The Customer Always Complaining

The Story

For eleven years, an old man came to a small-town diner every morning at six forty-seven and complained. The first morning was a Tuesday. He sat in the booth by the window — booth four — and he ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, sourdough toast, and black coffee. When the food arrived, he frowned at it for a long moment, the way a man frowns at a question he is preparing to answer carefully. Then he said, this coffee is too hot. The eggs are too dry. The bacon, frankly, is a moral failing. The hash browns are committing some kind of treason against potatoes. The toast — he held it up against the light — is suspicious. The waitress was twenty-six. Her name was Annie. She had been a waitress for two months. She apologized. She offered to remake everything. He held up one finger, like a conductor calling for silence, and he said, do not bother. I will eat it. I am here to suffer. And he ate every bite. He complained about every bite while he ate it. When he left, he tipped fifteen dollars on a six-dollar plate. Annie watched him walk out the door, and she thought, I am never going to make it through eleven years of this man.

By the fourth year, the small-town diner had a rhythm and the rhythm was Mr. Walter. He came every morning at six forty-seven. He sat in booth four. He ordered the same thing he had always ordered. He complained about it the same way he had always complained. Annie had stopped apologizing. She had started bringing him a small notepad and a pen along with his coffee, and she said, write it down, Mr. Walter, the syrup is suspiciously cheerful today, I want to remember this one. He told her the music was too loud. The chair was too soft. The new menus were printed in the wrong shade of cream — too institutional, he said. The hash browns were committing the same potato-treason as always. He drank his coffee. He ate his bacon. He paid for his food. He left a fifteen-dollar tip. He told the door, on his way out, that the bell rang in a key that did not flatter the morning. Annie laughed for ten minutes after he left. So did the line cook. The diner had a name for him by then. The Regular Complainant. Booth four was his.

By the eighth year, Mr. Walter's complaints had become a small public art. Children at the next table imitated his theatrical sighs. Tourists asked the manager who that man was. Annie's husband had left her in the spring of that year. She had cried in the diner bathroom the morning after he packed his car. When she came out and tied her apron back on, Mr. Walter was at booth four, and he looked at her once with his pale gray eyes and looked away. Then he said, very loudly, that the orange juice was insulting today — it tasted like a politician. The table next to him laughed. Annie laughed. She did not cry again that morning. She did not understand, then, why the timing of his complaint had been so precise. Years later, she would. But that morning, she only knew that the orange juice had not been insulting. She had poured it herself. She had poured it from the same carton as every other table's orange juice. He had said the words anyway.

On a Monday in late October of the eleventh year, Mr. Walter did not come. Booth four sat empty. Annie waited. She thought he might be sick. She kept his coffee warm on the back burner, the way she had kept it warm on the rare mornings he was twenty minutes late. He never came. Tuesday was the same. The booth was empty. The coffee cooled. The bell on the door rang for other people. Annie began to feel, for the first time in eleven years, that the diner was missing something. On Wednesday morning, at six forty-seven, the bell rang. A woman in her early fifties walked in. She was holding a brown paper bag. She had Mr. Walter's pale gray eyes. She walked to booth four. She set the brown paper bag on the table. She looked at Annie, and she said, my father asked me to bring this to the woman who waited on him every morning. I think it must be you.

Inside the brown paper bag was Mr. Walter's leather wallet, soft and worn, and a small spiral-bound notebook with a green cover, the size of a child's palm. On the first page, in careful blue-ink handwriting, was a date — the Tuesday of eleven years ago. And beneath it, one line. Annie smiled today even though her shift was double. The next page. Annie remembered I take honey, not sugar. I never told her. She just knew. Page after page. Annie wore yellow today — looks like her mother used to. Annie cried in the bathroom this morning. I made the orange juice insulting so she could laugh. Annie's husband left her. She is going to be all right. I know it. She is the kind of person who is all right. The pages went on. Eleven years of pages. Every single morning, one line — one true thing about Annie that he had not been able to say to her face. He had not known how. He had only known how to complain. So he had complained, and he had written down what he meant. The complaints had been the love letters. The complaints had been the love letters.

The next morning, at six forty-six, Annie unlocked the diner. She poured a cup of coffee from the back-burner pot. She walked to booth four and she sat down on Mr. Walter's side of it, facing the door. She took one sip of the coffee. She set it down. She looked across the empty diner, and she said, very loudly, to no one — this coffee is too hot. The line cook looked up from the grill. He looked at her for a long moment. He went back to the grill. He said, into the bacon, the chair is too soft. Annie laughed. She cried. She drank the coffee. She finished it. She tipped herself fifteen dollars on a one-dollar cup. And the bell on the door rang in a key that, that morning, flattered the morning very much. Some people can only love you sideways. Some people walk into a diner every morning for eleven years and they tell you everything by complaining. The brave thing to do, Annie thought — the brave thing she would carry — was to learn to listen for what they were saying underneath. And to keep the booth open. And to let the bell ring.