"Everything is just worn out," says Terry Moore, one of the triumvirate currently in command of the King. "Everything is held together with duct tape, and it's just time."
I don't fear change as a general rule, but I'm an animist, and I see life in the strangest of places at the King. In the way the highway lights catch in the 3 a.m. haze of cigarette smoke, for example, turning it milky. In the highly personal geometry of the King's counter, in the arrangement of coffee cups and ashtrays, newspapers and racing forms, and never knowing who you'll end up sitting next to. In the way age and perpetual motion have given everything inside the sepia-toned feel of an old photograph, and how the memories of some nights -- the really good ones -- turn to black and white the minute you leave.
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The essence of a great diner lies in how it's aged over time, how it has never let anything go. That's why a diner remodeling is a delicate process that must be undertaken with the utmost caution and concern for the intangible things which too heavy a hand might so easily destroy.
Fortunately, Moore knows exactly what he's getting into with all this talk of cleaning and prettying up a thing that's loved because of its monumental lack of conventional good looks. He understands the magic in residence at the King -- the history and indescribable color alchemy that can make orange vinyl a drinking man's favorite shade. He gets why I'm nervous about the changes, and he does his best to set my mind at ease.
"Everything is going to be exactly like it is, only new," he says, laughing as I tell him how worried I had been, how I'd freaked out a table full of writerly types by hinting that there might be changes on the way at the King, how there had been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the possibility that the straight-up polyester roadhouse-waitress uniforms might change along with the decor.
"I wouldn't change anything if I could," Moore continues. "I know how important it is. I would never change the orange, never change the paneling. And you don't have to worry. We would never change the uniforms, either. You know, it will have a touch of newness to it for a while, but everything will be the same."
As a matter of fact, the King has already made some stealthy changes that I didn't even notice. Some of the paneling has been replaced, the bathrooms were redone, and a lot of the accumulated knickknackery has been pulled off the walls and stowed away in anticipation of the big day when the King will actually close for renovations. According to Moore, that should be by the first of next month -- but the King will be closed for only six days while the tile is replaced and the booths and tables either refurbished or swapped for new. Moore will also be adding some actual stainless steel by the waitress station, the pass window and the bus areas.
In a show of good faith, Moore even offers to let me look at the drawings and the contractor's blueprints so that I can be sure nothing too drastic is being done to my office-away-from-the-office. But I decline, figuring that if he's telling the truth, it will be apparent as soon as the King reopens. And though I've been proven a sucker before, I feel safe putting my trust in a man who goes out of his way to assure me that the smoking area will not be shrinking by even one seat and who understands the true, intrinsic value of that much orange vinyl.
Now, if there's a way I can convince Moore to name a booth by the windows after me....
