Portals and Pancakes
Mariana Rodriguez
Stumbling out of the club, your coat a dead body over your shoulder. One bestie asks what the next move is and suddenly a choir of drunk bitches inharmoniously give different opinions. The first one suggests a bar across town conveniently where her booty call resides. Another one with 7 non-binary roommates offers her apartment for a late night hang out. Third bestie is incoherent and just there for the vibes. When no one can agree on the nightcap, there’s one plan that binds the group together: food. But where?
Food trucks are old reliables, but your feet (specifically your victimized pinky toe) are throbbing in your shein shoes. Bestie number three can’t have tacos for the third time in a row. What’s tried and true? What cradles your weary tequila soda soaked bones? We affectionately think of Dennis, but to most of you he’s “Denny’s”. A staple of Americana. The diner where time is merely a construct and you’ll have your egg runny as fuck. Ask anyone you know if they’ve been to a Denny’s past 11pm and you’ll most likely get a DUH response.
We all know a cursed Denny’s: the one that has a trail of abandoned sequins leading you inside from the front door. Heels discarded underneath the tables. Crayons snapped in half at the host stand looking irresistible to the drunk hands of adults. What is it about this place? Like a looney tune, my nose sucking in the visible scent of pancakes from a mile away. Admittedly, the food is mid, and yet, we’re drawn in like a clueless moth to a zapping light bulb.
The servers are nearly always characters out of the comic book of my dreams. Fat arms that jiggle to the sound of jangling bangles. Gorilla Glue hair suspiciously cunt. I’ve heard tales of a woman respectfully nicknamed “Miss Goldie” who has a heart of gold to match her trophy-colored lips and eyeshadow. They don’t call me “Sweetie” and “Baby” at the Olive Garden. It almost seems like the work environment is so lax that it attracts only the freest of cringe people. I think anything goes past a certain time at Denny’s.
I could never work at Denny’s because I would be absolutely invested in the workplace gossip. I would want every single drop of tea the establishment had to offer. It would be better than television. And even better than the people who make money at Denny’s are the people who spend (or don’t spend) money at the restaurant. Those are the real time-travelers. The people who look like they just stepped out of the portal gaping open from the bathroom, AI generated humans with a microphone lodged deep in their throats. They say nothing with any coherent meaning at all — like a shitty translated fortune from a cookie. But still, somehow, it’s deep.
After stocking up alcohol-fueled on empty calories, the body naturally wants to replenish itself with even emptier calories, calories dressed up as fluffy discs smothered in syrup. A low-vibrational plate really plays an important role in restoring your energy. The meal tastes 100% better cold, after waking up at a table surround by friends with imaginary birds and stars circling the tops of their heads. Denny’s allows everyone to be authentically themselves. Something money can’t buy. I don’t care if it’s off putting. It’s lovingly cursed, the only place where time can freeze and grand slams can rest at the bottom of my guts.
Mariana Rodriguez (Mami Issues) is a first generation Cuban-American Non-Binary (derogatory) Baddie born and raised in Miami, Fl. Now living in LA, they get a head rush any time they can add the location sticker to their insta story. Award-winning porn producer and writer by day, poet wannabe by night: there’s nothing this filthy fattie can’t dream of putting into words. They are beyond stoked to have found a literary home with Dream Boy Book Club, their iphone’s notes app is QUAKING.