At the Diner in Heaven

stories by

Tracey Levine

~120 pages, $16.95 (+ shipping)

Projected Release Date: September/October 2025

An Advance Sale Discount price of $10 (+ shipping) is available HERE prior to press time. This price is not available anywhere else or by check. The check price is $15/book (which includes shipping & sales tax) and should be sent to: Main Street Rag, 12180 Skyview Drive, Edinboro, PA 16412. 

PLEASE NOTE: Ordering in advance of the release date entitles the buyer to a discount. It does not mean the book will ship before the date posted above and the price only applies to copies ordered through the Main Street Rag Online Bookstore.

Tracey Levine grew up in northeast Philadelphia and teaches creative writing and film courses at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA where she coordinates the creative writing program for undergraduates. Her creative writing work has appeared in many journals such as Crack the Spine, Streetlight Voices, the anthology Broken Skyline, she has a chapbook with The Head and The Hand Press and was included in Best Stories of Philadelphia from Toho publishing in 2021. She is the creator and former co-host of the Philadelphia reading series The Hatchery. She is also a dedicated yogi and yoga instructor who plays competitive darts.

At the Diner in Heaven

My Dad prefers Chinese food. We’re at his latest favorite restaurant. We’ve eaten here before. It’s orange and overly decorated with paper creations. Some are two and some are three- dimensional. We sit at a booth by a window overlooking the street and after a mere thirty seconds, my Dad tags a waiter with a pointed finger and waves him over likes he’s in trouble. He tells him that he wants a Coke then looks at me. I tell the waiter I want the same. My Dad has grown to like abusing waiters. He proceeds to tell me what he did during the day, about the laundry, the dishes, a morning movie he watched, even about how he broke in his new moccasins. I haven’t gotten a word in since the car. I drive. He doesn’t. Hasn’t since the DUI.

I sink my chin into my hands, fixating on him as he talks. He likes to talk and likes that I listen. I’m really not listening that closely, but thinking of what I have to do after I leave him, of what I have to do with my life. I think of how thin my Dad is, as I get back into the present moment. I see his broken teeth that have become somewhat cute to me. His wild wisp of white hair in front is like that of a witch in a horror film he’s shown me. I want to tell him that I’m not like him. I always want to do this when he talks about his day like it matters. He continues, and I continue to go in and out of listening.

I want to order the orange chicken, but some other smell is driving me crazy, when his cell phone rings. He gets excited when it rings, keeps it on the loudest volume and pretends he can’t find it in his pants so that the James Bond theme can last a little longer. He finally answers it and says “Greetings,” instead of hello. I crunch down on some mildly greasy Chinese noodles, hearing him say a few ‘yeah’s’ and a ‘sure.’ Then he hangs up and tells me that his friend, John, who lives across the street above the Laundromat, is going to join us. He points out the window at the Laundromat and I see that there is certainly an apartment above it. He likes me to see him with his friends so that I don’t worry.

Then John walks in like he was hiding somewhere just outside. I’ve never met him before, although I’ve heard my Dad talk about him. He’s a massive balloon losing its shape and he takes ginger steps as he moves inside the restaurant and over to our table. He’s all nerves when he sits down. His head twitches, but I know that it’s not because he’s used that day. All of my Dad’s AA friends and even my Dad have ticks; some are physical and others verbal. My Dad sometimes will stop dead in the middle of a sentence stuck on the sound, ‘Ummmmmm,’ for many seconds like he’s being reprogrammed. He’ll then finish the sentence like it never happened.

John reaches over and shakes my hand, then bows his head repeatedly like he’s some sort of clergy. I look at my Dad while he’s doing this, while he still has my hand. My Dad is looking at John with a proud smirk on his face, the ‘I like everyone here,’ expression. John flags down the waiter just like my Dad did and when he trudges over to the table, unabashedly showing annoyance, I look away from the table and out of the window at the darkened street. In the brightness of the Laundromat I see a wall of washers with glass doors like empty sockets.

