The Egg Broke

The Egg Broke

 

It wasn’t until his USA road trip that Jim truly realised the passion he held for egg yolks, one particular Sunday morning at a diner in the Mid-West. He will always remember very clearly that morning, exiting his rented Cadillac in the parking lot, stretching and yawning, lighting and smoking a cigarette, standing as erect and content as he ever had. As with most days on the road, every moment seemed full of promise.

 

Approaching the entrance to the diner, the fresh pine tinged air filled his nostrils. He felt the warmth of the sun on his face and relished the thought of those wonderful eggs that would soon be his. Superb eggs - accompanied with great coffee, waffles, hash browns, bacon, sausages and all the delights served up daily in those great American diners. He walked up the steps and looked through the darkened diner windows into the hive of activity within, the delicious smell of frying wafting out.

 

That’s when it hit him: he finally realised the role that eggs had played throughout his life.

 

******

 

Once inside, Jim found a table and sat down, thinking it through. A girl soon arrived to serve him - a funny, dopey sort, with a vacant, despondent look. She took pains to ignore him whist taking his order, burying her head in her notepad. He ordered a ‘Standard American Breakfast’. Of course the question of eggs came about quite naturally.

 

'How do you like your eggs?'

 

'Wow, what a question.’

 

On a whim, he decided to play with her a little.

 

‘Well, sunny side up always of course. The yolk must be perfectly yellow – a deep yellow, almost bloody, just hinting at orange. But never red – that shows a bad egg, and bad eggs can kill you know. The whites must be soft to the prod, and allow scratching, but still stay solid and shapely. They don't have to be a perfect circle, but they do need shape. There should be no browning on the top side, but the underside should have a healthy glaze.

 

‘Then, once served, I like to work my way up to it. Slice a little white here, a little there. I examine the yolk for flaws, size it up. I am aiming to pop it just right, so I take my time. Then, when I'm good and ready I slice it with my knife: surgically, from the centre outwards – only taking a fraction of a second, nothing more. Then I watch the yolk seep out and spread all over the plate. That's a great moment. And finally I dip my toast in and enjoy.'

 

She stood, perfectly still.

 

'Ok. And what about coffee? We only have regular filter coffee.'

 

'Coffee would be great, done however you care to serve it.'

 

'Ok.'

 

She turned to go but hesitated, her head bobbing slightly before she rounded back, for the first time now looking straight at him.

 

She was fairly young, around 19, and something to look at when she gave you her full attention. She had these twinkly eyes and deep set smile, yet still she managed to keep this vacant, removed air, as if Jim was some kind of fantastic new realm and she was making her mind up whether or not to explore.

 

'I'll tell the cook about the eggs. You Germans sure love your eggs huh?'

 

Jim laughed, for some reason letting it slide that he wasn't German.

 

'Yes, well personally I do love my eggs. There’s something so fragile and mysterious about them. Everything about them just says… life… you know? And they taste great. Eating is one of the great pleasures in life and it's the simple things that really please me. Somehow eggs always make me think of the simple, beautiful things. Like women. Incidentally, you really are a beauty. I just have to put that on the table.’

 

'Well,’ she said, blushing (and that too was a sight to behold). ‘You don't mince words do you. You know what, maybe I'll join you for some eggs, my shift is just about to end anyway and I have the rest of the day off. Did you say you were travelling somewhere?’

 

So that was how they met, Lydia and Jim. They had eggs together in the diner, and then she got in the Cadillac with him. Somehow they managed to talk around eggs for most of the morning. For Jim it was both a great joy and something of a coincidence.

 

*****

 

You see because what Jim realised earlier that morning, prompted by the clarity that solo travel affords, the many mornings spent eating in diners, and the immediate smell of frying, was just how deep his love of eggs went.

 

Far beyond merely enjoying breakfast.

 

As he finally and fully comprehended, it was the precise act of breaking an egg yolk that really did it for him. It was the icing on the cake; the most supremely satisfying part of any breakfast (and, in many cases, his entire day); something he'd always done since he was a small child, since before he could remember.

