Layover Lunch - Noaa Rienecker

You have to wait awhile
For service here
One old spotted man
With a big nose and a hunchback
Hobbles around
Taking orders,
Pulling draft,
And looking pissed.

A younger woman,
Perhaps his daughter,
Works the register,
And neither of them even hint
At acknowledgement
If addressed,
But a few minutes later,
Your potato chips rattle down
Indignantly before you.

I am afraid to ask
For Tabasco.

Balding and bespectacled,
A moustachioed Parkinson's tremor
Grasps his cane and sips a whiskey sour
As his beer arrives.

Dropping dates like names
From a green grin,
His eyes alight on my copy of Bukowski
And his food hole mumbles
Something about marijuana policy,
The Clintons,
And an impending planetary collision.

I try to respond politely but
All I can really decipher is
“1972grimblefackmarble1992…”

The man beside me gets up,
And, seizing the opportunity,
I become his buddy
And excuse myself.