HADLEY'S CAFE

In the very small town of Brewer, Maine, the chances of anything exciting happening during the long, cold winter is very slim. Folks around here bunker in during winter. They stay to themselves and family. Other than to attend the occasional church and school function, they don't go out much. That's what makes this so remarkable. About a month ago, a series of events changed my life and the life of my life long, best friend, Hadley.The phone rang at about ten past midnight. It was not completely unexpected. It had been snowing and I had the contract to plow the IGA parking lot. I did think it a bit strange that they would be calling this early, or late, depending on your point of view. But it wasn't them, it was the Penobscot County Sheriff's office. The deputy asked me my name and if I was acquainted with a Joseph A. Hadley, of Brewer. "Yes", I said, "what's this all about"? Could I come to the Emergency Room at Eastern Maine? She would explain there. He was my friend, of course I would be there for him. The things that went through my head on the way from my home to the hospital ranged from suicide to homicide. From someone finally taking all of the shit they could from Hadley and beating it out of him. Or, maybe he needed my special services, again.
Hadley's Cafe is the kind of place that exists because it has to. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The food's not good and it would be an insult to the word to claim any ambiance. The Cafe has been on this spot for 75 years. Ever since the Mill was opened. Now, that's not exactly accurate, and I want to be as truthful as possible in re-telling this story. The building housing the Cafe was moved once to make way for a new rail line to the Mill. It would have been cut in two, so they moved the building ten yards to the left. That was in "48. So, anyway, as far as anyone is concerned, the Cafe has been a fixture of this town, forever. It wasn't always called 'Hadley's' though. For 60 years this place was known as the JET Diner. Hadley changed the name when he bought the place. The whole of South Brewer was up in arms when he did that. Cries of "tradition" and "history" were thrown about the City Council meetings. A petition was circulated by the good members of the Committee for Historic Preservation to force Hadley to change the name back to the JET. When that didn't work, the City started to apply pressure by issuing codes warnings and threatening to rescind his permits. Hadley responded to these concerned citizens by closing the diner. He decided that it wasn't worth the hassle to keep fighting, so he just went in one morning and cleaned out the perishable food, shut off the gas and electric and locked the place up. It stayed closed for about two weeks before the Mill owners came to Hadley, asking him to reopen. It seemed that not only was the diner an historical place, but, (and evidently of higher importance) it was also the only place close enough for the mill workers to get lunch in the short time they had. In our town, the Mill always got what it wanted, so the City stopped pressuring Hadley and he reopened the Cafe. Feelings had been hurt on both sides and the resentments never went completely away. But Hadley didn't care. He didn't seem to care about anything except money.
Hadley was cheap. Not the "I don't tip" kind of cheap, but the penny pinching, hoard every dime, cheap. This was reflected in the way he ran the Cafe. Hadley charged for everything. If you had coffee he charged extra for sugar and cream. Crackers with your soup would cost you more. If you wanted your BLT toasted, extra. Don't even think about free seconds of anything. Full price, always.
Hadley measured out portions as if he was measuring chemicals, and to be off, even a bit, would cause an explosion. Not that his portions were small. Hadley was cheap, but he wasn't stingy. If you ate at the Cafe you went away satisfied, if not comforted. Comfort was in short supply at Hadley's Cafe. You see, not only was he cheap, Hadley was also not a nice man. He never, ever, smiled. He was rude and somewhat vulgar to his customers. The up side, though, was that he almost never spoke first. Most of the time all he would do to answer customers questions was grunt or utter one or two words. That is, if he chose to answer at all. If someone, especially a tourist off the bus, asked a question that Hadley deemed too stupid to answer, like "is the fish fresh" or "can I get change?" Hadley would let go with a string of curses and slams that would make a sailor blush. So most of the time the regulars didn't bothered to talk to him. They would point to the chalk board at what they wanted to eat and help themselves to a coffee or a soft drink out of the cooler in the corner. That suited Hadley just fine. The less human contact he had to suffer the better.
Now, why I even bring any of this up is... Well, it was last month, as I said, on a Tuesday. It was cold. I mean one of those colds that causes your forehead to freeze up. And damp. I was at Hadley's with Flynn, my friend from the Mill. Up until then it was just a typical day. we had snuck out a little early to get to the cafe before the rush. We needn't have hurried, though. Rush hour at Hadley's was really just rush 'ten minutes' because nobody who could avoid it went in there any more. And those that did, the Mill workers, wanted their food to go and got out of there as soon as possible. Hadley charged extra for the plastic cartons and forks, but it was worth the price to avoid him. Even on this cold, damp day in February, people would rather get their food and eat in their cars than sit in the warm cafe and endure Hadley. Flynn and I ate in for two reasons. First my car heater didn't work that well, and second, we knew Hadley from before. We all grew up on the same street. Flynn, Nichols, Reed, Mitchell, and Beck, God rest his soul, and Hadley, were all about the same age, and we went to the same schools. We played sports together, went to church together, we went exploring in Adams field and misbehaved at Puck's Muck together, we shared our lives as intimately as brothers. So, Flynn and I knew that the Hadley of today was not the Hadley we grew up with.
