Creative: Neon Eats

By Mike Marino

ust, dirt and diesel, dead flies on the windowsill ... "Order up!"

The diner's rusted neon sign had long ago bled dry, evaporated along with the flowing stream of highway traffic that used to flood the two lanes of the now cracked, aged California concrete. In its day, in another era, it was a two-lane Mississippi river of commerce as migratory tourists searched every prairie dog hole for those elusive, invisible jackalopes that don't really exist and stacks of cutesy, kitschy "wish you were here" postcards to send home from the open road to the folks back home in cold, frozen, plaid and proud Minnesota.

Khaki-clad GIs ready to lock 'n' load poured across the desert two-lane on their way to Ord and Longbeach ready to train and end the war, any war. They jammed the jukebox with quarters, musical ammo snug in the slot, as the lonesome whistle country blues sounds of Hank Williams rose like an angel on wings, and Bill Haley one o'clocked, two o'clocked, and three o'clocked around the clock.

That, however, was before the intrusion of the interstate. The Red Ball Highway that won the war in Europe, now declared war on the American Southwest, decimating the diners, cafes, gas stations and warm beer juke joints. It blew them to smithereens with a steady, unrelenting bombardment of four-lane super highways, artillery shells of progress and prosperity, exploding, leaving the legendary two lanes, bleeding and lifeless, debris now, relics with fading signs on forgotten, forlorn, rusted and abandoned on old roadsides.

Hollywood itself, all glitz and glamour, stopped by the old place back in the heyday '30s. "Hell, Clark Gable hissef' et here once I'm told by my Grandpappy. Yep, him and Carol Lombard too on a couple o' occasions. Big cars and mink coats. Hoowee, them was the days, boy, them was the days. Ain't lak that now, though, I tell ya. Nope. Seems ole Ike, hell of soldier, President to, before that Catholic feller Kennedy got us all messed in Vietnam. My daddy voted fer Ike, but the General had this here idea you see, about that autobane or whatchacallit in Germany. Bigger cars, faster roads, people in too much of a hurry today if'n ya'll ask me. Anyways, done came through here in '66, maybe '67, and kilt the town. Now don't that beat all. S'pposed to be progress, and kilt the whole damned town. Shame is what it is, a downright shame."

The Roostertail Cafe had been a California desert landmark since 1930. Nobody was even sure where the name came from anymore, nor cared. Stan, along with Janet, his only waitress and also his wife and lifelong mate, ran the old place and tended to business, what was left of it, like his grandfather did when he opened it, and like his father did when he took over after Stan's grandfather passed on to that great filling station in the sky.

Stan laughed, thoughtfully to himself. "What's so durned amusin' Stanley?" Only Janet ever called him Stanley; to everyone else it was just Stan or Stosh, a nickname he earned in Korea. He laughed again and banged the table with his hand. "Life's crazy. Never thought I'd be running a restaurant, let alone a rundown one, and now, I get ready to sell the joint and I won't know what to do with my time. Live life like a broken down millionaire I suppose. Take up pottery or get a telescope and look at stars all night to fill my free time."

Janet smiled and let him have it. "Remember when you got home from Korea? Said you'd never settle down in the desert and stay put. Took a job on a Colorado railroad as a brakeman and damn near killed yourself, hated that. Then you made custom cowboy hats in Wyoming and you hated rodeos...but Lord, when you took over the cafe, why I've never seen you happier. You may think you hate this desert, but you don't, not really. You just think you're getting old, slowing down, running out of neon like that old sign out front, and well, you are, and I am and that's life." Stan smiled broadly and felt better, full of neon and full of memories, good and grand memories.

He remembered the hustle and bustle of the old days, the good old days. Used to have small cabins in back, the diner itself a porcelain grease palace, stools and tables filled with customers talking about where they've been and where they're headed. East to West, West to East, North to South and South to North. Could hardly keep the gas pumps going. "Check the oil? How's them tires? No water for miles so better check that fer ya too. Goin' to Los Angeles, are you, well say hello to Mr. Gable when you see him for me. Stops here sometimes, yep, sure does". Some days there were so many Packards, Plymouths, Chevrolets and Fords, the supply couldn't keep up with the gas guzzling, internal combustion demands of those piston pumping, petrol hungry, heavy metal mo-sheens on some days.

