“Meeting Vonnegut at Waffle House” by Dan Grossman

  The man drinking coffee at the Waffle House on S. Lynhurst is a dead ringer for Kurt Vonnegut. Curly hair. Mustache. I plop down on the stool beside him and order coffee. I figure I may as well say what’s on my mind: “I think we’re in the same karass,” I say. He cuts an eye towards me. “You think they’ll let me smoke in this place?” he asks. I shake my head. “So much in America has changed for the worse,” he says. “Worse, even, than in my novels.” I tell him that I’ve read all of them. Cat’s Cradle being my favorite. He nods. “That’s a good one. But it’s Breakfast of Champions that most closely recalls this situation I find myself in. I’m locked in for eternity into this triangle of death formed by I-465, 1-70, and the Sam Jones Expressway. Forever cut-off from the museum built in my name. As if God were playing a cosmic joke on me.” He reaches for a cigarette again. Again I shake my head. He cups his hands in frustration. “I wasn’t the biggest believer,” he says, but you… it seems like you’re in on the joke. Like you’re writing a sadistic sort of novel.” He points a finger at me. “You made me a character in it, didn’t you?” I shrug. “I never had the energy for a novel,” I say. “I wrote this paragraph instead. Some might call it a prose poem.”