We were sitting in the back table of our favorite all-night diner. Dewey’s. Eating breakfast. The works. Eggs, sausage, hash browns, pancakes. And coffee. Lots and lots of black coffee. Strong coffee. The kind that only Dewey could make. Strong enough to leach U-235 out of uranium ore. Strong enough to melt titanium.
Dewey’s is a 1950s replica of an aluminum-skinned diner shaped like an oversized Airflow trailer. It sets on the edge of a vast empty asphalt parking lot once filled with the cars of workers who ran three shifts of an auto plant down on the Little Brown. The plant was closed for now. But people still came to eat at Dewey’s. The place has six booths plus a long, high-sided counter that runs three quarters of the length of the place. Tall swivel stools line the counter, and mor
