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A Dave’s Egg Cream

Dear Diary:

Dave’s Luncheonette was an all-night diner at the corner of Canal Street and Broadway. Everything about the place was old school. After leaving work one hot night in 1983, I stopped there for a chocolate egg cream, a frothy concoction served in a substantial glass.

My thirst satisfied, I stood on the corner dreading the long, humid wait for the subway.

“Hey, you need a ride to Brooklyn?” an idling cabby said. “You can be my last fare home.”

As I got in, he asked, “You just have an egg cream?”

How did he know?

“You smell like egg cream,” he said.

“Dave’s makes the best,” I said.

“Dave?” he snorted. “Ha! That Dave ain’t nothing but a two-loaf crybaby.”

“A what?” I asked.

“A two-loaf crybaby,” the cabby said. “If he’s got a nice fresh loaf of bread under his arm, he’s cryin’ ’cause he ain’t got one under the other.”

I doubt the cabby actually knew Dave. He was just using an odd line on a fare.

Dave’s closed years ago, and I never heard “two-loaf crybaby” again until I watched the movie “Casino” recently.

There is one scene with some wiseguys playing cards and making chitchat. At one point, one of them asks another: “Why you cryin’ with two loaves of bread under your arm?”

Maybe Martin Scorsese got a ride with that same cabby once.

— Paul Karasik

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Central Park, 9 a.m.

Dear Diary:

In the green of spring
and the rain
(of a sudden)

the watercolor walkers running
for cover

one man lay down
his green brief-
case

stretched
on a bench

his tongue thrust
out now

and tasted the rain

— Rolli Anderson

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Pig Ears

Dear Diary:

It was a summer day, and my partner and I were on the N train doing crossword puzzles when I heard a man ask two women next to him what they were snacking on.

Pig ears! they said. They’re really good!

“Wow, really?” the man said. “What do they taste like?”

Like bacon, they explained, but it’s almost all cartilage, no meat.

The man asked a bit more about the pig ears, including what sort of seasoning they typically had, what the texture was like and whether they went well with beer.

After answering his questions enthusiastically, one of the women held out the bag.

“Want to try one?” she asked.

“Oh, no thanks,” the man said. “I’m actually a vegetarian.”

— Kat Li

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Cab to Penn Station

Dear Diary:

It was January 1962. I was on my first leave from the Air Force. After three days on trains from Biloxi, Miss., I arrived at Grand Central with no idea what to do next.

I asked a police officer where I could get a train to Boston. He told me to go to Penn Station and directed me to the cab stand outside.

The first cabby in the line saw me, got out, grabbed my huge duffel bag and smaller bag full of the books I was planning to read and threw them into the trunk.

“Penn Station, right?” he said.

“Umm, yeah,” I replied.

“How long you been in, buddy?”

“Since July.”

“After a while, you’ll learn to travel light.”

This was probably the first cab I had ever been in, but even I noticed right away that he hadn’t pushed the arm of the meter down.

“Drafted?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “You have to enlist to get into the Air Force.”

He turned around toward me at the next light.

“You did the right thing, kid,” he said. “I didn’t wait to get drafted; I joined when the war started. My old man was so proud of me, he left me the house.”

I didn’t know what to so say, so I just nodded.

When we got to Penn Station, he pulled my bags out of the trunk.

“The ride’s on me, kid,” he said. “Behave yourself, get promoted, marry a nice girl and have lots of kids.”

He shook my hand, and I watched as a traveler just a few yards away hailed him and got in.

— Stephen Patten

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Leaving?

Dear Diary:

I was in the city from out of town to help my adult child move out of the fourth-floor walk-up in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where they had lived for a couple of years.

Lucky me: I found a perfect parking spot right in front of the building, and we started loading boxes and suitcases into my car.

After a while, a guy came out of the Dominican barbershop next door.

“You leaving?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “My kid. They’re moving out. You’ve probably seen them around: tall, red hair, lots of tattoos? They live on the fourth floor here, but they’re moving out of Brooklyn.”

He pointed to his car, which was double-parked nearby.

“No,” he said. “I mean, are you leaving this parking spot?”

— Sarah Prineas