Something terrible had happened to him from the time we graduated High School and when he came back to Brewer from the service. The Globe and Anchor tattoo on Hadley's arm told some of the story. But without specific details all we could do was guess about what had happened. Hadley was one of the few people from our town who joined the service out of High School. Most of us went to work in the Mill or in our family's business. At that time, joining the military was an honorable thing to do. It was something to boast about. Servicemen were given respect. A man in uniform couldn't buy a drink in a bar because everyone there would buy for him. Girls still swooned over medals and stripes. Businesses would give discounts. Mothers would display stars in the windows of their houses and fathers had pictures of their military sons in their shops. That was 1966. Over the next few years all of that was to change. It changed while Hadley was with the Marines in Viet Nam. Now, I say Hadley was 'with' the Marines because he was not "in" the Marines, per se. Hadley joined the Navy, just as his father and grandfather had done before him. His was a Navy family. He went to Basic Training and advanced his education by attending the Hospital Corps School where he learned how to be Corpsman.
After training he was assigned to duty at the Navy hospital at Newport, Rhode Island. That's were we met up for the first time since High School. Hadley had been stationed at the hospital for almost two years, ever since Corps School. He had settled in to what had to have been the best duty station on the East Coast. Newport in the mid sixties was THE happening place for young people, especially young sailors. The clubs, beaches, and the half dozen all girls colleges in the area made Newport a party town. The Folk, Jazz, and Rock festivals were icing on an already tasty cake. I arrived in June of '67. I had completed Corps school three months after Hadley and was very excited to be stationed in the same town. I was already assigned to the Fleet Marine Force and was part of the Marine Security Detachment at the Naval War College. Hadley took me under his wing and showed me all of the ways I could get in trouble in Newport. It was Hadley who told me that "if you never woke up in the brig, with stitches you don't know how you got, you didn't have a good time". And, unfortunately, he was right. I didn't expect to live long enough to worry about a Good Conduct Medal anyway. All of the Corpsmen of that time eventually went to Vietnam and the odds of coming home in one piece were not in our favor. Six weeks after I arrived in Newport, he left. Hadley was reassigned to the Fleet Marine Force, Viet Nam where he joined a Marine platoon in a combat position. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one of our group who knows these details. I was one of the few from home who received letters from Hadley in the early days of his tour. After he was there for about six weeks he stopped writing and I lost track of him for about five years. His mother took down the star after a while. His dad changed jobs and never put the picture of Hadley in his Navy dress blues up again. Life went on and everybody just sort of forgot about him.
Then one day, out of the blue, Hadley showed up back in Brewer at a High School football game. We hadn't seen each other since Newport, six years earlier. This particular October Friday night was Homecoming. I was hanging out with Flynn and Mitchell. I didn't recognize him at first. He had lost about fifty pounds. His hair was long and shaggy and his clothes were out of place; combat boots, jeans, and a military style field jacket. He just didn't look as if he belonged there. It wasn't until I heard his voice that I could place him. I went up to him to say hello and it was then that I knew something was terribly wrong. This man was Hadley, but not the Hadley I remembered. The most striking thing was the absence of life in his eyes. Black holes where bright blue eyes had been. His skin was sallow. He looked dead. When I said hello, he nodded and walked away. That was it, not even a "how've ya been" or "get lost", nothing, he just walked away. When I told Flynn and Mitchell what had happened they just said,"fuck him, if he can't take a joke". The following Monday the JET Diner was Hadley's Cafe, owned and operated by my best childhood friend who I didn't know at all.
Back to last Tuesday. I was sitting with Flynn eating chili burgers and fries when it happened. The Bus from Portland stopped across the street and this guy got off. Guys getting off the bus was not that unusual, but this particular one, he was different. We watched as he hesitated a little, looked both ways, then crossed the road and walked into the Cafe. Flynn and I knew immediately that this was going to be good. We knew that we was going to see the closest thing to theater in Brewer. Hadley was going to blow his top. The anticipation of the show was so intense that I couldn't even eat. Hadley had his back to the counter, as usual. Flynn and I almost died waiting for him to turn around. We knew that Hadley had a very low tolerance for different people, and this guy was different. Maybe not different in Boston or even Portland, but in Brewer he was different. You see, the man was black, African-American, Negro, colored, whatever the politically correct term is these days. There were no black families living in Brewer. Never had been. There was that family in Orrington who had the great produce stand each summer, but that's another story.
