The sad road diner.

In the 70ties and early 80ties it might have been a heaving busy stop and road diner on what could then have been the main road south towards Brindisi and Bari, before the new parallel autostrada was built to suit the new times and big fast cars to cruise faster from Northern Europe and down to the sun in southern Italy and Greece.

Now it was just a sad road diner at a marginalised road.

A road used mainly by the locals and perhaps sometimes people like us. Holiday drivers, who used the peripheral roads to get to obscure destinations. No stress and no pressure to be anywhere at a certain time. You see more that way, on the secondary roads, I think. And you can easily stop when you see anything interesting. Not to mention all the money you save on autostrada tolls. Instead you can spend that on spaghetti, pizzas and refreshments of any kind.

That was exactly what we intended to do now. We'd been on the road for some time and needed a little rest and spend some of the saved coins to buy a nice cup of hot coffee.

We'd seen a sign for gas and fork, spoon and cup on the side of the road. 500 meters. The indicated to the right, a look in the rear mirrors, a light adjustment of the stirring wheel to the right, reduce speed. A filling station straight ahead. Orientation, localise parking spot, stirring wheel, break, stop.

No car was at the marginalised filling station. Looked quite abandoned actually. Next to that marginalised filling station, this peripheral little “sad” cafe.

One car was parked outside. It was a small wooden shed. Not to bad to look at, a bit similar to a road workers lunch-shed in Denmark.

On the inside, the door and windows were reinforced by a metal grid. We walked to the door and pushed it open.

3 pairs of eyes stalked us from the moment the door opened and for about 3 or 4 seconds. One man was sitting pushing coins into a slot machine, he froze into a halt while staring at us. He was the first to withdraw the gloom and return his attention to the machine.

Across from the entrance, behind the desk stood the owner or manager. He was probably my own age. A tall man with semi long hair starting to grow very thin at the front and top. He was wearing jeans and a yellowish faded polo shirt that was a bit out of shape and, like myself, his tommy was sticking out a bit. He probably had been one of the more hansom and popular guys around, in his younger days.

“Buon giorno”. It was me in my retarded Italian, trying to gain enough self-confidence to also order a coffee. Tai tai had vanished to visit the toilet.

There was some sort of greeting back and also another sentence which I didn't comprehend. I just acted like I did and walked up to the desk and ordered “dua caffee latte, prego”.

Not really sure if he rolled his eyes or not, but he started to work the Italian coffee magic they do at those huge steaming metal machines they have installed behind counters in every bar and cafe.

Side track.

In Italy, the coffee is absolutely great everywhere. It isn't like in Northern Europe or the US, where you get good coffee at “real café's”, but at road stops and diners you get the worst evaporated solid tar from an old coffeemaker.

Back on track. 

At the back of the cafe, behind another desk, a tall woman. In the glass enclosure at that desk some different sandwiches, hotdogs and burgers. After convincingly ordering coffee, I leisurely strode to the back to take a look at the food on offer. I wasn't really hungry, however, being on holiday, you never know what might tempt you?

The woman's face changed slightly, from disengaged to hopeful and her eyes caught a tiny light and over her lips a tense shivering, a hopeful smile arose as I came to take a look at her food?

She was tall and slender, shoulder long dark hair and wearing jeans and a nice feminine top. It was obvious that she tried to maintain and express some sort of class, even life wasn't as good as it once could have been, in the late 80ties at a then busy and well frequented road diner. 

I decided not to be hungry. The displayed food didn't tempt me at all and as I walked back to the coffee desk I could sense a huge disappointment in the woman's face.

Our coffees was finished and put on the desk for us. She walked up towards the coffee desk and had a short word exchange with her husband. Of corse I didn't understand what it was about. He said some short sentence back at her, threw the tea towel over the coffee machine and walked off in direction of the corner, where a television was playing some old black and white Italian heimat movie.

Now she took position at the coffee machine and secretly stalking us having our coffee.

She was also about my age, however, she had managed to keep better in shape than me, and the man, who must be her husband. She was quite attractive and had definitely been a stunner in her younger days. He had probably won her heart by promising her the world and moon by the prospects of a life running a busy and prosperous road side cafe, back then when that road was the road that led to everyones dreams.

I can't tell if we were the first completely strangers in that road diner for a long, long time. Not only strangers, but foreign strangers as well. It was like that thought of being a foreign stranger entering a road cafe in a foreign country was playing on her mind.

The other customer was still pulling the handle of the slot machine, we were drinking our coffee and talking silently about the next stage of our trip. The probably husband was watching TV in the corner, but she was still standing there in her own thoughts, secretly observing us like she was trying to imagine where we'd come from and where we were heading, and like she in a way wanted to try to be us. Two strangers in a diner in a foreign country, who eventually would just walk out of there, out of that sad road diner and head somewhere else. Or was her thoughts maybe even worse, maybe she thought to her self that we had somewhere else to go, somewhere that was not frozen in time, with her stuck in it.

As we finished our coffee's and left the diner, I could feel her eyes following us until we closed the door.

It was a sad feeling that followed me all the way to the car.