Creek Running North

When Matthew and I were in the Mojave Desert last month, we stopped at a chain diner one night for supper before finding a campsite. The diner was in the town of Mojave, which is slowly dwindling away after being bypassed by the highway engineers.

There were three other parties being served in the diner, though the place had a capacity of probably 200. The food was unremarkable and the waitress, though pleasant, had a demeanor somewhat resembling a trout that had just been hauled in and clubbed between the eyes. Her reactions, exceedingly slow, were nonetheless terminally anxious on arrival.

The menu included the usual burgers and fries and chicken-fried steak and navy bean soup and pie. But down on the inside right page, a little way up from the bottom of the inside right page, was an item that grabbed my attention and held on.

“Matthew, check down at the bottom of page two.”

Matthew started chuckling. I decided I needed to order this thing. The waitress returned.

“Yes, I think I’m ready, but I have a question about this item here: What part of the cod does a ‘cod loin’ come from?”

Dazed eyes shimmered only slightly. Neither amused crinkle nor world-weary sigh manifested anywere on her visage. “It’s a big filet, breaded and fried.”

I was determined to push my tired joke anyway. “That sounds good. I’ll take that. Um, I didn’t know cods even had loins.”

A slow furrow crossed her brow, and then relaxed, and she laughed, almost. The fish, on arrival, was nowhere near the worst I ate on that trip, and a few hours later we drifted off to sleep serenaded by owls, the ground softened with a few strategically consumed beers.

A week ago, walking along Baxter Creek to my parked truck, I remembered the diner and felt a pang of guilt. My joke wasn’t exactly at the waitress’ expense, but I derived a small, private, uncharitable amusement from her slowness to catch on.  She probably didn’t remember the incident an hour later, I told myself.  I was just one more smartass customer that night, in a night of catering to horny truckers and families with squalling babies. We tipped well, and were otherwise polite.

And the words came unbidden to my lips, and I was nearly to the pickup when I realized I’d been chanting them quietly to myself for a quarter mile. It was a piscine variation on a ritual from my long-discarded religious training, the Agnus Dei portion of the Roman Catholic Mass.

“Loin of Cod, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Loin of Cod, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Loin of Cod, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.”