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another breakfast with Billy Wayne and Joe Eddy
It’s a blue-sky morning with only a single cloud above the sleepy East Texas town of Billy Wayne, Joe Eddy, Lucille the Waitress, and the downtown diner.
Joe Eddy fusses the morning paper back to a decent fold and lays it aside while Billy Wayne removes his Stetson and Lucille the Waitress refreshes his cup and sets Billy Wayne’s before him.
“Bore me with brilliance this morning, fellows. I need it,” she says and flitters away to seat the waiting couple just passing through to bigger places.
“Billy Wayne, are you in remembrance of Richard Johnson, the one who lived here until he graduated high school?” asks Joe Eddy.
“In remembrance of him? Every morning when I work out the kinks in the shoulder he dislocated or feel the ache of the two ribs he cracked, I am in remembrance of him.”
“Remember how they called him Big Dick on account of Dick is the weird shortening of Richard for some ungodly reason…”
“Yeah,” finishes Billy Wayne, “and he was big as a house and built like a bulldozer. Only, I was smart and called him Whistledick Johnson.”
“Probably why he disassembled you on the most brutal football practice hit in the town’s history.”
“Well, when I was laying there waiting for the undertaker to measure me for a certain coffin and trying to fend off the feather-winged angels Jesus dispatched to collect me, Dick comes and gets on his knees beside me, and he’s got those crocodile tears welling in his eyes because he thinks he killed me. When it became clear he hadn’t and I only needed to be carted to the emergency room, he was so relieved that he told me he much preferred my nickname for him than the one you meatheads give him.”
“Then, why’d he clobber you?”
“Because it was football.”
“You know they got that picture of him in his football uniform and a newspaper write-up beside the only state championship trophy this town ever won. It is in that glass case that passes for a school hall of fame, I guess,” says Billy Wayne.
“Right. And in the team picture, he looks like Dick Butkus suited up with a Pop Warner team.”
“I bet no one called Butkus Big Dick.”
“Now, boys,” says Lucille the Waitress, returning with their breakfast, “I asked for brilliance, not schoolboy talk. Mind the language.”
“A name is just a name, Doll,” grins Billy Wayne.
Then, to Joe Eddy, Lucille the Waitress asks, “So, why’d you bring up this unfortunately named man? Just for a topic or a reason?”
“A reason. I ran into him yesterday. Literally.”
“Everybody says ‘literally’ and nobody means it,” complains Lucille the Waitress.
“Well, I mean it. It was actually my wife who ran into him—at the red light at Main and Jefferson. She thought the light turned green for some reason and let off the brake and rolled right into a big black Silverado.”
“How is Nova, by the way?” asks the lingering Lucille the Waitress.
“She is fine and sends her regards. She actually has sent them several times, and I always forget to deliver them.”
“You out-kicked your coverage there, son,” says Billy Wayne of the former head cheerleader and homecoming queen, Nova.
“So, anyhow,” says Joe Eddy, “the truck pulls over once it’s through the intersection, and we pull over behind him. If I hadn’t been on my phone, checking stocks, I could have hollered and maybe avoided the collision, if you can call it that. But I wasn’t watching the same way she wasn’t.”
“Let me guess,” says Lucille the Waitress, after nodding another couple to take a seat anywhere. “Out climbs Richard Johnson.”
“Well,” answers Joe Eddy, “Yeah, out climbs Big Dick Johnson, and my heart leaps right into my throat. Before I can jump out and defend Nova’s honor, she is already halfway to him, apologizing. He inspects his bumper and then hers. Not a scratch on the truck, but her Caddy has a broken headlight. By now, I am beside her, wishing I were armed. He nods at me, recognizing me right away, and says my name, though I hadn’t seen him in three decades or more. Turns out his Momma’s dying and he’s come back from Dallas to attend to her while she waits to die. She is on hospice.”
“‘I am terribly sorry,’ says Nova, but he waves her off and says, ‘No harm, ma’am. You have more than paid your dues in suffering, I can see that by who you married.’”
“I don’t think his joke about her marrying me is all that funny, but I let it go just this once on account of your ribs and shoulder. So, he says to Nova, ‘I remember you. You were always the kindest, prettiest girl in school.’”
“So, now, he is flirting with your wife just to humiliate you, and what are you gonna do about it?” grins Billy Wayne.
“No. He doesn’t have that kind of build to him. He was always a gentle giant.”
“Pfft. Tell my shoulder that.”
“Well, the lug did transform on the gridiron. I will grant you that.”
“Godalmighty. Remember how that one running back from Paris told his coach he was not gonna run the ball up the middle anymore and he could kick him off the team all he wanted?”
“I do remember and I know that was true because the coach told me about it when he bought a car from me some years back. He said it was one of the best football stories he had. and he told the kid he didn’t blame him and promised not to run him up the middle anymore that game.”
Lucille, impatient to attend to other diners, “If you have an end to this story, find it for Pete’s sake, Joe Eddy. I have things to do.”
“So, Big Dick—”
“Whistledick.”
“Big Dick reaches into his pocket and I think he must be going for a knife or a gun, but he pulls out a money clip, peels off a hundred-dollar bill, and forces it into Nova’s hand, saying he wants to pay for the broken headlight if that will cover it. She protests and tries to give him money instead—”
Taking a seat, which she never does, motioning for the junior cook to attend to other tables, Lucille the Waitress says, “Now, we are getting somewhere.”
“Yeah, so I protest, but he waves me off, too. Nova says, ‘But I hit you…’, to which he replies, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ So she says, ‘Then, why…’, to which he replies, “Because Ms. Nova, a kindness done for good reason is of no note, but a kindness done despite circumstance is as close to godly as I will ever get, so help me get close to God and go fix that headlight.’ Then he grips my shoulder and says that whole thing about outkicking my coverage and rides off in his Shiny, undamaged Silverado, a bigger man than I have ever known, present company excepted.”
Lucille jumps up and wipes a happy tear.
“Finally! A story to make a day brilliant.”
She kisses Joe Eddy on the cheek.
“No matter whose turn it is to pay, this one is on Billy Wayne,” she says, and triumphantly sashays away to rule the diner with grace and truth.
☕️ From the “Diner Talk” series – tales brewed strong, served hot, and best enjoyed with a side of Lucille’s sass. This one’s for anyone who’s ever tried to fake humility… and been caught in the act. The original post is here.
