Written in Iowa City, 1993
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The Acropolis Diner was probably the only place in the city limits that didn’t have some kind of colonial theme or facade. Jack took Ramona there for Sunday brunch before the trip home. They got a booth by a window, Ramona flipped through the table-top jukebox while they waited to order.
“Been a long time since I’ve seen this place in the sunlight,” Jack said. “We used to come here at two, three in the morning, when we were drunk.”
“We always went to Denny’s after the bars closed in Garden City,” Ramona said.
“Mmm, Country Scramble.”
“Have you decided?” the waitress asked, pad in hand.
They ordered one omelette apiece and an order of home fries to split between them. She had tea, he had coffee as usual. He was working on his second cup when a man in a sullied kitchen apron approached their table.
“Jack?”
“Nick, holy shit! I didn’t think you’d still be here!”
“Whadda you mean, I’m always here!”
“My God, Nick, sit down,” Jack said, sliding over in the booth so the man could join them. “This is Ramona, my girlfriend. Ramona this is Nick.”
“Oh, she’s so beautiful,” Nick said, taking her hand between both of his. Ramona offered an embarrassed smile. “Is this lunkhead taking good care of you?” he asked her, “are you keeping him in line?”
“When I have to.”
“That’s what I like to hear!” Nick said, then, “You up here visiting your family, Jackie?”
“They moved, Nick, they went to Tucson five years ago.”
“Five years? I can’t believe it.”
“It’s been a long time, Nick.”
“I guess it has.”
Jack took a sip of coffee while the older man sat looking down at the callouses on his hands.
“So Nick,” Jack said, “what do you think of all this Stockade business?”
“Good and bad, just like everything else.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I can do without all the phony bullshit, if you know what I mean, pardon my language. But they gotta do it, they gotta do something to bring the money in or we’re all up shit creek.”
“Why?”
“Why? IBM, Jack, IBM. Don’t you read the papers? They’re pulling out, they’re closing plants up and down the Valley, moving south, there’s hardly anything left. The whole economy, pshyooo, down the tubes.”
“You know, I saw something in the business section about that, I just didn’t put two and two together. Like I said, Nick, it’s been a while since I’ve been up here.”
“Oh, it’s a mess, you should see what’s happening to some of the other towns in the area.”
“We were driving through Saugerties the other night,” Ramona said, “it was pretty scary.”
“Ach, what’s become of that town! You know my aunt lived there all her life in the same house and we just had to move her into an apartment here in town, such a mess.”
The three sat there, shaking their heads.
“So Nick,” Jack said, “how come you don’t change the diner, add some colonial flair?”
“Look around, you see any empty tables?” he said with a big grin. “You don’t mess with success.”
# # #
“You know,” Jack said, fastening his seatbelt, “I don’t think this simulation business is a completely bad thing, I just think they’re going about it in the wrong way. They’re off by about 200 years.”
“Here we go again.”
“No, hear me out on this one.”
“Okay Einstein, shoot,” Ramona said.
“The way I see it, why spend a billion dollars on all this colonial bullshit, why not recreate a time period that people can relate to, a place where people can really be themselves.”
“And what time period would that be?”
“The Seventies!”
“Oh Jesus.”
“I’m serious, think about it, I’m not talking Bee Gees and flared trousers, I’m talking about the very essence of the time period. Not just a four block area either, what about a whole town, or a whole state? We’ve got fifty states, why do they have to drag us all kicking and screaming into the 21st century all at once? We could have several time periods to choose from, think about it.”
“What about Viet Nam, Jack, what about Watergate, you want to bring those things back too?”
“No, just the everyday stuff.”
“But those things were part of the everyday stuff, you can’t have one without the other.”
“Okay, admittedly, the idea could still use some development, but on the whole it’s not so bad, is it?”
“Actually,” Ramona said, “it’s got some merit. Tell you what, you find a place like that in a travel guide, we’ll give it a go.”
“Deal.”
They headed to the gas station across the road for a quick five gallons. The station was set back about thirty feet, it had a small piece of lawn in front with a single maple tree not much older than a sapling. Ramona stared at the tree through her open window while Jack was outside pumping the gas. It seemed to her that its leaves had something of a reddish tint to them.
“Are we in any kind of rush,” she said when he got back into the car, “is there some other road we could take besides the Thruway, something more scenic?”
“Well,” Jack said, reaching into the glove compartment, “let’s just check this little map here.”
They had it spread over the emergency brake so they could both read it.
“What about this one here,” Ramona said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever tried that one all the way down,” Jack said.
They had to backtrack through town a ways, but soon enough they found the road and were on their way.
“I can’t believe I’ve never thought to take this road to the city,” Jack said, then added with some surprise, “Hey, will you look at this!”
The maples, the oaks, the birch, the beech, they’d all banded together in a silent salute to the changing seasons and had begun to exchange their green hues for warmer ones.
“God it’s been so long since I’ve seen anything like this,” Ramona said, “it’s like a fireworks display.”
“Maybe we can come up again some other weekend…if you’re serious about wanting to rake some leaves.” Jack glanced over to catch her smiling. “After all, there’s more to do up here than go to the Stockade,” he said with a wink.
She patted his leg, he switched to steering with his left so he could reach down and take hold of her hand.
Some 90 miles south, countless millions of New Yorkers were rabidly competing for bridge-and-tunnel access to their island home. Jack and Ramona would be among them soon enough, but for now the road was turning to gold before their very eyes, and it was all theirs.
This story was originally written on a beige desktop and printed in dot-matrix. I retyped it recently on my MacBook to share on Substack.
When I wrote it in 1993, IBM hadn’t actually pulled out yet, but had announced their intentions. My fascination with both reenactment and Future Shock at the time inspired me to convert my concern about IBM into speculative fiction.
A few years before I wrote it, I’d read a book called “Simulacra and Simulation” by Jean Baudrillard. Maybe I thought reading French social theorists would make me seem smarter. Not sure it worked.
Anyway, the word Simulacrum caught my attention, a copy being confused with reality. Wouldn’t use it so much in everyday speech, but putting a five-dollar word between two common ones in the title was sorta meant to be funny.
I wish Jack and Ramona were getting along better. Jack is so bothered. I wouldn’t write from this perspective today, but I guess it was a way of adding tension.
Thanks for reading! Something different on the way next Wednesday!
You were prescient (my big word!).
If we were to bring back the 1970s as a theme park, I would vote for Kingston circa '76.
Looking forward to what you have in store for us next week :-)