The Miracle of the Empress Diner (standard:Inspirational stories, 1868 words)
Author: Wolfgang	Added: Mar 25 2007	Views/Reads: 3261/2030	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Rarely do miracles occur singly. They seem to be epidemic once they get started. Miracles like company; witness Lourdes and Loch Ness which have become tourist traps. Some doubting Thomases have even called them Baedecker Miracles, that is miracles create

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“They come in. They eat,” was her reply. 

Sylvia was a good honest waitress. He didn't want to lose her, so he
gave in. The lifelike effigy of Pope John Paul was placed in a plastic 
cake container and given a seat of honor up front by the cash register. 
A tasteful hand lettered card was placed with it giving the date, the 
resemblance to the Pope and the wonder of it all. 

The Empress was a popular diner on Route 80. Truckers and tourists alike
stopped there just before they lined up for the George Washington 
Bridge. It was not long before the news got around. Word of the miracle 
of the Empress Diner spread and Phil never had it so good. By the end 
of the month he had to extend one end of the diner outwards into the 
parking lot, hire two more fry cooks and another waitress. He even 
added a Pope Burger Special to the menu. 

Rarely do miracles occur singly. They seem to be epidemic once they get
started. Miracles like company; witness Lourdes and Loch Ness which 
have become tourist traps. Some doubting Thomases have even called them 
Baedecker Miracles, that is miracles created to stimulate the tourist 
trade. Be that as it may, a downpour of miracles occurred soon after 
the miracle of the prune Danish on Route 80. 

In the little town of Clifton, New Jersey – a mile or two from Paterson,
a plumber telephoned the Jersey Herald and told them Holy Mother Mary 
appeared to him in his basement window during the half-time ceremonies 
of the New York Giants regularly every home game. A reporter was 
dispatched to check it out. He saw something strange in the window at 
half time, and the longer he looked the more convinced he was that the 
image was that of a woman with some sort of halo about her head. The 
paper went out on a limb far enough to suggest that perhaps there was a 
miracle going on in Clifton as well as Paterson. 

Miracles continued to develop at an alarming rate. In Upper Saddle River
the leaky down spout of the Methodist Episcopal Church revealed the 
face of Lord Jesus himself. There was no doubt about this one. The down 
spout was broken and rusty and it deposited a remarkable sepia portrait 
on the white stucco wall that could be seen from the street. Word 
spread like wildfire and the traffic through the sleepy town of Upper 
Saddle River required twenty-four hour shifts to be instituted by the 
small four man police department. Police barriers had to be set up to 
keep crowds from trampling the church grounds and the handicapped from 
throwing their crutches and prosthetic devices at the foot of the 
miracle. 

Channelers, conduits and other soothsayers claiming to speak for the
dead began setting up shop in the parking lot of the Empress Diner, 
near the plumber's home in Clifton and the effigy in Upper Saddle 
River, promising direct communication with Princess Diana, Mother 
Theresa, Marilyn Monroe and even Frank Sinatra. For twenty five dollars 
a pop you could purchase CD recordings of conversations, guaranteed to 
have been made live during seances with the actual voices of the 
beloved and internationally known loved ones. 

Interaction with the hereafter was definitely on the move in northern
New Jersey ... but the mark of decay is always embedded in the blossom, 
just as our miracles, in time, grew commonplace. The face on the church 
wall faded. The football season ground to a halt and Mother Mary no 
longer came to visit the plumber at half time. People can get used to 
anything it seems, even miracles. 

Hughie still stopped at the newly enlarged Empress Diner on the eastward
bound leg of his run from Cleveland to Macy's Department store in 
Manhattan. Together, he and Sylvia would check out the Pope John Paul 
prune Danish still on display in the cake rack next to Phil's cash 
register. The little artifact had brought Hughie and Sylvia close 
together, as close as it is possible for a traveling man and a waitress 
to be. They were, after all, the first two people in the world to 
recognize the Danish for what it was and although they were not 
Catholic they accepted the Pope as a great world leader in the 
Judeo/Christian religion. They also knew that he had brought them 
together. 

Yet, they were not blind to the fact that, as time passed, the prune
Danish was looking less like Pope John Paul than it once did. 

“I dunno,” Hughie remarked as they looked at it together, “the eyes ...
the left one. It ain't there no more.” 

“Yeah,” Sylvia agreed, “ ... and the smile ... he looks the way a man
without teeth looks when he smiles.” 

“Hold it down, you two,” Phil said under his breath, “that kinda talk
can ruin business.” Interest on Phil's bank loan for the diner 
extension was due the end of the month. 

It was apparent, even to Phil, that the prune Danish was deteriorating.
He considered rearranging some of its twists and twirls it as best he 
could to make the resemblance more striking, but realizing his talents 
did not lie in that direction, he decided to leave well enough alone -- 
it had an uncontested reputation anyway – that, and a series of 
excellent color photographs for sale, that in the end might make the 
actual artifact redundant. He kept his eyes open for possible 
successors to the Pope John Paul miracle but aside from a few that 
resembled members of his own family, he found nothing. 

Hughie and Sylvia were no longer interested in miracles. They had found
something far more rewarding. On Hughie's westward return trips to 
Cleveland, Ohio, he invariably stopped again to have lunch at the 
Empress diner. He always sat at the corner closest to the swinging 
kitchen door so he could watch Sylvia in the kitchen. The unexpected 
dichotomy between her brown eyes, black brows and bright brassy hair 
mesmerized him. He sat up straight and held his stomach in as best he 
could when talking to her. He tried to minimize his broad mid-western 
twang while discussing his adventures on the road, and keeping his 
swearing to an absolute minimum. 

Sylvia was both impressed and touched by his attention. She was also
conscious of the power of the prune Danish that had brought them 
together. To say she was attracted to Hughie does not probe the depth 
of her affection. She had never been in love and counter girls are 
normally immune to truck driver blandishment. The attachment is 
unexplainable in rational terms and the route to Sylvia's heart was 
like a road under construction – full of detours and dangers. Hughie 
drove carefully and followed each and every sign along the way. 

On his westward trips back to Cleveland his round, well fed form became
a frequent overnight visitor at Sylvia's modest apartment in Paterson, 
New Jersey. It was during one of the re-runs of The Price is Right – 
they were sitting together on Sylvia's blue chenille sofa and Hughie 
guessed the retail price of a Whirlpool Washing Machine would be $775. 
They looked at each other in amazement when that identical price was 
flashed on the screen. 

“I told you,” Hughie smiled. 

“You're something else!” Sylvia shook her head in admiration. They
looked at each other and it was immediately apparent to both of them 
that they could not bear to be apart. Hughie could not drive off to 
Cleveland in the morning leaving Sylvia alone in Paterson, New Jersey. 
She would have to go with him – they had become one. 

There were no other permanent miracles in New Jersey that year – and
none since. 

©Harry Buschman 2006 (1850)


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