Top of Hill Grill Visit 2, April 14, 2010

Parking lot is full. No one is sitting inside except a family with an infant who leaves as I arrive. Reggae is playing, and a young white rasta climbs into his SUV in the parking lot. Six tables of people, dotted like stars or moles on a back — disconnected on the same field.

Now it’s Mick Jagger, “suitcase in my hand… Whoah!”

I’m waiting here alone for Curtis and Joseph. Kind of nice to be able to write undistracted.

A woman in a white sweater with bleached hair sitting alone with her saddle-sized purse. Four women: one older, in business casual, and two younger in casual casual, shoving sandwiches and burgers in their mouth, chewing and talking softly.

Closer to me, still inaudible except as a murmur: two men. One is married, gold ring on finger. He holds the leash to a hideous pug that snorts its train-wreck face at me as I walk by, pushing me with its concave nose. His owner, grey beard and salt & pepper hair, says, “No, Train Wreck [I can’t remember the name]. He’s talking to an older guy with white hair and a blue fleece vest Both have their hands folded on the table in front of them. They (like I) glance over at people at other tables, and then back. Four more people in pairs, in their own private orbits. Empty tables between us.

Three of diamonds, food is ready. Three of diamonds. White Sweater woman saunters over to the food shack for her order.

Four of hearts… It’s the older men.

Rasta boy reappears from the parking lot, vanishes, reappears from the bathroom and walks toward the food shack, looking only straight ahead.

I keep glancing up at people, hoping I don’t catch anyone’s eye, don’t get busted peeking into their world. I know as well as I know it’s sunny out that it is inappropriate here to make contact across universes.

I wonder: is the culture of this place different at night, when people have their brown bags with them?

Nine of diamonds… These are the same few cards that they used two days ago. Where are the spades and clubs, I wonder. Where are the face cards?

The ugly pug pushes its brown and white lack of face at its owner, and is rewarded with a piece of his lunch.

I am aware of how many — infinite — details surround me, how it’s impossible to absorb and document them all. I focus on a bird’s eye view. Up close there are things like the mouth-eye-nose clusters nailed onto tree trunks, which Curtis noticed last time. A hammock strung between two trees. The river backwater behind me. A breeze cool enough to make me wish I’d brought my jacket.

Now Billie is . Pug is in a staring contest with his owner’s burger. The burger is winning — for now. I know who will win in the end. Yap. Long pink tongue laps and laps and laps at food-conditioned drool. I think I’ll go order food.

My friends arrived and I cease to notice much of the world outside. We are focused on each other.

None of the customers, except for one I passed on the way to ordering food, has opened the social door even a crack to me — nor have I to them, because I can see that’s a breach of this restaurant’s code. I walk up the ordering window. There’s an elderly man there with a large brown pigmentation on the tip of his nose. He resembles a Vermont cow in this respect. I wait for the man to order, and then I think I heard the man behind the window ask me what I want. I push my chocolate (my second for the day) cookie toward him. I must have misunderstood, because the reply is, “This man was here first.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! Please, go ahead.” “No, you go.” “No, you were here first.” “No, ladies first.” “No, really: you order.” “No, you.” “No you.” [laughter] I paid for my cookie and asked the man, whom I assumed was the proprietor, “Is the crowd who comes here in the evening any different than the daytime customers.” “No, it’s the same nice people. Nice people come here.”

The elderly man ordered two hot dogs. “Do you come here often?” I ask him. Really. That’s what I say. “No. Yesterday was my first time. But I liked the hotdogs so I decided to come back.” “Oh, same with me,” I answered. “I came here two days ago and now I’m back again.” The owner behind the window said, “Yup. That’s the way it is around here. People like it and they come back.”