Breakfast at the Road Runner Cafe
by William Notter

CAFE still burning in neon after sunup,
and a bird's gangly silhouette stretched out
with speed—the sign draws me in.
The walls inside are hung with Spanish prayers,
kachina dolls, chili pepper bundles,
and a three-foot Christ sanctifies relief
from the bluster of New Mexico spring.

The waitress brings coffee and cream.
The gaunt, mustachioed cook
whets his spatula against the grill
scrambling huevos Mexicanos
with chopped green chilies, tomatoes, onion,
tortillas and beans on the side.
A whiskered man at the counter brags
to the waitress about the money he can make
selling copper wire for scrap,
and how he drank thirteen beers
the night before, and wasn't even drunk.
Highway patrolmen talk knockdown power
and calibers, a courthouse blown apart
by a fertilizer bomb in the back of a truck.
A skittish Navajo woman, Drug Free and Proud
printed on her shirt, opens a letter
and swirls ice cubes with her butter knife.

The letter might be from a son locked up
for stealing cars in Albuquerque,
a power disconnect notice, or news
her sister died of exposure out in the hills.
Maybe she's just back to the world
from a stay in detox, chewing ice
to keep from thinking she could walk downtown
and be served a bottle of gin
or eighth-ounce bag of weed
as easily as eggs and toast.

A stranger can only say so much
in the open noise of sputtering grease,
small talk, spoons clacking in coffee mugs.
If she can just hold tight to something,
those cravings will disappear the way wind
blows mountains of cloud across the sky.
She could find comfort in a place like this,
the silvery riffle of cottonwood leaves outside,
a novena candle flickering by the door
to keep Jesus lit at night, find pleasure
in good food and desert light across the tables.

The woman lays a few bills down
by her plate of half-eaten eggs,
and walks outside to the payphone.
She holds her black hair with one hand
against the lashing wind. What can a stranger say?
The Santa Fe's red and yellow engines
come thrumming west beside the highway
as I go out the door. Hang on. She turns
and I shout again, Just hang on.
Past the train is sandstone sunbleached yellow,
knobby juniper clutching at the hills.


"Breakfast at the Road Runner Cafe" by William Notter, from Holding Everything Down. © Crab Orchard Review, 2009. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Today is the birthday of Gene Roddenberry, born in El Paso, Texas (1921). He was working as a TV writer and producer at NBC when, in 1964, he got the idea for a new series about space exploration — "a Wagon Train to the stars," as he described it — and shopped it around to several studios, most of which were uninterested. Desilu Productions finally expressed an interest and NBC agreed to air it. The pilot of his new show, Star Trek, about the voyages of the Starship Enterprise and its crew, aired on September 8, 1966. Roddenberry's wife, Majel Barrett, provided the voice for the Enterprise's computer. Ratings were never great, and it only aired for three seasons, but it was a huge success in syndication and kicked off a major science-fiction franchise.

Star Trek was the first sci-fi series to depict a generally peaceful future, and that came from Roddenberry's fundamental optimism about the human race. "It speaks to some basic human needs," he said in 1991, "that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over in a big flash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things."

Roddenberry died in 1991 and, with his widow's permission, his ashes were carried on a 1992 mission of the space shuttle Columbia. Roddenberry's son, Rod, in 2011 produced a documentary about his father's life. It’s called Trek Nation.

Today is the birthday of aircraft pioneer Orville Wright, born in Dayton, Ohio (1871). Of the two Wright brothers, Orville was younger, and he was the mischievous one, the adventurous one, while Wilbur was a meticulous researcher and introvert. And though Orville wasn't that interested in school — and was expelled from elementary school on one occasion — none of the Wright children lacked encouragement or opportunity for study at home. Orville Wright once said, of their childhood, "We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate whatever aroused curiosity."

Orville succeeded his brother as head of the Wright Company upon Wilbur's death from typhoid fever in 1912, but he didn't enjoy the business world, and sold the company a few years later. He retired from business and served on the advisory panels of several boards and agencies, including the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of NASA.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

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