The tension in the cafe was so thick it almost cut through the smell of the fries, almost. It all but exploded when the young black man walked up to the counter, took a seat on one of the stools, and spoke. "What can I get to eat for a dollar and seven cents?" Flynn and I almost fell out of our chairs. Here was this guy, a black guy, a stranger in our town, asking probably the cheapest, rudest man in Maine, the one person who we knew was last person to care about this man's problems, and he was asking Hadley what he could eat for a dollar seven. Flynn hit me in the shoulder and nodded toward the door as if to show me the emergency route, anticipating an eruption of anger and maybe even violence. Hadley turned and faced the young man, stared directly into this man's eyes, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and said in a calm, almost friendly voice, "you can have anything you want off the board". "You want some coffee?" Hadley poured the man a cup of coffee and brought him the sugar and creamer. Something he never does, not even for Miss Fickett, with the artificial leg.
Hadley talked to this guy. He actually engaged in polite conversation. Now, as I said before, I've known Hadley for all of my life and he has never, ever, had a racist bone in his body. So, that he was polite to this black man was not unexpected. That he was being polite to anyone, was. I didn't hear all of what was being said, only bits and pieces. A word here and there. "jar head", "2/1", "Iraq", "Nam", "1st Med", "Boston", "Calais". The man ate his food with gusto, like it had been a long time since his last meal. Hadley compounded our confusion when he asked the guy if he needed seconds. Flynn choked on that one. When he was finished with his meal, the guy got up and shook Hadley's hand. And then, to take us over the edge, Hadley refused to take the guy's money. He flatly refused to accept the dollar and seven cents. As confidently as he came in, the young man walked out of the Cafe. I saw Hadley watching through the window as the guy got back on the Bus. As it drove away, I heard that mean, rude, and sometimes crude man say, in almost a whisper, "Semper Fi, brother". That's when it all became clear to me.
The parking lot at the ER was all but empty. Only a few cars covered with the new snow and two Sheriff's department patrol cars at the entrance with their blue emergency lights still flashing. The combination of the orange light coming from inside the hospital and the blue strobes of the police cars reminded me of the light shows I saw at the Cheetah Club in Chicago while on Liberty from Great Lakes. Only much colder. It didn't take my mind off wondering why I had been summoned here. As I entered the lobby, I was immediately struck with the staff and how they moved in a rhythm, like dancers in a ballet. Nobody bothered to ask me why I was there. They apparently were anticipating my arrival. The lady behind the counter looked up and, without speaking, gestured for my to go down the hall to the left. The corridor was cluttered with spare stretchers, electrical equipment, and linen baskets on wheels. The bright florescent lights made everything parked in the hall look stark and cold. Two Sheriff's deputies were standing outside of the last room on the right. The door was closed. Before I could get to the room, one of the deputies, I guessed the one who called me, because the other was a man, approached me and asked, "Are you Bobby James?" I nodded. She went on "Mr Hadley has had an 'episode' of some sort". "He asked for you, specifically". "Can you tell us why?" It took me a moment to gather my thoughts, but when I did I told the deputy that I had a pretty good idea. "What kind of 'episode' are we talking about?"
Hadley's Cafe was closed for about three weeks after that. The sign on the door read "Closed due to family illness". No one knew any details, except me. It was the black guy, you see. That was the trigger. There wasn't a thing anyone could have done to predict it, or prevent it. Sometimes shit just happens. Hadley had been found crouched in the ditch along the Bar Harbor road, armed to the teeth with knives and guns. The sheriff's patrol almost shot him when they saw the weapons. It must have been very scary for them. When he starting raving about "VC" and "ambush", they understood, thank God. They had to mace him to get him under control. That's when he asked for my help. Even though he was experiencing vivid hallucinations and was totally consumed with fear, he knew that he needed help. And, he knew I would be that help. This was not the first time Hadley had needed this type of help. It had happened before. He was experiencing another of what they explained to me as a "flashback" to his Viet Nam days. The first time happened about two years after he had returned to the World from Viet Nam. Not as severe as this one, but just as dangerous. That time all he needed was to have his meds tweaked and his counseling sessions increased to twice a week. This time, however, I knew that Hadley was going to need a refresher period back at the PTSD Center at the Togas VA. I asked the Sheriff if they would drop the charges and permit me to take Hadley with me. "Did I want an escort?", "Was he safe?", they asked before calling their superiors to get the necessary approvals. The hospital people agreed to discharge him to my care. They knew me, after all. I'm "the veteran's guy". The guy they call when someone needs Viet Nam related help. When someone steps out of reality and regresses to that scary and dangerous place.
I know that at any time, for no apparent reason, any one of us could go off to that place and need someone who has been there to recognize the symptoms and intervene. I went to Viet Nam the year after Hadley. I had been a Marine Corpsman just like him. And I knew that what was happening to Hadley on that cold Wednesday morning in Maine might happen to me next week or next year. I was there for Hadley on that night so he can be there for me when I need him. You know what they say, "once a Marine, always a Marine"? It goes for Corpsmen, too. We live it, still, every day. Semper Fi, Brothers.