A Greenwich Village Diner's Morning Crew

Every early morning?between 5 and 7:30?at the exit of the very strategic W. 4th St. subway stop, the Village Restaurant Coffee and Donut Shop, a 24-hour diner, preserves what's increasingly being displaced by the epidemic of homogenization conquering New York City.

The type of people who regularly mill about as you enter are the street beggars of Greenwich Village who've given up on ambition, the occasional drunks, the drug dealers from the perimeter of Washington Square Park?the ones who used to deal in the park itself until the NYPD began its monitoring and closure of the park at midnight a few years back. The customers who sit inside include students from NYU, tourists with their maps, nightclubbers. Once in a while at 4 a.m. you might see a gay couple making out as if they have nowhere else to do so. A few hours later, the rise of the winter sun heralds the arrival of elderly men and women on SSI, living in nearby rent-controlled apartments they've had for years on top of years.

"There's a lot of problem resolution that takes place here that beats going to an analyst," quips Leroy, one of the regulars?a slender, middle-aged computer systems analyst currently out of work. Leroy's being kept away from his daughter by his estranged wife, yet he's determined to see her one day. The diner is his second home, because now he sleeps in a shelter. While he was working he sacrificed big chunks of his paychecks to child support. But he had no problem with that. What he now keeps at bay is severe depression from the pain of not seeing the two-year-old whom, in his worst moments, he has considered snatching and leaving the city with when he gets back on his feet. He has long felt that his given name is too stereotypically Afro-American. Leroy likes martial arts, so he tells everybody to call him Lee, as in Bruce.

Hedy, the waitress behind the counter who hugs him today as if he is a son, is Japanese. Shahid, the owner, is from Bangladesh. Michael, the former radio talk-show host in Indiana, also a regular, has a fondness for showing up in a fedora, dress shirt, tie and jacket. He's Polish-American, but it's easy to mistake him for a latter day Hickey from The Iceman Cometh, because all the regulars await his arrival. Shahid likes Michael because with his vocabulary he bounces out unruly customers and troubleshoots with the bill collectors breathing down Shahid's neck, threatening to close the place.

Julian, another regular?an elderly man with a lovely white beard?likes Michael because Michael takes into consideration everything he has to say?as if, momentarily, he's the most important person in the world. So when Julian says, "Did you know that Jupiter has firestorms as large as the planet Earth? Think about what that means!" Michael thinks about what that means. Howard, who works for Immigration and Naturalization a few blocks away, likes Michael because he can joust with him about politics; "Johnny Guitar" likes Michael because together they can admire the female beauty that comes through the place. And I like Michael because I wonder how it is that a man so articulate, so well-read, so wise, isn't sitting with Charlie Rose once a month as a regular guest.

On a recent morning, Hedy calls out breakfast orders to the cook, serving coffee while "her children" await their food, providing them with the donut they want from the assortment that sits next to the window as you walk in. By 8:15 a.m. a short, elderly man has arrived. Shahid, who also helps out behind the counter, pours him his cup of coffee. This regular customer has scoliosis, leaving him bent and hunkered down as he walks and sits and sleeps. Slowly he mounts the counter stool.

"Hi Mr. So-So," Shahid says as he gives him his coffee.

"Hi."

"How are you doing today?"

"So-so."

Mr. So-So always appears drowsy. You think he's falling asleep or in a quiet pain as his eyes occasionally flutter. Now it's obvious that he's awake. He thrusts his head slightly forward to take a sip of coffee, then returns to semi-hibernation.

At this particular moment the subject is all the work God has to do, which reminds Michael of an old Bill Cosby joke that goes something like this: "Everyone's praying to God about something. You even got the gambler in Las Vegas praying to God as he rolls the dice. Imagine it. Here's God about to solve the crisis in the Mideast when his attention is diverted by the gambler, causing God to mess up solving the crisis in the Mideast. The moral of which is, Don't pray to God for silly things. I've got a friend named Herbie who has all the time in the world. Pray to Herbie!"

Meanwhile, Julian has his own resolution to the Mideast crisis: "If God would only give a good earthquake, bringing down everything over there, including the Wailing Wall, there'd be peace."

Now it's early in the morning, 5:30, New Year's Day. Lee comes in and walks toward the back, having rung in the new year in Times Square. He announces that he has some danishes if anyone wants one. Recently, he sold his coveted Toshiba laptop, which included the DVD player he was so proud of, to Shahid, because he needed the money. Now at home Shahid watches Indian movies on the laptop. Hedy sees me open mine and asks if it can play movies too. I tell her it can. She wonders if I have any movies with me. I tell her no. Momentarily she's crestfallen. I tell her that one day in this new year of 2001 during an hour when it's really slow?like 3 a.m. or so on a weekday?I'll rent a DVD she'd like to watch and stay a couple of hours. She's delighted at the prospect.

Later, with the arrival of more regulars, Lee offers his danishes once more. "I'm a bum, I might as well eat in a bummingly way," he concludes, as I wonder why eating danishes makes him a bum. "Everyone's a bum in some manner." While he says this, Good Morning America has just come on the tv behind the counter. President-Elect Bush is on the screen. Lee glances over, continuing the thought: "Even George Bush is a bum."

It's just a momentary hint of depression that will go away soon, because by now I know Lee. I've considered his wisdom. The day before, he and I and another Afro-American male, a friend of his who once spent time in jail, discovered we are all 43 years old, with only a couple of months separating our birthdays. So we launched our own exclusive society: the 43 Club. During every encounter, Lee and I trade at least one war story from the never-ending racial madness we deal with, even at this age.

Today his story is one of better times. Only a year and a half ago he was part of a team that helped a major brokerage firm become Y2K compliant. One day, just before he came in, someone placed yellow "Police Line Do Not Cross" tape around his cubicle?a "black male criminality" joke. "I didn't say nothin'," Lee recalls. "And the reason I didn't was because I realized you have to choose your battles."

Shahid's wife Emma, who used to teach elementary school in Bangladesh, is now helping out behind the counter and taking the orders of customers in the booths. The Ricki Lake Show is on. The program this morning is, "If the DNA test proves you're the father of my baby, then marry me today." A succession of men are brought out for inquisition. They are seated next to the mothers. Photos of the children in question are matched with each man.

Lee, shaking his head, declares: "I'd rather go to jail for kidnapping my kid than not taking care of my kid."

How often are we told that men in predicaments like his feel this way about their children? A person can bear witness if he simply climbs up the right-hand steps of the southernmost exit of the W. 4th St. subway station, hangs a hard right and walks inside this diner.