The City on the Edge of Forever
Lit Up — May’s Prompt: Nostalgia
I met my best friend in third grade. A few years later, during the time of the original Star Trek, we gave ourselves names from the show. She fancied herself a beauty queen, so she chose Losira.
I couldn’t resist the episode where Kirk met his greatest love, Edith Keeler.
We spent our teens as Lo and Ed, protesting the Vietnam war, while supporting Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement.
During the moon landing, we sat transfixed, moving the antenna around when the picture got fuzzy. We turned the dial tuner to get the moment just right when Neil Armstrong made history with the line heard around the world, because it truly was a giant leap for mankind.
After the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the Camelot decade ended, replaced by Watergate, the Fall of Saigon, and the Jonestown massacre.
The 70s included the best music, like Bye Bye Miss American Pie, and the most iconic movies ever, such as Mash and Star Wars. Unfortunately, we also had bell-bottoms, platform shoes, and Farrah’s feathered hair.
What held our attention, though, were the nightly depictions of the Vietnam war. The war started the year of my birth, when Disneyland opened, and ended 20 years later. The draft years, however, were what devastated us, as we came of age.
The nightly killings of young men sent to a land they didn’t understand with weapons in their hands they didn’t want to use against a nation of people speaking what sounded like babble to them changed my generation. In one way or another, we were all personally affected.
As high school seniors, we sent letters, homemade fudge, and socks in care packages addressed to the soldiers c/o the military. We held candelight vigils, along with sit-ins, and demanded an end to a war we were subjected to each night as we ate our dinners on tv trays in order to watch the latest devastation.
Lo stopped by nightly, hoping to glimpse her brother Ben on the screen. She gripped my hand and held her breath for each entire newscast. She didn’t know that I loved Ben as more than just her big brother. When I snuck letters to him in our weekly care packages, I promised to marry him as soon as he returned.
When he died, she left town. I never had the courage to tell her I loved him, too. She stopped by a few years later, just knocked on the door without warning. She met my son, Kirk, a towhead like his father, and I wondered if she’d recognize the likeness, but she didn’t.
I yearned to speak the truth, that she had a nephew, but then I saw the locket my grandmother had given me around her neck. I drew in a horrified breath when I realized she’d stolen it. She looked down, without meeting my eyes, then turned and walked out of my life.
A few years ago, I visited my son, something I hadn’t done for over ten years. The pain was worse than a bullet lodged next to the heart. Even breathing hurt. I was overwhelmed with happiness, though, when I noticed someone had been looking after him.
I stopped by a diner on my way out of town to mull over the kindness shown to him, drawn to the place because of the egg cups lining the window ledge.
Reminders of my mother swept across me. She had always prepared my favorite breakfast with just the right amount of love, carefully cutting Wonder bread into four rectangles, so I could dunk the pieces into my soft-boiled, salted egg held snugly by a violet-flowered egg cup.
I’d always ooh and aah when she sliced perfectly across the top, lovingly placing the egg hat on the saucer holding the cup. I had carried on the tradition when my son was young and he clapped and laughed even more joyously than I had at his age.
As I stepped through the diner door, I wondered if they served egg cups for brunch. The place had a homey feel to it in earthy tones from the Star Trek era. Images from the 70s lined the harvest-gold-painted walls, reflected on tables and booths interspersed with rust and avocado. The floor coordinated a pattern of bronze and pumpkin. Mini-jukeboxes sat on some of the booth tabletops.
The cashier smiled broadly and said, “Welcome friend. Sit yourself anywhere. As you can see, it’s pre-rush, so the place is empty for the time being.”
I sat at a table with a green and pink paisley print tablecloth, reminiscent of a dress I’d made in home ec class my freshman year. Lo had laughed at the time when she pointed out I’d sewn the zipper inside out. The cashier walked over with a menu.
“Do you serve egg cups?” My eyes were pinned to the old-fashioned menu, and I salivated over the images of meatloaf, mac-and-cheese and juicy-looking burgers.
“Ed, is that you?”
“Lo?” It had to be her. No one else would call me by that name. Plus, she wore her hair in the same french braid I remembered from our youth.
“It is you. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.”
My voice, easily recognizable, hadn’t changed since childhood. Even now, in my senior years, phone solicitors sometimes still asked, “Is your mommy home?”
I stood and hugged her, breathing her in for a good minute before letting go.
“I’ll be right back with your egg cup and toast dunkers.” She disappeared for a few minutes, allowing me time to reflect.
Lo returned with two egg cup breakfasts and sat across from me.
“Are you on your break?” I asked.
