages of the local paper. Beside my booth to the left there is a family of smokers, eating, and making gray faces as smoke engulfs their waffles. The three-year old, curious like taking a first sip of beer, reaches toward the cigarette dangling out of grandma's mouth. She doesn't notice the cigarette is gone because she is intensely looking out the large windows to the mountains of long ago. The little one holds the cigarette and attempts to bring the butt to his lips, but then turns it the wrong way where the red cherry flickers before his eyes. The mother notices and grabs the cigarette. She says no, no, to the child. Grandma wakes up from the 40's and asks where her Winston went.
The people who work at a Waffle House are incredible multitaskers. A man can pour waffle mix into the maker, shuffle a couple sausages with his other hand holding a fork, and smoke a Marlboro with an ash-tail as long as his gnarled pinky. A waiter can deliver eggs faster than she delivers coffee, then leaves you hanging for your hash browns. “They’re on the grill and will be up in a sec hon.” I look over to the gnarly pinky man with the plume of smoke rising above my hash browns. I’m less than anxious now to have them but my delicious buttery eggs and empty cup of coffee need company.
“Can I get a refill of coffee?” I ask, thinking she will scurry to the half-full pots with red and black rims and come back apologizing.
She looks at me and says, “I’m waiting on your hash browns first.” Then she retreats to the bathroom area and I don’t see her again for the rest of my meal. I wonder what I said wrong. What part of my requests sent her to the Waffle House bathroom. Is she crying? Is she hurt? Is she smoking? I wonder if I need to leave a tip, because I could use the cash. The cook delivers the hash browns, almost tossing them across the table like a frisbee full of grease. I ask another waiter for coffee. He complies with my request and even brings me a tall glass of water—full of ice, refreshing and wonderful, with little tiny ash particles floating above the icecubes.
