Hans and the Blue Dawn

Apparently the Blue Dawn is still there, located on Veteran’s Highway in what is now pretentiously called Islandia, but I somehow believe I’d be disappointed if I saw it today, for I have changed, even if it miraculously has not. It was a diner, the kind that was always open, its pale light not warm, but constant. There was a long formica counter with round cushioned stools, and wedges of pie and layer cake in a glass display case. There were booths by the window with vinyl upholstered seats and tabletop jukeboxes where Frank Sinatra coexisted with the Shangri-Las and the Troggs and you could set your mood for a nickel a song. I used to go there late at night with my boyfriend Richie. He worked for a time as a night dispatcher for the Central Islip Fire Department, a perfect job for studying. His shift ended at midnight and sometimes he’d swing by my house afterwards and I would sneak out and we’d head over to the diner in his VW Bug.

There was something comforting just knowing the Blue Dawn was there, a dreamy glow on a barren stretch of road, always awake, in its calming, sleepy-eyed way, even in the middle of the night. My routine order was a toasted buttered bagel, along with a cup of weak milky tea into which I would pour an avalanche of sugar. Richie and I would sit in a booth and talk about nothing, but I felt grown up and independent as I stirred my tea and watched the nighttime strangers drifting in and out. You could be pleasantly anonymous in the Blue Dawn; it wasn't a friendly neighborhood place where everyone knew your name. There were a couple of regulars we came to know by sight, but a vague nod was all the acknowledgment needed. People sitting together in a diner booth at one o'clock in the morning usually aren't trying to make new friends.

Hans was the exception, but then again, he was at the counter, not a booth, and he was always alone. I don't remember how we initially happened to strike up a conversation with him, but I do recall that he was very eager to talk. He never looked at us straight on, but he seemed to be filled with stories he wanted to unload as he stared into his coffee cup or the eggs growing cold upon his plate. I liked that his name was Hans, for it gave the Blue Dawn a vaguely European air, and his voice was soft and had the hint of an accent, which made me want to listen to him closely. Hans was an unemployed engineer, he told us, and had been working on a secret project of profound significance when he'd been abruptly terminated without explanation. Still, he knew what he knew, and it was big.

Richie was skeptical, but I thought Hans seemed earnest and sad, and I couldn't imagine why he would fabricate such a story. Just then the jukebox slipped into "Midnight in Moscow" and I pictured myself in a Russian café, far from Long Island, and Hans a secret agent, knowing what he knew. He pushed aside his plate of uneaten eggs, rendered visibly distraught by the burden of painful knowledge. Clearly the mysterious Hans was a worldly and tormented soul. (Who knew the Blue Dawn could be so glamorous?)

After that, whenever we entered the Blue Dawn, we would look for Hans at the counter. If he was there, and he often was, we would sit beside him for awhile to talk, though our conversations were fairly one-way. Hans never even asked us for our names (and here I will confess that I was prepared to be Dagmar) and he seemed to have no interest in us at all except insofar as we were willing to listen without judgment to his confidences. Hans, as it turned out, had circumnavigated the globe solo and discovered a new species of tortoise in the Galapagos Islands. He had written a play soon to be performed on Broadway, dated (and dumped) Patty Duke, and designed and built a high-speed amphibious vehicle, but he had every reason to be bitter, for he had been unjustly removed from the very team of astronauts that would soon enough be landing on the moon. "Ah, the moon," said Richie, "I know the place."

It isn't as if Hans made these claims all at once. They unfolded over time, and with a delivery so deadpan as to seem almost credible. Yes, at some point it became clear even to me that Hans was a liar. Or maybe he was simply delusional, a benign psychotic with a grandiose imagination. But then again, weren't we all just inventing ourselves? Somewhere along the way, I'd grown fond of Hans. It seemed to me we had been drawn to the same light in the dark along the highway, and as we hovered together in the wee hours of the Blue Dawn, I felt some kind of empathy for him. The cars passed by on the lonely road and the Blue Dawn sign seemed to blink and wink. We were all of us being whatever we wanted in the middle of the night.