Midnight Special. (More like four AM special, but there you go)
It was never going to be Nighthawks. For one, the glass panes that made up the long windows were small and frequently shattered by stones thrown by passing children. Outside, the varicoloured neon of the neighbourhood flanked it on all sides while the flickering streetlights blazed down, stripping the joint of any pretension of being an island of light in a world of darkness. Nevertheless, it did its best, and, after a fashion, it gained a kind of respect in the neighbourhood, raising it above the other greasy spoons of the area. The owner, idiosyncratic at the best of times and mildly deranged at the worst made a point of paying his dishwashers especially well, so that the spoons would always be spotless and free of grease as a mark of pride. Outside the battered door and clean glass, no whores kept their strutting patrols, and not even in the depths of desperation would any man peer through and guess at his chances of robbing the place.
Business boomed as best it could in the depths of the labyrinth of steel and stone, mostly for one reason: the tradition, which the owner had never really named, but which came to be known as the Midnight Special. Every day, when the tides of work had drawn in the pre- and post-work floods and sent them forth with filled and warmed bellies, the place seemed to close for the day. The shutters were pulled down, the door was locked, and the front looked for all the world like so many of its neighbours, closed and dead to the world.
Behind the walls, though, the building seemed to truly come to life. Legions of chefs, sleeping or working other jobs for most of the day, poured down the stairs from the upper reaches of the building into the kitchen (whose size would have surprised most of its regulars). Messengers and gatherers swarmed over rooftops and walls, spreading outward from their home's back door to certain specific doors, miles away across the city, where a few brief words and a thin stack of bills would be exchanged for a bulging bag of anything from unskinned, unboned haunches of cows to certain delicate spices, which were hauled back to their home ground, where they were hungrily hauled in and tossed around the kitchen, dissipating into a whirl of knives, colanders and boiling water.
Outside, a curious mix began to develop. In the early days, before word leaked out to the guides and the gabs, the street would be divided between the locals, in loose hoodies and sweats or old shirts and worn shoes, and the neat, creased finery of the connoisseurs, the two groups divided by the road, eyeing each other in awkward silence. Finally, at precisely half past eleven, the rotund, cast-eyed owner would swagger up to the door and lift the blinds with one delicate, sweat-caked finger and peer out across the street. Moments later, he'd spin round to murmur at high speed to a small circle of sous-chefs, who dove back into the kitchen to scream at the messengers, now decked out as perfect waiters. The kitchen reached a crescendo of activity, whole rows of cooks fainting away in the heat and the stress, dragged up into the depths in wait for the next day.
Precisely at midnight, the lone door to the corner spot creaked open, locals and strangers alike trying hard to get in quickly without being seen to shove. Within, a literal banquet coated every surface, every glance perfection, every taste worth a lifetime's wait. In silence, the guests sat and served themselves, thoughts of cost forgotten. In a dark, dingy corner of the city, the Midnight Special shone through the night.
Business boomed as best it could in the depths of the labyrinth of steel and stone, mostly for one reason: the tradition, which the owner had never really named, but which came to be known as the Midnight Special. Every day, when the tides of work had drawn in the pre- and post-work floods and sent them forth with filled and warmed bellies, the place seemed to close for the day. The shutters were pulled down, the door was locked, and the front looked for all the world like so many of its neighbours, closed and dead to the world.
Behind the walls, though, the building seemed to truly come to life. Legions of chefs, sleeping or working other jobs for most of the day, poured down the stairs from the upper reaches of the building into the kitchen (whose size would have surprised most of its regulars). Messengers and gatherers swarmed over rooftops and walls, spreading outward from their home's back door to certain specific doors, miles away across the city, where a few brief words and a thin stack of bills would be exchanged for a bulging bag of anything from unskinned, unboned haunches of cows to certain delicate spices, which were hauled back to their home ground, where they were hungrily hauled in and tossed around the kitchen, dissipating into a whirl of knives, colanders and boiling water.
Outside, a curious mix began to develop. In the early days, before word leaked out to the guides and the gabs, the street would be divided between the locals, in loose hoodies and sweats or old shirts and worn shoes, and the neat, creased finery of the connoisseurs, the two groups divided by the road, eyeing each other in awkward silence. Finally, at precisely half past eleven, the rotund, cast-eyed owner would swagger up to the door and lift the blinds with one delicate, sweat-caked finger and peer out across the street. Moments later, he'd spin round to murmur at high speed to a small circle of sous-chefs, who dove back into the kitchen to scream at the messengers, now decked out as perfect waiters. The kitchen reached a crescendo of activity, whole rows of cooks fainting away in the heat and the stress, dragged up into the depths in wait for the next day.
Precisely at midnight, the lone door to the corner spot creaked open, locals and strangers alike trying hard to get in quickly without being seen to shove. Within, a literal banquet coated every surface, every glance perfection, every taste worth a lifetime's wait. In silence, the guests sat and served themselves, thoughts of cost forgotten. In a dark, dingy corner of the city, the Midnight Special shone through the night.