 

He struggled to recall the first time - the elated freedom he must have felt when he first caused a yolk to pop and slurp its way across his plate. It must have really been something.

 

It was funny really - there were so many memories, countless Sunday mornings, he could hardly recall them all. For some reason, one heartbroken episode in his teens immediately stood out - he stabbed at that one, tears splashing right into the centre. And in early childhood, his parents shouting and screaming at each other, Jim doing his best to ignore them, playing with his eggs (of course).

 

‘What are you doing with your eggs Jim?’

 

‘Popping them mummy!’

 

He had hazy recollections of being told off, other times his parents finding it funny and it bringing them all together somehow.

 

Even through university and into adulthood Jim relished the breaking of egg yolks, every chance he got. Somehow it came to symbolise everything good about life. It triggered deep, raw emotions - a constant strand of gooey yolk seeping through the whites of an otherwise turbulent, hazy life. And that’s what Jim realised that morning.

 

*****

 

Together in the Cadillac, Jim and Lydia either blabbed words at each other or sat in excited silence. Most of the time, neither fully understood the other, and both were quite aware of the fact - but they so enjoyed the talking and the novelty that they just let it flow.

 

At a certain moment, Lydia said:

 

‘You’re really a swell guy – an oddball for sure, but brave. You know, if I were you it would sure spook me out, travelling around here. It would be much too much for me. I’m not sure I could take it.’

 

Jim gave her a wink.

 

‘It’s a beautiful country. And you serve great eggs.’

 

Lydia smiled. They returned to their excited silence – she with a forefinger looping through her longish hair, Jim driving and smiling.

 

‘Still, I really don’t get you Lydia. Why should I feel weird?’

 

She giggled.

 

‘I mean all the old folks, don’t you ever wonder about them, about the war?’

 

‘What war? Iraq?’

 

‘No, I mean the big one - World War 2. They were over there, all the old folks. Even my own grandpa.’

 

‘What about them?’

 

‘Well actually my grandpa hated it. It was way too noisy, too much shooting, he always said. But he was a hero. Everyone said that. He killed a lot of them, which caused him problems, since he was always on parade, with all his medals, you know. He hated it, he never liked to show off, especially on account of things like that. War was the devils work, the worst thing on earth, he always used to say. It was kinda funny since my grandma always used to say he would have been a pacifist if he hadn’t killed so many Germans!’

 

She was slightly out of breath, forcing the words out through her joviality.

 

‘They all killed so many. That’s what I mean. If it was me, I wouldn’t want to be driving around a place like this, eating in diners. Of course the war was nothing personal to you, I don’t mean like that. But still, it would feel odd. It would make me uncomfortable being near such folk. To be honest, it makes me shiver just thinking of it. I’m not sure how I would deal with it myself. I might just curl up into a ball, or burst out crying, or run away, you know. I seriously doubt I’d do nothing and keep on smiling and going on about eggs like you!’

 

She laughed, but all Jim could think about was how on earth he’d let her think he was German. Plus strangely she had struck a particular chord in him, and he found himself involuntarily reminiscing over a trip to Europe he’d taken a few years previously. He’d travelled all over as a student visiting the terrifying places – the trenches in Flanders, concentration camps in Auschwitz, execution spots in Berlin. He recalled the very same spooked feeling she was describing, the feeling that any old person on the street could have been directly responsible for the deaths of his ancestors. It was a very real feeling; the appalling proximity to slaughter; the naked, disgusting, shameful facts of history laid bare, removed of any intellectual dressing, context or commentary; the simple truth that thousands had been murdered painfully in those very spots.

 

Jim struggled against the memory, trying to deal with this strange, animated American girl in his car so excited by the false believe he was German in a country of German killers. She was still talking, in fact, although he had only been listening sporadically.

 

‘…and I do wonder how the other old folks really felt about it all. I’ll bet many of them enjoyed it. Well at least parts of it. It must have been exciting, you know? There were girls, parties, freedom, what with them all away from home and all­ – kind of like you, eh? But my grandpa was always so cut up about it, on account of the killing. And my grandma, she was always on at him, it was kinda funny to hear them sometimes. ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs!’ That’s what my grandma always used to say.

