…Philadelphia is a place I allus wanted to see but some dirty bastard busted the Liberty Bell and they traded Mickey Cochrane to Detroit…
Monroe D. Underwood
The Stranger City Diner may have been the very first railroad passenger car.
It was good to see the poor thing at rest.
It stood at the north end of town surrounded by neatly trimmed Japanese yews.
Its interior gleamed hospitably and an elderly man with a magnificent bristling white moustache was quick to pour a steaming cup of coffee from a battered pot half the size of a rain barrel.
Either the country air had meddled with my taste buds or it was the finest cup of coffee in history.
I nodded hello.
I said I’m Chance Purdue and I just got into town.
The guy with the moustache said well I’m Cemetery Carson and I just got arrested.
He said bond was a fifth of Foggy Mountain.
I said what was the charge?
Cemetery Carson said suspicion of cheating at cards.
I whistled.
I said do you?
Cemetery said well sure but I never play nothing but solitaire.
He said hell that’s a two-way street.
He said I been cheated aplenty times playing solitaire.
I ordered a hot beef sandwich.
I said with the nearest railroad over forty miles from here how did they get this car to Stranger City?
Cemetery grinned a toothless grin.
He said wasn’t much to it.
He said the big wind of ’sixteen blowed her in.
I washed that down with a swallow of coffee.
I said you had a wind that blew a goddam railroad car forty miles?
Cemetery said may of been lots farther than that.
He said nobody could read the printing on her.
I said obliterated?
Cemetery said huh?
I said why couldn’t they read the printing?
Cemetery said it was in some foreign language.
I said strong wind.
Cemetery said ooo-eee.
He said wasn’t a haystack left in seven counties.
I said why do they call you Cemetery?
Cemetery looked surprised.
He said because I own the Stranger City cemetery.
I winked at him.
I said a cemetery owner shouldn’t be working in a diner.
I said he should be busy burying people.
Cemetery said shoot ain’t nobody been buried in these parts since The Stranger blasted them twelve bastards.
He filled my coffee cup.
I said you must have a crematory.
Cemetery said sure but you drunk the first cup black.
I said well at least you buried The Stranger and the bad guys.
Cemetery said no I didn’t.
He said immediately after it happened Horatio Brayfuss dug a hole for ’em over by the ball park.
He said few years later we put the baseball clubhouse right on top of ’em.
I shrugged.
I said it would seem The Stranger deserved better than that.
Cemetery said oh The Stranger ain’t with that riffraff.
He said Brayfuss put him way up on Darby’s Jump Off.
He said it’s real nice up thataway.
He said The Stranger got a big monument and everything.
I said what’s Darby’s Jump Off?
Cemetery said it’s a cliff a couple hunnert foot above the river.
He said long way down.
He said ooo-eee.
I said I suppose somebody named Darby jumped off.
Cemetery said nope Darby never jumped off but he was always threatening to.
He said drove everybody crazy.
He said it got so bad the city council give him a choice.
He said jump off or get throwed off.
He said actually Darby choked to death on a New York cherry ice cream cone.
He said in Philadelphia.
I didn’t say anything.
Cemetery slid my hot beef sandwich down the counter.
He said you want a slice of raw onion?
I shrugged.
Cemetery dropped an onion cartwheel into my plate.
It splashed gravy on my shirt.