Cover Story

I like Dave’s Diner in the Posen neighborhood of Chicago. I generally eat there once or twice a week. In this era of exotic 5-star restaurants with trendy themes and fake pub fast food places passing themselves off as restaurants it’s a breath of reality. Not that the food is all that good, although it’s filling and won’t make you sick or anything. They serve typical diner food, hamburgers, eggs, chili, open face sandwiches slathered with gravy, stuff like that. You want a fancy dessert? Chocolate cake, which may be a few days old, various fruit pies or ice cream are pretty much your choices. You want to go whole hog? Get the pie with ice cream. You see what I mean?

It looks like what it is, too, a diner. One long counter with worn Formica and stainless steel trim lined with red vinyl stools, a couple of which wobble. Against the front windows running the whole length are booths that match. The cash register is by the door and yes, the waitresses really know how to make change. They wear light blue uniforms with modest length skirts. If you’re a regular like me they know your name. The whole thing is lit at night with fluorescent lighting. When I generally go in there after I get done playing 3 sets down the street at the Moonlight Lounge it’s a beacon in the night. If I go in there for breakfast the windows let the sunlight in.

I don’t know when the place opened up but it’s a neighborhood landmark. Maybe it was during the 1940s. “Go down past Dave’s Diner and hang a right,” it’s a landmark like that. Most everybody in Posen knows where it’s at, off of 18th Street, even if they’ve never been in there. That’s one of the things I like about Chicago, it’s made up of neighborhoods. I mean, it’s a big city, don’t get me wrong, but it still has some of the advantages of a small-town sense of community. Posen isn’t the best and it isn’t the worst but for me, its home. I live a few streets over in a 3-story walkup.

Larry Swetowski lives in the next building in a nearly identical place. Like me, he’s one of the night shifters. You’ve probably heard the expression “Our day begins when your day ends.” That fits Larry to a tee. He’s a City of Chicago police detective. Plainclothes, I don’t know if he’s working homicide or drugs or just what.

But I do know something about him that most people don’t. He’s a transvestite, a TV. I’m not sure of the right words; he dresses like a woman sometimes. When he does he’s Laurie Sweet. It’s kind of funny, there’s a man in his building who thinks Larry and Laurie are married. I think it’s funny anyway. So does Larry, or Laurie, maybe both. We’re pretty good friends and he might be the smartest person I know.

As Laurie he sometimes goes into Dave’s Diner late at night. And he’s stunning. Tall and blonde, elevated by heels with really good legs she catches the eye of most everyone when she does. We’ve gone out to dinner together other places too, and she does that wherever she goes. People turn and look at her, beautiful and immaculately made up, sometimes strangers will actually come up to her and ask if she’s a celebrity, maybe a TV reporter or something like that.

So, I wasn’t surprised to see her at Dave’s Diner when I got off of work tonight. I was sort of surprised to see her sitting next to Carl, who’s another one of the night shifters. He drives a tow truck for Aaron’s Double-A Auto Body. Usually when I see him he’s dressed for work, like he was tonight. He runs their tow truck for night calls and works in the shop during the day. I don’t know how old he is, at least 21 since he comes in the Moonlight Lounge once in a while, but he’s definitely a lot younger than Laurie is. They were in animated conversation.

I slid onto a stool at the counter, two seats from Laurie. “Hey Myra,” I greeted the waitress. “Hey Laurie, Carl” I nodded to them in greeting.

“How’s it going, Walter?” Myra asked me by way of acknowledgement.

“It’s done gone,” I told her. “Now I’m just picking up the pieces.”

Small humor, small laugh. “Rough night tonight?” she asked.

“It wasn’t bad,” I told her. “Just long. We had a table that didn’t want to leave.” Sometimes that can be a problem. Tonight since the people were pleasant it was more a nuisance than anything else. “They insisted on buying me a drink, which they had already done several times during the night; what I really wanted to do was go home. You know how it is.”

Myra knew how it was. “Coffee?” she asked. I guess that was a formality since she had already poured it for me.

“Yes please,” I told her. After she served it I cupped my hands around the heavy china mug. “You’re out late tonight,” I told Laurie.

“That’s for sure,” she agreed. “It’ll be hell getting up in the morning. I’m on days this month.” It was a little past 3:00 AM. “Carl had to come rescue me. My car broke down out in Rosemont.” She made a face, summarizing her feelings about cars breaking down or having to get up for work in a few hours, or maybe about Rosemont. Whatever it was it seemed to sum up the situation. “It just stopped,” she said. “Lights went out, nothing worked on it, when I turn the key nothing happens. I pulled on the wires and so on but that didn’t make any difference.”

“It probably isn’t anything serious,” Carl said.

“You say. It’s a pain in my ass is what it is.”

“We’ll look at it tomorrow.”

“At least Carl’s going to drive me home.”

“No problem,” he said.