Big neon signs out front, like shimmering mirages in the heat of day, lit up the night sky for miles, brighter than Times Square on V-E Day. The cafe announced in simple easy to understand neon lingo, "EATS". The cabins beckoned with a big neon welcome, "VACANCY". The wooden cabins were filled at night with tourists glad to be off the road for a few precious hours of rest after keeping the beat to the steel belt concerto. You could hear the children's cacophony of muffled laughter in the knotty piners, parents laughing too, right along with them. The soft glow of the lamps within cozily illuminating the floral print of the cheap curtains.

Every now and them, the urbane family, constrained and shackled by months of claustrophobic skyscraper concrete, would walk, float in a dream state out onto the gravel parking lot at night to wonder in awe at the horizon to horizon palette of stars that filled the clear desert sky, natures nocturnal canvas. The succulent smells of the sand plants, the crisp, black night air. The Cactian Kingdom of the Great Southwest.

Next morning, refreshed, born again, they'd pack up the car and then head into the cafe. The flickering neon sign still on in the fading early morning hours as it made ready for the brilliant sun and the heat of the day. "EATS" was all it said, all it ever said. Story goes that when asked why it didn't say more, Stans grandfather replied, "It says enough." The customers would wolf down big plates of fresh eggs cooked to culinary perfection, drink coffee strong enough to wake the dead, and feast on peppered bacon and thick slabs of sourdough toast with fresh butter and jam, homemade by Stan's wife.

Afterward some would buy some to-go food for the road, long trip after all. A postcard or two with a cartoon character Navajo chief on it, taffy candy and small pecan rolls in a bag for the "are we almost there yet" kids in the back. They would then pull the cars and campers around to the pumps, fill 'em up, have the oil and tires checked one more time for good measure and buy a .25 roadmap to help guide them to the Pacific Ocean across the sea of sand they had to cross first.

On occasion, to have some fun with the tourist, Stan's grandfather would sell the kids souvenir bags of "rattlesnake eggs" and stuffed toy rabbits with antlers glued to their synthetic heads. "Jackalopes is what they is. Lot's of 'em round here." The kids eyes would get wild-eyed wondered, and the parents would smile at this obvious farce and tall tale. Road-ready, mom and dad would load the kids, along with a bag full of memories, genuine rubber injun tommyhawks, plastic feathered headdresses and rubber tipped arrows for plastic bows and maybe a coonskin cap or two for good measure. Never know what you'll run into out in the mirages and heat of the merciless Mojave.

The town of Rogers, California was a thriving port in the automotive seas in those days. Hardware store, mercantile for linens, grocery store for food and even had a small pharmacy in back. The Roostertail had one of the first soda fountains in California, and experimented once with bringing food out to the waiting cars to speed up service and increase profits. Grandfather noticed though, that then the harried motorists would hurry on their way, the cabins would sit vacant. He quickly put an end to his experiment marriage curb service socialism and carhop capitalism.

The Rogers movie theater advertised "100% Refrigerated Air." The Carswell family, who had opened the small theater in town just before the war, opened a drive-in movie theater in 1949 on some ranch land they owned. They showed all the latest films from Holly-weird, and by the mid-50s the kids started to come from miles around, sometimes from as far away as Eastvale in the next county on Saturday nights. It was a revved up processional of souped up '32 Fords, '49 Mercs and '57 Chevy's.

The movies soon changed, and Errol Flynn was swashbuckeled by an atomic monster from Japan called Godzilla. Families that had enjoyed cartoons, shorts and main features now kept away, as the kids enjoyed sexual discovery and paradise by the dashboard light in the backseat vinyl with rock 'n' roll on the radio up front. On the silver outdoor screen, Bugs Bunny bested Elmer Fudd every time. and who could resist the magnet of madcap that transfixed us with the eye-poking doink-doink "Soitenly!" mayhem of the Three Stooges.

"Times was good" the old timers chime in, but the times, as the song says, were a changin'...

The coming of the Interstate also brought with it a social whirlwind of change. The next generation of Rogers progeny realized they didn't want to farm or ranch anymore. Profits were too low to eke out an existence and they preferred perfume and cologne to the smell of manure. Some went on to college, others joined the Army to stop the Communist domino that was devouring Asia, and others just simply left town and dropped off the face of the earth as they knew it, never to be seen again.

(Next issue will feature part two.)

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