SANDZ67

The cafe was a classic American truckstop. It could have been anywhere in the United States, but nowhere else on the planet. It was in Gilroy. The gravel parking lot poured out onto the old Monterey Highway just before it merged with Interstate 101 southbound to Salinas. It was really past Gilroy. Past downtown, past the train station and the microbrewery, past the skate arena, past the wrecking yard, and even past the car dealerships. He had lived in Gilroy for nearly seven years before he even knew it was there. It appeared that none of the thousands of customers pouring into the outlet mall from all over the south Bay Area every day ever found their way into the dusty gravel parking lot.

The clientele that parked and ate there was local. Farmers in pickups, families in big old Buicks, truck drivers in trucks. And of course, the lot always had the perfect red mustang with the black rag top, red fuzzy dice, and the vanity plate that read SANDZ67.

He had never been in the Gavilan Cafe when Sandy wasn’t waiting tables. He almost wondered if the waitress and the cafe even existed apart from each other. She was blonde with soft curls a little more than shoulder length and big bangs. She appeared to be approaching 30 from somewhere near 40. She was thin and pretty in a well-worn truckstop sort of country western way. There was an ageless experienced weariness behind the bright smile and lightly-done mascara she brought with her to every table.

Sandy had a way with customers. The first time he came into the cafe was the week before Christmas. While he sat waiting for steak and eggs over medium with hashbrowns, a biscuit and gravy, he watched as she presented a Christmas gift to a small boy sitting with his dad at the counter. It was a battleship game. She played the game with the boy and kept up with half a dozen tables the whole time he took to eat his truckstop steak and eggs. She knew most of the customers by name, and soon had several of them at the counter, engaged in the game. Another time, he sat at a booth next to a family whose small boy was not happy about his highchair captivity. Sandy flirted and teased and engaged the little guy the whole time he was there. That day, another customer cornered Sandy back by the kitchen and gave her a big bouquet of flowers and birthday balloons.

There seemed to be a genuine bond between the cafe and its customers. An energy and purpose, maybe even a promise, that they sensed and loved. As he watched this cafe magic unfolding, so remarkable for it’s truckstop ordinariness, he knew the heart of it was Sandy. He knew nothing about her except what he had observed in the cafe, and what he had heard in a thousand country western songs. She was an icon. The goddess of the American truckstop cafe.