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another breakfast with Billy Wayne and Joe Eddy
Tomorrow is Good Friday. Billy Wayne and Joe Eddy, as usual, take their morning coffee at the downtown diner where Lucille the waitress floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, coffee carafe and sarcasm in hand.
Billy Wayne says to Joe Eddy, “I’s listening to the radio on the way here from the farm this morning.”
Joe Eddy replies, “Every bit of that information is unnecessary. You always listen to the radio. You live on a farm. And you were clearly on your way here this morning.”
Billy Wayne, “Be that as it may…”
Joe Eddy, “Country, I presume.”
Billy Wayne, “Daddy always said there are two kinds of music. Country. And Western.
Joe Eddy grins, “Your Dad was an all-timer.”
Billy Wayne, “Yeah, and it killed him.”
Joe Eddy, “That’s Alzheimer’s, you idiot.”
Billy Wayne, “That got him, too, but being an all-timer is a heavy load to bear. It will eventually kill a man. You oughtta know, as you’re one yourself.”
Joe Eddy, “You are the unfairest banterer I ever knew. I insult you by calling you an ‘idiot’ and you get even by calling me an ‘all-timer’ and being sincere about it. Enfuriating.”
Billy Wayne shrugs.
“Back to my story. There was this song on the radio. I heard it a time or two before o’ course. But I was listening this morning and it got me in the gizzard.”
Joe Eddy,” I assume if I wait long enough, you will tell me before this coffee turns tepid.”
Like a magic woods nymph, Lucille, who hears everything everywhere in the diner, no matter how crowded, flutters by to gracefully warm up their cups and glare at Joe Eddy.
“Well, the song is called, ‘Lord, Won’t You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz.”
Joe Eddy: “Janis Joplin was not country but she did sing a Kristofferson song, so she’ll pass. Besides she was from down around Beaumont.”
Billy Wayne, “Yeah, anyway, it got me thinking about the time when I was 23 and my Dad, the all-timer, was cutting me a check to get me to Friday and payday. My wife and I were young parents, living on just above nothin’. She was waitressing in this very diner…”
Joe Eddy: “I recall.”
Lucille the waitress, magically beside them, “She ought to be sainted for it.”
Joe Eddy, “You are just shilling for a halo for yourself, Doll.”
Lucille the waitress,wryly, “A tip’ll do for now.”
Billy Wayne, “So, my old man says, ‘Boy you are living beyond your means.’ To which I answer, “I ain’t hardly got no means, so it is all but impossible not to outlive them.’”
Joe Eddy shakes his head, “I bet that went over like a lead balloon.”
Billy Wayne, “Well, it did not. He had a good laugh, told me I was about right, tore up the check, and wrote me another one for $100 more. That was half of what I made in a week, and the $400 total of the check was two weeks of earnings. Come to think of it. Still is.”
Joe Eddy snickers like Deputy Dawg and slaps his knee.
“You are about right. Times are tough all over.”
Billy Wayne, “So, this song has me thinking how a dirt farmer like me rides the struggle bus all his life while slick-haired, silver-tongued snakes on Wall Street make more money than some foreign states, and maybe a domestic state or two, if you count Democrat states.”
Joe Eddy, “You are on a roll this morning.”
Billy Wayne, “So, I started singing the first few lines in my own way and now it runs like an Indy car on a loop in my brain. Goes like this:
Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz Benz
I’m tired of being passed up by all of my friends
I’ll stick with you, Jesus, ‘Til the bitter end
If you will just buy me that Mercedes-Benz.”
Joe Eddy shakes his head.
“Kristofferson, look out.”
Billy Wayne, “Just once, I’d like to pull up to First Baptist on Easter Sunday in a shiny new Mercedes, white one if you please, as white as forgiven sin.”
Joe Eddy nods and sips his coffee a minute.
Then, he says, “So, here we are, Thursday before Easter, the Passion Week, Jesus has been betrayed, beaten, bloodied, humiliated, and hung from nails on a Roman cross, and you feel short-changed by life.”
Billy Wayne, “I do not. I just want to know for one day what I am missing.”
Joe Eddy, quick as a housefly, “Nothing. You are not missing anything, my friend. I would rather ride up Sunday in a beat-up Ford truck with a friend like you than in a fine Mercedes with any other man on earth.”
Billy Wayne gulps the dregs.
He may be misty-eyed when he replies, “That’s fortunate. I drive a beat-up Ford.”
“I know.”
Lucille the waitress: “When you get done making out, who’s paying?”
They each point to the other.
Author’s Note
Billy Wayne and Joe Eddy are characters inspired by two men I saw one morning while having coffee with my grandfather. Billy Wayne is a tall, rugged Texas farmer, and Joe Eddie is a stout, meaty businessman. Lucille the Waitress could easily fit into any roadside diner. Since they are fictional, I reserve the right to put them into any era, but always in the morning over coffee with Lucille attending to them. Here is the first in the series, if you want context.
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