Chapter 139: Adult Eggs-Hold the Ham

Every morning I checked on Helen's progress at the building. I even called her the second morning. I suggested she park a breakfast wagon on the site, until they had it up and running. She and Jack liked the idea. There was a truck in the parking lot the next morning.

I bought an adult egg on a bagel sandwich from the truck that very morning. Even so I rode to the mall, where it was warm, to eat it. It wasn't Kosher to sit in their food court with Helen's sandwich, but I just couldn't eat in the cold. I got asked by two different groups where I got the bagel sandwich. I explained about Helen. One group knew about her breakfast wagons, and the other was thrilled to hear about her. At least I hoped my enthusiasm was contagious.

Four days later the wagon was gone and the site was open. There was a big menu sign in the parking lot. The sign, in big red letters, had the phone number at the bottom. The note beside it read, call or text your order. We will gladly bring it to your car. It's temporarily, and it's our answer to the drive through. I have no idea who thought that up, but it was brilliant. Everybody has a cell phone these days. People could also walk inside and have breakfast in a warm building. Jack had built half a dozen picnic table, which were spread around the old showroom floor. I personally loved the whole thing. I found it just plain country charming.

The first morning they were open, I shared a table with two cops and a paramedic. The cops were on duty, and the paramedic was on his way home. The coffee was almost as good as my own, since it was made in small batches with real coffee. Helen didn't use restaurant blend, which I swear is made from the sweepings off the coffee warehouse floor.

The walls were cheap plywood paneling, and it should have been dark and depressing as hell in the restaurant. It would have, had it not been for the colorful posters everywhere. I had to admit that they gave the place a lot of character.

Breakfast still came in a brown bag, and customers still ordered by numbers, but even Helen's brown bags, beat most of the fancy restaurants for taste. The cops at my table talked about everything, but the Burris incident and I was glad.

After breakfast I went to the mall and walked my three miles. I noticed on the ride from Helen's to the mall that it seemed a bit warmer. I could tell that it was getting close to the end of winter. It have been getting a little warmer almost every day.

I really did miss Cheryl on my morning walk. One of the camera people followed me to the mall now and then, but they sat on one of the benches and filmed me coming and going. They also tried to catch me speaking to the other old folks. Cheryl had walked beside me and we had talked about nothing important, but she was company.

Helen's place had been open a week, which was two weeks after I suggested the building, when she and Jack switched from the traditional breakfast wagon paper bag delivery, to trays in the sit down place. None of us had yet figured out what to call it. Since they had invested in trays, I figured the place must be making money, so I stopped worrying about losing it.

Cheryl showed up at the restaurant or whatever it was, at the beginning of the second week. Everything was mostly precooked at their industrial kitchen, but they had begun cooking some things on site. Cheryl had taught them how to cook eggs in the microwave. In my opinion that were better than the eggs cooked in grease. At least they were in my opinion. So she could cook a complete breakfast sandwich in the microwave, and do it on site. The crunchy potato fritter had to be done in a deep fryer, so that was done at the industrial kitchen. I frankly didn't care how they did it. I trusted Helen to be sure the food was excellent, or not to serve it.

My new morning schedule began with breakfast at Helen's. Usually with Cheryl or some cop friend. It was a whole different group of people, who hung out at Helen's. More working blue collar types, who I loved being around anyway. I had enjoyed the older folks at Hardee's, and I even enjoyed the young families, but Helen fed what were really my kind of folks.

After breakfast I would head to the mall to walk three miles. Three miles isnt a lot but its about an hour's worth of moving around. I needed that to stay, if not in good shape, at least a little more flexable. I also enjoyed the people who walked there. We were mostly middle aged to older. Most were trying to lose weight or maintain.

My mall inspiration was Tiny Dancer. I made up little fictional biographies for all the walkers. In my mind she would have been a professional dancer when young. One of the major city's ballet companies. After her dance career ended, as they all must, in my fantasy she became a dance teacher somewhere. In the end she had her own studio of dance. When she retired, she came to the mall every morning.

In reality she used the second story handrail as a studio bar for her warm up exercises. After her warm up she walked the mall. She walked it at a much quicker pace than me. She just tuned everything else out and chugged along.

Tiny dancer had a hundred berets for sure. She also had lots of fuzzy sweaters and tight pants. The pants were all black, but the sweaters were colors not found in rainbows for sure. Needless to say, I loved Tiny Danced. I even wished that she was my mom. I know that's just silly, but she was gorgeous even at seventy.

I was in the mall walking, when the phone played the first few bars of the Magnificent Seven theme song. I answer quickly because the stupid song embarrassed me. "Hello," I said into it without checking the caller ID.

"Morning slut," Jennifer said.

"Not lately, I haven't had the chance. What's up now?" I asked. She could have been calling about the pirate hunt, the local cops thing or even something totally different.