| Approximately once every four minutes, beginning at 6:00 a.m., the small diner rumbles, plates clattering and counter tops vibrating. The Airline Diner, a stainless steel-trimmed, 24-stool eating stop, vintage 1951, happens to be positioned smack at the west end of New York LaGuardia International Airport’s departure runway number four. At the crest of the Steinway Street off-ramp from the Grand Central Parkway, the Airline Diner marks the Gateway to Astoria, Queens, the “Little Athens of America.” Here, you can find Augustus Acropolis, a restaurant owner, very likely considered by many travelers to be New York’s best short order cook. For the past 15 years, Gus, a straight- standing, barrel-chested Greek immigrant with a determined expression, has been serving the best-tasting no-frills three-egg breakfast that any working person could hope to start off the day with. Dressed in cotton kitchen whites and a food-stained apron that also serves as a potholder and wipe cloth, Gus is a master chef at the diner. He commands the polished hot plate and cast-iron flame stove like a matador in the bullring. A gap-toothed smile, proudly displaying a few polished gold teeth, welcomes each morning customer to the crowded, L-shaped, Daily News-covered counter. “Hey, Gus, how are ya?,” they say. In a heavy Greek accent, Gus retorts with one of many well-rehearsed Abbot and Costello-type wise-cracks such as, “Why you wanna know, are you a doctor?” With a single spatula, Gus conducts every conceivable act of short order cookery, from flipping pancakes, scrambling eggs on the griddle, and buttering toast, to scraping down the stainless steel cooktop. He moves with grace, speed, and purpose. Back in the old country, Gus left school at the age of 13 to work on his Uncle Ernie’s fishing boat. Small village life in Greece was physically hard and when, in 1969, Gus got a letter from his cousin offering him a dishwashing job at a well-known Manhattan restaurant, he followed the road well-traveled by so many Greeks before him. For 20 years, Gus worked in every facet of the restaurant business with the sheer determination of someone trying to make something of himself in America. For Gus, the simple life is a good life: family, Greek pride, American customers, Greek friends, good food, and hard work. The ethnic neighborhood of Astoria comforts him and gives him few reasons to venture out into the non-Greek world. On Sunday, Gus goes to the Orthodox church with his wife, Calliope, and two children. He has a girl, age 12, named Andrea and a son, George, who just turned eight. He has high hopes that his children will be career professionals one day - lawyers or perhaps even doctors. His wife was born in Astoria and her father was proud that she married a full-blooded Greek man from the other side. After Mass, the family heads back home to begin preparing Sunday’s dinner and Gus usually takes a stroll over to the Greek American social club. He plays cards and checkers and speaks Greek with other Greeks. They watch football on television in the fall and baseball in the spring and summer. Gus is always home on Sunday promptly at 4:30 for a bountiful dinner with his family. Sometimes he drinks a single glass of wine afterwards, but he always reads the New York papers until he falls asleep in his over-stuffed upholstered recliner. On Monday morning, he’s up at 4:30, in his uniform, and off to work at the diner, apron in hand. The Abbott and Costello wisecracks begin immediately upon greeting the first sleepy-eyed Long Island commuter off the Grand Central. Then it’s coffee and eggs by the hundreds to the roar of 747s, DC-10s, and L-1011s overhead. |
| The Airline Diner |
by Michael Domino
Copyright © 2007 by Michael Domino
| Short Stories Page 1 |