Vox Populi
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Barbara Crooker: Patty’s Charcoal Drive-In
First job. In tight black shorts
and a white bowling shirt, red lipstick
and bouncing ponytail, I present
each overflowing tray as if it were a banquet.
I’m sixteen and college-bound;
this job’s temporary as the summer sun,
but right now, it’s the boundaries of my life.
After the first few nights of mixed orders
and missing cars, the work goes easily.
I take out the silver trays and hook them to the windows,
inhale the mingled smells of seared meat patties,
salty ketchup, rich sweet malteds.
The lure of grease drifts through the thick night air.
And it’s always summer at Patty’s Charcoal Drive-In–
carloads of blonde-and-tan girls
pull up next to red convertibles,
boys in black tee shirts and slick hair.
Everyone knows what they want.
And I wait on them, hoping for tips,
loose pieces of silver
flung carelessly as the stars.
Doo-wop music streams from the jukebox,
and each night repeats itself,
faithful as a steady date.
Towards 10 p.m., traffic dwindles.
We police the lot, pick up wrappers.
The dark pours down, sticky as Coke,
but the light from the kitchen
gleams like a beacon.
A breeze comes up, chasing papers
in the far corners of the darkened lot,
as if suddenly a cold wind had started to blow
straight at me from the future–
I read that in a Doris Lessing book–
but right now, purse fat with tips,
the moon sitting like a cheeseburger on a flat black grill,
this is enough.
Your order please.
~~~~
Copyright 2015 Barbara Crooker. From Barbara Crooker: Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press, 2015)
Barbara Crooker is the author of ten full-length books of poetry, including Some Glad Morning, Pitt Poetry Series, longlisted for the Julie Suk award from Jacar Press, The Book of Kells, which won the Best Poetry Book of 2019 Award from Poetry by the Sea, and Slow Wreckage (Grayson Books, 2024). Her other awards include: Grammy Spoken Word Finalist, the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, others.
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Yum! What superb writing — and so many images and moments I loved vicariously enjoying. This is like a short, powerful, delightful documentary… So many things I didn’t experience (not living in the US until I was 48) — but that can “see” and “get” so well because of this poem!
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Thanks, Laure-Anne. This poem describes a large part of my youth. Very evocative for me, and I imagine, other Americans of my generation.
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Fabulous images! I was in that world. Now you make me want to write about my own waitressing jobs.
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Which I’m sure you will. And I can’t wait to read these poems!
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Your order please? Just yesterday, a new waiter at my favorite local burger dive asked that very question. The customer said, oh, how about a chocolate malt. This was in the next booth, and I saw the whole confrontation. How do you spell that, the waiter asked. You’ve never heard of a malt before? Naw. So he sashayed back into the kitchen, and soon there was the roar of the malt-making gizmo.
As to every day a summer splendor, here in Minnesota, drive-ins have insurmountable challenges in the winter. That succulent burger in the sky, would be more likely a platter of frostbitten toes.
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One of the joys of my youth was going to drive-ins. They weren’t just outdoor restaurants, but mini-cultures of youth and music….
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Now I want a malt!
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You had me, Barbara, long before “the moon sat like a big fat cheeseburger on a fat black grill,” but at that moment I became vaporized into poetic euphoria and can’t find my way back. I’m not certain I want to return.
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Oh, Sean, you sure made me smile!
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