“I’m the proud owner of Ed and Lo’s, so I can take a break whenever I like. I just put up a closed sign. We have the rest of the day, so dig in.”
“I must have been too busy admiring the window ledge decorations. I didn’t even notice the name of your place.”
We ate in silence, while comfort shared the space between us. I had two cups of hot chocolate, even better than Mom’s. When I complimented her on it, she said she added cinnamon for a bit of spice and a splash of Kahlua for an extra kick.
“I have something for you.” She reached behind her neck and unlatched my grandmother’s necklace. “I’ve been keeping it safe.”
“Oh, Lo, I’m so sad our friendship ended over such a silly thing.”
“Open the locket.” Her voice caught as she said the words.
Two small photos side by side hit me so hard, I forgot to breathe. One was Lo and her brother Ben, my son’s father. The other was a picture of my son Kirk. I wanted to look up, but I was paralyzed by a combination of grief, joy and confusion.
“How did you get a picture of my Kirk?” I searched her eyes for understanding.
“I heard you were moving out of state, so I snuck over and took a Polaroid of him.” She took my hand and folded it across the necklace. “You keep this memory of a sister and brother who both loved you. And of your cherished son.”
I took a sip of water, hoping it would stop the flow of emotion working its way up.
“I put flowers on his grave once a month and clean his headstone.” She hadn’t let go of my hand.
“That damn war. Why were we even there?” I traced one of the pink paisley designs on the tablecloth with my index finger as I thought about the travesty of what happened in Vietnam.
“I’m not talking about my brother, Ed, although I take care of his gravesite, too. I’m talking about your son.”
A waterfall gushed over the edge of the high cliffs I’d built around the layers of my soul. She let go of my hand in order to grab a bunch of napkins, and I managed to sputter out, “You knew?”
“I kept up with you and your son as best I could throughout the years. I feared for his life when he joined the Marines and went to Afghanistan after 9–11. Words can’t express the sorrow in my heart, Ed, so I won’t even try.” She walked over and stood behind me, holding me as tight as she could, allowing me a good half hour to let the waters calm.
We spent the rest of the day sharing comfort food and a home-style chocolate malt, while catching up on what we’d been doing for the last number of decades. I thanked her for taking such good care of Kirk’s headstone. I also handed her back my grandmother’s necklace.
“Maybe you can make copies of the photos and send them to me. I’ll keep them in a new locket.” I wrote down my address before leaving.
Several weeks later, I received a package in the mail. She’d returned my grandmother’s locket intact, with a note.
“Dear Ed,
I hope my brother and your son, the nephew I met only once, are living in the city on the edge of tomorrow, just like Edith, from your favorite Star Trek episode.
Coming of age during Vietnam left us both scarred. I miss Ben and Kirk, but you all live on in my heart. Everything in my life reflects back to the years of our youth. That’s why my diner is so popular. People crave a simpler time, and when they step into Ed and Lo’s Place, I like to serve them a big helping of nostalgia along with their comfort food. That’s part of the gift I received from you.
I can’t pretend to know the pain you feel, but I hope you’ll always know the love I feel for you. On days when you might want Scotty to beam you up, think about the two of us, rushing home from school to watch the latest Star Trek episode.
Remember the Tribbles and Mudd and how we laughed at Shatner’s over-the-top acting, except in that one episode when he fell in love with Edith Keeler and then had to let her die, for the sake of history.
I like to think Ben and Kirk touched hearts in the far-away lands they were stuck in. Their courage influenced history in a way that wouldn’t have otherwise happened.
There’s something I never told you. The day I met Kirk, I came by to tell you why I left town after Ben died. Part of it was the loss, but I also wanted you to know I was running from the love I felt for you. The type that made me tremble when we held hands or hugged.
I had an irrational hope you felt the same, but then you introduced me to your son and as soon as I saw him, I knew who his father was. So I ran away again.
Our scars strengthened us, Ed, just as our nation losing its innocence will, when the fault lines settle. Don McLean’s ending to your favorite song wasn’t in the original version, but he wrote down the final, redemptive verse after the Father, Son and Holy Ghost headed for the coast. ‘And I promise to give all I have to give, if only you’ll make the music again live.’
Keep those words close to your heart and make a joyful noise with your strong and lyrical voice, my dearest love.
Lo”
I keep a simple plaque on my fireplace mantel.
Some come to sing
Some come to play
Some come to help keep the darkness away
They’re words to a lullabye I wrote and sang to Kirk as a young boy, just before he dozed off for his afternoon naps, perhaps to visit his father in the city on the edge of forever.