 

She paused a moment, giggling.

 

‘You know what, I’ve always loved that phrase. ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs!’

 

She laughed again.

 

‘Say, that’s funny… omelettes! We’re right back talking about eggs again!’

 

But Jim could take no more.

 

‘Please stop talking. Right now.’

 

*****

 

Another very particular thing about Jim that he didn’t quite fully comprehend until that singular day, was his utter hatred of omelettes.

 

Of course, as he is now quite aware, this omelette loathing stems entirely from that very same passion for breaking egg yolks – the other side of the coin, if you will. You see because for Jim, just as for you or I, an omelette is basically just some eggs cooked up, of course without their yolks intact. Only for Jim it is also much worse than just that, because Jim is so very aware of the yolk as an eggs very essence and core. So an egg with its yolk broken, whipped up and all mixed around, as they are in the best omelettes, for Jim is almost literally the same as a person with eggs for brains - a person without a mind or a soul. For Jim, making an omelette is like taking a beautiful flower, ripping up all the petals, and going over the whole thing several times with a hot iron or some such. It is defacement, vandalism and book burning, all rolled into one and fried in a pan - something akin to rape.  It’s something that he’s simply unable to countenance, and which made him physically uncomfortable under his skin.

 

So, on that particular day, and on top of everything else she was saying, when Lydia started mentioning omelettes in that way, it all was just too much for Jim.

 

*****

 

‘Please stop talking. Right now.’

 

The words came out with a tad more abruptness than he’d intended. She was immediately silenced, looking at him once again unknowingly, vacantly, without familiarity. She said nothing.

 

Jim stopped the car on the side of the road.

 

‘Right, I need to take you home now.’

 

‘What’s wrong?’

 

Jim sighed.

 

‘Why on earth did you think I was German?’

 

‘What? What do you mean?’

 

‘I don’t know how to break this to you, but I’m not German. I’m English.’

 

‘What?!!’

 

And they both sat in silence, as they had done at intervals previously; knowing they had both completely misunderstood the other. In many ways it was just the same as before, as they had both known earlier, only now without the flirtatious excitement and happy acceptance. They were both unable to pass or gloss over the facts - it had become uncomfortable.

 

Jim turned the car around to begin driving back. Eventually Lydia sighed.

 

‘Well I suppose it was just the way you stood there outside, smoking. And the way you talked and ordered your eggs – so damn precise! And just you, somehow. Jesus. I guess I am just a big dummy.’

 

Jim sweat with the ridiculousness of it all.

 

‘No, it’s not all on you; I did lead you on somehow. Jesus, I do probably have some German in me somewhere.’

 

‘But why in the hell did you let me go on thinking that if it wasn’t true?’

 

‘Who knows? I had things on my mind. It kind of just slipped past. I forgot about it. I didn’t figure it would be such a big deal to you. It was all that talk of eggs, I guess.’

 

‘Yeah, what is it with you and eggs?’

 

‘Let’s not go into that right now please.’

 

‘Fine. It’s kind of strange what you said, to be honest, now that I think.’

 

‘Yeah? Well to be honest you weren’t exactly an advertisement for normality talking all the stuff about the war.’

 

And that was that. There seemed little else to discuss, and they declined to talk any more.

 

So Jim took Lydia back to the diner and dropped her off. They said their goodbyes cordially and quickly, if a little strained, without kissing or shaking on it, and Jim drove off into the Midwestern afternoon.

 

All in all, it was one of the oddest episodes of Jim’s USA travels, and the first and last time in his life that he ever let eggs determine the course of any conversation or relationship. Subsequent girlfriends have known him simply as a very particular, but caring and loveable guy who cooks great eggs on a Sunday morning. Only the most astute ever notice or care that he gives extra special attention to slicing his yolks, or that he never eats omelettes.

 

 

 THE END