Brian Turns Twenty-two (again)

On May 9th, twenty-ten, Brian turned twenty-two, again.

Or at least that’s what he told Linda, our waitress at My Father’s Place diner and bar on Grand Avenue.

It was Brian’s birthday. It was also Mother’s Day. It was beautiful and sunny with the bluest sky the world had ever seen, and we went out for a happy birthday breakfast at Brian’s place of choice…

My Father’s Place.

Walking in off the sidewalk was like walking into a seventies-style cave. It was hard to believe the lights were on at all, but the Sheri’s-style booth lamps glowed just enough to vaguely make out brown vinyl bench seats that looked like they’d been pulled straight out of an old school bus. Old faded pictures, scattered about, hung crookedly in an eclectic collection of decorative wooden frames. Camping lanterns, tea pots and a red Radio Flyer hung from the ceiling. (Brian especially liked that part.)

Toward the back of the restaurant a vending machine, stocked with Kit-Kat bars, Snickers, and Camel cigarettes, stood amongst a small collection of video poker machines with their blinking lights. An old-fashioned photo booth sat quietly in the corner. All windows were draped with rickety blinds, tightly closed and covered in a sticky layer of dust.

We chose the big round table in a windowed corner next to the Christmas tree. That’s right, it was May 9th and a plastic Christmas tree was happily erect and decorated with dusty ornaments and Valentine heart tinsel in the front window of My Father’s Place.

Linda poured us all coffee. She had a low pony of thinning, slicked-back gray hair. “How are you this morning?” she asked us.

The coffee tasted like burnt dirt. I had a thought for a moment, that it probably wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t work at a coffeehouse serving Portland’s infamous Stumptown coffee. My coffee taste buds had turned to snobs. I stirred four creamers into the 8oz mug to drown out the flavor. Sipped it. Reevaluated my thoughts. Stirred in another creamer.

“Good,” we all replied in unison.

Brian was the only one who chimed in to ask how Linda was that morning. He drank his coffee black.

I handed Brian the plastic bag full of cookies I’d baked for him the night before. They were sugar cookies from a package mix. He smiled grandly.

“Somebody loves me,” he announced, “Thanks sweet heart.”

There isn’t really much better in life than to make people like Brian happy, people who are as genuine as him and have so little.

Brian had told me he called his mom that morning. He calls her three times a year, he told me. Christmas, Mother’s Day, and her birthday. Their conversations are always tense, he said, as he would expect from a mother who worries about her son. He will probably never see her again.

Brian had been to My Father’s Place probably a dozen times before, he told us. He probably had his order planned in advance. He ordered the hobo omelet. It was gigantic and full of all sorts of meat with hash browns and a biscuit. He ate the entire thing. Every bite. He scraped his plate clean. It’s not everyday a homeless guy is treated to a special birthday breakfast. It can be assumed the occasion was not taken lightly.

“I can afford to take the whole day off,” Brian told me. “A lady I talk to sometimes gave me a birthday card”, he said, “with one-hundred dollars.”

Brian used to sell Street Roots newspapers at New Seasons market. He’d make an average of thirty to forty dollars a day. But these days he’s been pan handling for work, which earns him on average seventeen dollars a day. There would be no working today, however. No selling papers, no pan-handling, no cardboard sign. It was Brian’s birthday. He was twenty-two again. And he had the whole day free.

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