Chapter 9 – Collect All Versions

Pineapple Cafe – 7864 S. Howell Ave., Oak Creek

I passed by the Pineapple Cafe & Mexican Grill for years, usually in a car with other people, but still, probably not seeing much promise, thinking it was a bar, or being put off by its entrenchment in a dingy old-school shopping plaza. Of course, given its name, I should have guessed it would be an oasis of delicious contradiction. Their cute website has a drawing of a clock with its hands at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, a good sign—and one glance inside was all I needed. It looks like the combination of an aged swinger's 1950s suburban basement rec-room and a perfectly preserved Vegas-style classic family restaurant, with the lights, music, and TVs on low, and no yuppie brunch madness. Pineapple imagery is everywhere. I can't even begin to get into the complexity and breakneck U-turns involved in the pineapple's symbolic heavy lifting. Another time. I rode my bike down there in October and had a “Spicy Mexican Skillet” (eggs, chicken chorizo, poblano peppers, onion, jalapenos, cilantro, avocado, and cheese), satisfying the Mexican side of the requirement, but then returned a week later for some gluten-free pancakes with pineapple and whipped cream. It's not likely I'll tolerate the multi-bus excursion down here in the winter, and Howell Avenue, south of the airport, is not a road you want to find yourself walking on without a tragic story in your briefcase. This would be my new hangout, seriously, but for location and winter. Even my last trip by bike, against high winds, took nearly 2 hours. My feet were frozen, but I realized the raised booth—like you're on a little stage—was ideal for secretly taking your shoes off. Women in the booth next to me were having an actually interesting conversion. I removed my sweat soaked sweater, drank the pretty good coffee, and wrote in my notebook. A day-glow green card that said “Theresa” was placed on my table, but my young waiter looked like a Latino, cute-era Tony Curtis. The layout (a lot of booths; big tables for large groups) is such that it makes sense for the rare solitary diner to get a booth, even if he's a weirdo writing in a notebook. And writing what, exactly? Not Yelp horseshit. Unrequited love is my element, and so is the fantasy pre-Summer of Love airport proximity singles hi-rise, and discovering a new obsession, collecting all versions, and trying everything on the menu of my new world headquarters. At least in spirit. Oh, well—at this point in the year, another summer seems improbable at best, and so does love, but the Earth keeps spinning along, regardless of how much we try to stop it or hurry it.