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I get to the Denver Diner around midnight. An androgynous homeless person sporting an army surplus parka and cheap red plastic flip flops with no socks is pacing around the front entrance. The interior of the DD is brightly lit. There's the beautiful smell of greasy diner food (hash browns, sausage, burning toast), and the speakers are spewing Top Forty hits from the past and present. A chipper waitress with heavy eye makeup leads me to my seat and takes my order. There are other denizens: a gay couple with short, expertly sculpted hair and a table full of hipsters, guys in skinny pants, flimsy t-shirts and suit jackets, girls in brightly colored leggings, mini skirts, short boxy haircuts, and thick ironic eyeglasses all around.
12:12 a.m.: I had a theory that customers would come in waves, depending on what time events end and places close. I'm guessing this is the concert wave. The shows end and people come here before calling it a night. More people come in. A table of seven early middle agers, many sporting beards and sports jerseys, gets sat. One guy is tall, around 6'4," thin and pale with large eyes that make him look kind of like a llama. Next to him is a short guy, almost comically short when compared to the guy sitting next to him. "Slipknot's coming in March," says the short guy, loudly, seemingly to no one in particular. One guy comes in by himself, black hair plastered back like a guy in a Mafia flick, sits down at a table, and puts his head down. By 1:00 the diner is almost eighty percent full and people stop coming in.
By 1:32 the concert wave is over and the diner is nearly empty again. No one comes in for close to a half-hour. Tom Petty's song "American Girl" is playing. Bored, I decide to stretch my legs and take a look around. The homeless androgyne is sitting at the counter wearing a pair of massive headphones, bopping his (her?) head to the internal beat, and scribbling on a small stained notepad.
Bars usually stop serving drinks around 1:15 and close at 2:00. 1:56, the second wave begins. The Bar Wave. When compared to the mellow, trickling Concert Wave, this wave is nearly the complete opposite: big, loud, uncut. They gush through the door and by 2:16 the diner is full. Most are young, drunk, and energetic, but other than that it's a fairly diverse crowd. There's a table of guys who look like the members of the dance band Ok Go, all wearing the same uniform of brightly colored skinny suits and shaggy, artfully messed up hair. At the center of the room sits a table of seven or eight college kids. Over at the counter, a series of older barflies are sitting and staring at cups of coffee. They're cut from a more Charles Bukowski-esque mold: gin blossom noses, slouching posture, lank hair, and paunchy bloated stomachs.
At 2:28 a large crowd of club-goers comes in. The guys are dressed in baggy urban fashion while the girl's clothing is so tight it looks like it is painted on. One girl points to her heavy, dark green eye shadow and shouts to the girl sitting across from her, "Look at this shade, look at this shade bitch!" They are the most energetic drunks in the place. They scream at each other, laugh, one girl gets up, walks around the table, and shakes her friend who is so faded she is having trouble keeping her head up. At 2:59 the place is half-empty.
The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o' clock in the morning." With this quote buzzing around my head, I wonder what the three o' clock crowd will be like. The Bar Crowd has been winding down and filing out steadily. At 3:03, three women come in, all looking like sad, haggard extras from Sex and the City.
Not surprisingly, they are drunk. Really drunk. As they sit down, I overhear one of them ask "can I take my panties off?" One brings out her cell phone-Carrie, if you will-and screams at her friend (Charlotte), "shut up! No, I'm talking about having sex while I'm married."
"Oh," screams Samantha, "I get a nipple, oh, my nipple," and pulls down her shirt. She is not wearing a bra. The guy sitting behind them looks, and she points at him: "You skank, you slut, you owe me dinner now."
"I'd need to see more than that before I buy you dinner," he says as he gets up and leaves.
At 3:11, she pulls her shirt down again, this time she capturing the attention of a passing male pedestrian, who stops and leans off a bench. "Oh my god," screams Samantha, "you perv! Show me your dick! Show me your dick!"
3:40: The Bar Wave has gone, the diner is empty, Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself" is playing, and the waitresses are cleaning the tables and refilling the salt, pepper, and sugar shakers. When serving customers, these girls are unflinchingly bright, energetic, and charming. Now that their guard is down, they are still bright, energetic, and charming, but their forced plastic grimaces have been replaced by soft genuine smiles. They laugh, joke, gossip, and comment on their more unique customers: "One guy wouldn't let anyone else order; he did it all himself. It was weird, like no one else was allowed to talk to me. I came over and asked how the food was and they just smiled and stared at the floor."
At 4:45, the Early Birds start showing up. These are mostly middle-aged, working-class types. The waitresses know them by name and order and they chat a little.
At five o' clock, I'd been sitting in the diner for five hours. That was enough for me. As I paid, I pondered the question: If malls have rats and bars have flies, what do diners have? Waves? Cockroaches? Refugees? Beats me.
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