We order our food and then my Dad brags about my recent scholarship to graduate school. John replies, “Oh, wow! Great. Can see why you’re so proud, Chuck.”

Only the AA people call my Dad Chuck after his favorite actor; otherwise he’s Alan. I don’t get it, but I’ve decided to let my Dad’s sober life, no matter how strange it may be, just be without my judgment as long as it stays sober.

My Dad and John gossip a little about people in their program. Some guy has started obsessively collecting weird pornography in which people wear homemade masks, kind of like paper-mache’ my Dad says, in the likenesses of anything from jungle animals to cartoon characters. My Dad and Steve share a quiet moment recalling the weird porn in their minds. I ask them to tell me more about it, but my Dad says that it’s not worth it. The porn collector is a sponsor for three others, which concerns my Dad. John agrees with a nod. I finish my coke. I stare at John, sizing him up, and then my Dad abruptly asks me, “Can you believe this guy used to use heroine and then go gambling at the blackjack table every night?”

John, like a confronted child, remorsefully looks long into the orange tablecloth and says, “Seems like a million years ago. “ He shakes his head, and continues, “Like somebody else.”

My Dad responds, “I know. You don’t have to tell me. But now you’re working on a professional career in comedy. You should hear his impersonations, hon.”

John tells me that he’s an accountant and has been an accountant for thirty years. My Dad has always been a supporter, encouraging talent. I’ve often wondered about his scale and what it’s based on. As a girl, he’d always tell me I was talented and I knew it. Now, when I send him something I’ve written, I know he skims it at best when he tells me it’s really great, like I’m a real author. They bring out our food and when the orange chicken is before me I let its aroma into my nostrils. My Dad ‘ooh’s’ at his pepper steak while John digs into his Lo mein. When I take the first bite of my chicken, which is too hot and singes the roof of my mouth, I start to talk as I chew. I tell them that I’ve started packing for school and that I’m excited. They nod, look up at me for seconds, then continue to eat their meals. After I stop speaking, my Dad asks, “So, you watch any old movies lately, hon?”

I tell him no, and he starts to talk about the ones he’s watched recently. He recalls where he was when he first saw the film. Most of the films he watches are about great men, films with tragic, dynamic characters. I look down and try not to look up. John is quiet and listening to him, or maybe he isn’t. I am in my own head again, confronted like many times before with the stuff that stops at my throat and refuses to come out. My Dad shoeless, bruised half-moons under each eye moving forward and back on a concrete stoop, coming down; my Dad’s mouth twitching, irises rolling as he hands me my dead dog wrapped in an afghan at the doorway to my apartment; my Dad telling a counselor he’s been on ‘crack’ when asked by that same counselor to tell me what he’s been using. These things are like bone injuries. My chicken sits heavily in my mouth.

While I’m chewing, my Dad orders John to do his best Don Rickles. John shakes his head, sucks in a noodle then apologizes to me for being rude. My Dad pushes and pushes until John covers his eyes with a flat palm, presumably to wash reality away, then drops it. His face is scrunched like he’s smelled something wretched and then he yells, “You! What you lookin’ at? You gotta face like your parents were first cousins!”

Everyone in the restaurant looks at our table. I giggle. My Dad has always made and encouraged tasteless jokes at restaurants, told me it’s better to be at ‘that’ table than to not be. I don’t entirely agree with him, but John continues with a Robin Williams,’ spouting off something about transvestites, flapping his arms like a canary, whacking my Dad in the nose, who’s almost in tears, laughing. My eyes fill up. The waiters give us more dirty looks and my Dad, while John is still performing, leans over the table and tells me, “I’m real proud of you, hon. Real proud.”

If you’d like to read the rest of this story and more, order your copy of AT THE DINER IN HEAVEN and have it delivered to your door when it is published in Fall 2025.