[Kings Waffle] Chapter 16
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The pandemic continues and with it comes limited hours and extra safety precautions. I wondered, though, even in a world where the operating times weren’t just 6 A.M. to 2 P.M., would anyone be hanging out late into the night still? And let’s say that the risk of viral spread didn’t exist, would I even be one of those folks? Before the coronavirus came around, I wasn’t finding myself at Kings Waffle very often, at least not as frequently as I did back when this series began. When I started writing this particular chapter, I wasn’t sure how to approach it. I didn’t want to rehash old words, I’d already cycled through all of the portraits, I’d reconnected with old friends, and I’d waxed nostalgic on late nights of coffee, cigarettes, and low counter conversations. One of the recent times I stopped by here, a few other regulars serendipitously did as well. Tonight, I’m not as fortunate. It’s just me here, typing some words and wondering what to even photograph as the rain heads off towards the highway. I’ve done this already, right? This time, though, the lights came on—the restaurant has once again become a beacon against a slowly darkening, deep blue summer sky.
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It’s probably a good thing that the place isn’t open. If it was, I would’ve gotten distracted from the writing I need to do—caught up in a conversation or a game of Skip-Bo with the one regular who would never let me photograph her for this series (hope you’re well, Peggy). With no cards to play, no one to talk to, and nowhere to be—I try to write while thinking of Kings Waffle in terms of tense.
Past: I read through all the previous chapters and thought of those featured.
Present: I think about what the hell I’m doing here in the parking lot, listening to the sounds of cicadas and a humming freezer.
Future: I wonder if I’ll need this place again—what that looks like, what it means.
A cup of black coffee and just a hint of the past Kings Waffle experience is what I’m craving. I purchase some credits on the jukebox app, just to see if I can hear a muffled Otis Redding through the windows and locked door. I can’t. So I write, I scribble, I cross things out, and I write again. All in all, I end up leaving while wrestling whether or not it’s fair to label this as “the final chapter.”
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A few days later, before I even attempt to answer that question with some sincerity, I go to lunch. Kings Waffle is packed at 11:16 A.M., but an employee offers up my party-of-one a solitary seat at the low counter against the wall opposite the booths now separated by Covid-fighting shower curtains.
“Be with you as soon as I can,” says a server I don’t know as she hurries off to deliver an order.
The staff are decked out in masks, but the fashion trend of common courtesy hasn’t caught on with the customers. The dish tank rings out with loud bangs as plates fall into the soapy water and two cooks combat the lunch rush. After I order, a nearby family gives up on trying to cram their whole group into a booth designed for only four humans, leaving in a huff as the next customers in line snag their seats without even waiting for sanitization. The speakers stop playing something awful and the place feels less tense. I use the rest of my phone’s jukebox credits from the other night to queue up No Doubt, Ray Charles, The Four Tops, The Spinners, Tears for Fears, and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”—a favorite that can be found amongst the store’s limited musical selections. My food is delivered and I realize that in the whole time I’ve been here, I recognize no one. No employees. No regulars. The place feels foreign. Which is fair, because even if this was six years ago (the height of my attendance at this particular parish), I’d never be here at midday anyways. I preferred the evenings, stopping in around 9 or 10 and staying till, well, whenever. I only drove up at this time because it’s my only opportunity to do so during the current global crisis. I was hoping I’d see Kelli or be able to bum a smoke off another regular outside, but at noon on a pandemic Friday—this place is just a restaurant, not a diner. The diner feeling comes later. When there is a later.
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During a university photography class, we once had the assignment of making “environmental portraits” of our families. Within a folder featuring frames of parents, siblings, relatives, and grandparents—I also had shots of a few waffle folks. The date on the images reads 2011, three years before I started the Kings Waffle series and just one year after I had become a “regular” here. Even before I began meaningfully writing about this place, I was considering its people as family, our common link being location number 933 out of 2,100. So now, I’m thinking about all the people I’ve talked with here. The ones I knew closely and the ones who were just passing through. And I think of the people I brought here, the ones I tried to explain it to—those who “got it” when most didn’t.
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There are times when I’ve found myself writing about this restaurant and this whole experience with conclusive conviction, just like how I wrestle with the idea of a “final chapter” now. I don’t know if that’s fair. I came here initially just to hang out with some friends after work, I kept coming back because I loved the people and what this place represented. I doubled down on visits when I was low and I still returned during the highs of life. Whether I was working on this series or not, I’ve still found myself back here on occasion—each time still walking out with that distinctive smell of grease embedded deep within my clothes. This was a place I could go to just exist, but my relationship with this particular spot and the story of the community found here probably isn’t entirely unique. Somewhere, out there along the interstate, there’s thousands of other Waffle Houses and diners existing as lone islands of late night coffee, cultivating communities of their own. And that’s a nice faith to have.
The “final chapter,” so to speak, wouldn't be what I’m writing now. If anything, it was back in 2015 when I stopped making photographs of, writing about, and visiting Kings Waffle regularly. I came back around to the subject eventually and got caught up, but the fact is: that particular time in life ended. While I value it dearly, and I carry many beloved friendships from it, it’s done. I could write a coming-of-age film about it if I was a screenwriter or a sentimental punk album if I had stuck with being a musician past age 17, but instead I’ve got this: 16 chapters that tell the tale of Kings Waffle as I knew it in a certain time. And I take comfort, not just in what has transpired, but knowing that it all still exists: in the past, the present, and the future—whatever that future is, whether I stop back in sometime soon or simply seek out the ease of existence once found here, elsewhere.
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But how the hell does one find it elsewhere? Where I stand now—not outside a diner closed for the night or in line for a single seat at lunch time, but where I stand in life currently—I could really use the Kings Waffle I knew. I could really use a night with the cast of characters seen in these chapters, folks to sip coffee with in the warm, yellow glow of a suburban sanctuary. However, even if Kings Waffle was still existed in the sense that I once knew it—I’d need to go out and find what it has come to represent somewhere else in the world. I’ve done that before. I’ll do it again. And I’m thankful that I have these chapters, these stories, and this experience to remind me how I once found purpose and a sense of belonging—to show what I enjoy out of life, what I value.
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So, while this particular photographic series may be ending, I won’t call this the final chapter. “Chapter 16” works just fine. Even if the powers-that-be tear down Kings Waffle one day and replace it with a newer model that’s not stained with years of tobacco smoke, the Kings Waffle I experienced will always exist—as I knew it, as I see it now, and as I carry these stories forward in whatever I do, or, wherever I end up.
To all of those who sipped coffee with me on the stoop over the years while watching fireworks (and might again one day): thank you.