“Plus I got to see his car. That was pretty cool”

“His car?” I repeated. He had his car parked out front. It was an older Toyota, nothing special.

“Yeah, you haven’t seen it?”

Carl said “Aww” He didn’t say “shucks” but he could have, it was that kind of aww.

“It’s a Mustang, an old one. You wouldn’t believe what it looks like. He’s got about a bajillion coats of paint on it.”

“Is a bajillion more or less than a kajillion?”

“It’s more.” Laurie was definite about that.

I leaned over the counter to look at Carl. He was smiling. Myra was standing there listening to our conversation. “What is it?” I asked him.

“1970 Mustang, I’ve got 31 coats of clear on it over the blue metal flake.”

I pictured that. “Sounds nice,” I told him. “That’s a lot of work.” He nodded agreement.

“Hand sanded between each coat,” he added.

“You should see it,” Laurie told me.

I placed my order for a Salisbury steak dinner with lots and lots of grilled onions. That’s one of the advantages to living alone; you can eat lots of onions and not worry about your breath. “How’s the album coming?” Myra asked me. She was probably more excited about it than I was.

“The album’s done,” I told her. She appeared pleased at the prospect.

“When can I buy one?”

“I’ll give you one,” I promised. “All recorded and sent off to the outfit in New Jersey that’s going to format it and master it and make it into CDs. I’m stumped on the cover art, though. I don’t know what to do. I’ve got the liner notes and track listing done but I’m stuck on the cover art. I’ll have the CDs in about 3 weeks but I can’t print the inserts until I figure out the art,” I explained.

“What kind of album?” Carl asked.

I leaned forward again to look at Carl. Laurie leaned backward to afford a clear view between us. When she did her chest was more prominent. That was distracting. “Rhythm and Blues, you’ve heard us. Blue eyed Soul music you could say. Heavy on the Wilson Pickett. It’s all cover versions of songs. We’ll have 900 of them made and sell them right there at the Moonlight Lounge.” We’re about at the level of a good garage band when it comes to the recording industry, at the very bottom. Maybe one step up from the bottom, at least we didn’t duplicate them ourselves. “Don't Knock My Love, Funky Broadway, In the Midnight Hour, which Pickett wrote.” I continued, “Land of 1000 Dances, 634-5789, Mustang Sally, some others.”

“I can’t wait,” Myra said.

“Cool,” Carl commented.

“Interesting,” Laurie sounded thoughtful. “I didn’t know.”

“Oh we’ve been working on it for about 6 months. Recording it live right at the Moonlight Lounge. We just record the whole set and if it doesn’t sound right we try it again the next night.” This might not be the most professional way to go about it, but it was effective. It gave the recordings a live sound of urgency with the crowd noises and so on. I was kind of pleased with it. So were the other guys. If we could really string together those songs in person the way they sounded on the recordings we wouldn’t be playing at the Moonlight Lounge.

“What are you thinking for the cover art?” Laurie asked.

“See, that’s where I’m stumped,” I told them. “The best I’ve come up with is our name across the top and then “Play Wilson Pickett” below that superimposed over a picket fence.”

“Huh,” she said. “You can do better than that. That’s kind of bland. You want something that catches the eye. That’s what art does.”

“I know.”

“What about a picture of the band onstage?” Myra suggested.

“Nah, I thought about that. Would you buy something with a picture of us on it?” We were four middle aged men, decent musicians but hardly attractive.

“Sure,” she said. “If I’d heard you, which I have.”

“Well you’re an exception,” I told her. “I want something special, something that would catch your eye if you saw it in a store or on a rack.”

“Have you got a photographer and a budget?” Laurie asked me. Her voice had a thoughtful tone to it.

“Yeah, actually we do. John Otum has a good photographer who’s really reasonable. He actually toured with a Rock band for a year so he understands cover art but he won’t suggest a specific idea. He’ll shoot it but won’t suggest one. He says that’s on us. I already talked to him.”

“Carl’s Mustang,” Laurie suggested. “The band name in big letters followed by “Play Mustang  Sally” in bold letters and a list of the other songs.

That brought the conversation to an abrupt halt. I thought about the idea.

“Put Laurie in the driver’s seat,” Carl added.

“It would be unique and eye-catching. I’m willing,” she said.

“Do it out front here,” Myra chimed in. “I can make sure the windows are clean and the parking lot is empty at least for a little while.”

“Hey! People would like that,” I finally said. An idea was born. “How about it, Carl?”

“Sure, of course.”

We did it just that way. The Mustang was beautiful and being an old one it fit the songs. Laurie was beautiful too, with one long shapely leg extended out of the Mustang as if she was just getting out or getting in. It was shot from ground level so that was imposing. Up toward the top you could see “Dave’s Diner” in blue neon. Quite a few people who bought it remarked on the local touch, after all, the diner’s a landmark. Laurie, Carl, Myra and I all have framed prints of the photo hanging on our walls. It is uniquely Chicago.