I am leaving behind the sun-bleached Floridian coastline, pacing pavement until I find a better place. Yesterday after loading all of my possessions of eight boxes, into the back of a lime-green hearse, I came across a handful of dust covered polaroids.
The yellowed images stirring memories like a VHS buried under marker covered boxes.
And the memories worn brown with years played behind my eyes, images of rusted silver letters cloaked in childhood innocence. The first image brings me back to my mother's haggard form pulling me and my sister from a near death purple Toyota Corolla’s, herding us along sweltering cracked pavement toward an immense streamlined trailer labeled with what was once a luminously lettered “Lester's Diner.” A toothy Southern smile, wider than Lake Okeechobee wrapped in a crimson apron lettered with the dinners name passes out menus and recommendations.
My eyes trace the wrinkles on my mom's face while her sad eyes roam the open menu, mouthing numbers and matching up change to cover this Sunday treat. After fifteen minutes hot plates holding breakfast. Then with empty plates and dirty napkins mom leaves a meager tip and drags my sister and myself to the dusty purple monster.
Stopping to take a polaroid of her kids in front of this streamlined diner. The other photos in the stack show similar scenes of my sister Sarah and me in front of the same streamlined diner. The annual snapshots showing us growing taller and our clothes getting nicer, while the diner grows more beat up.
In the fourth photo my sister’s freckled face holds a crooked smile and a yellow paper birthday hat sits on her head with the number seven written in a bright crimson. This picture brings me back to that windy October day fourteen years ago, the three of us sitting in a stiff pleather booth while the no-longer-smiling southern soul brings us our overcooked bacon and near burnt french toast. We stayed for almost two hours that day laughing in our streamlined sanctuary. On our way out mom leaves what she calls a proper tip showing Hamilton's face.The last picture shows a sixteen-year-old me standing next to my upset sister in an empty cracked and sun-baked lot in sandals, the crumbling oasis no more.
With the pile of Polaroids tucked away I leave behind the creaking doors and peeling paint of my childhood home. I quickly make my way into unknown territory, my lime green hearse flying past open fields and factories casting monstrous shadows across the asphalt. Far into the distance is a luminous sign, I park the car when this lucid glow is within walking distance I pace the cracked sidewalk to what looks like the same streamlined oasis I visited as a child. I open the screen door only to see a crooked toothed southern smile wrapped in crimson. She hands me a menu and a glass of water she takes my order and retreats leaving me alone in a springy pleather booth. Soon I am brought a near boiling poppy stained mug filled to the brim with the dark dependency. This southern smile comes back to the table in crimson apron and I swear she is the same name as the woman standing in the back of so many memories. I finish my food quickly eager to get back on the road leaving folded money for my bill and a generous tip. When I pull open the screen door to leave I notice a yellowed polaroid near identical to the stack in my car, turning to ask the southern smile about this peculiar find I am suddenly standing alone in an empty field the sun warming the back of my neck. Walking back to my now sun burning car where I find on the corner of my windshield a polaroid showing me standing in front of my childhood oasis. The only evidence of my visit to this streamlined ghost is an impossible picture and my receipt telling me to come again.
