It is almost closing time at the Turf. But for now, the hallway is ankle deep in spent pull-tabs. Men, in various stages of life and luck, stand, transfixed. As the money dwindles, the click, punch, clatter slows, unwinds, the men turn from their machines, eye the cocktail lounge longingly, settle into booths for hours of nursing the watery coffee that ambers its pot. The old janitor wiggles his broom a little.

Staring at myself in the change and jackpot window, I smoke another menthol. I am fascinated by the violence of disappointment, of gamblers' shaking hands, of my own inhaled toughness. I take a seat. Order a pork chop and potatoes. This place isn't as cheap as it used to be, but I can afford $6.75, plus a buck for coffee.

The curtain of shoppers who march past the window thins, cleft by wind, by the dim downtown light that blears sidewalks. Those eager, showered tourists aim their strides in straight lines. There is no designated point of interest between First and Second on Pike Street.

Most vacationers have no need for the kind of joint that tolerates a certain amount of down-on-your-luckness. Not misbehavior per se, but more an understanding--a stoic sympathy. The food is straightforward--meat and potatoes, greasy-spoon stuff made with the same distant tolerance. The daily specials are variations on the same beige-and-brown theme, with maybe some very grim canned peas on the side. I'm pretty sure nobody ever orders the milkshake for $2.75. I tried once, and the waitress gave me this look like, "Oh, hell--." There is a little note on the menu: Two-dollar minimum per customer. Booth squatters rise, pile a few coins next to empty sugar packets, and nobody bats an eye. As long as you aren't kicking up a fuss or exhibiting some fleshy danglement, nobody gives a rat's ass. The disorderly seem to self-eject.

For instance, these two drunks, a guy and a girl, grab on to each other's sleeves while exiting the lounge, dance across the sidewalk, wobble into the street. A man and a woman should dance, should scream in the streets on a Sunday evening. That's one way to feel under the sky, turning that dusty strip joint lampshade color.

This hallway squeezes like some men I remember. Funnels paychecks. You just find yourself in that embrace. And the guy in the street, two braids down his back, sways only slightly when the girl whacks him one right across the face with a fine-toothed comb. Thin red welts flare on his fruitlike nose, his cheek. A bus blows past.

Exit the cocktail lounge one small old white lady. She shakes everybody's hand and laughs. She has won. Once through the door, her face falls back into its regular, resting lines. Creases obedient to gravity. Lines that point at the ground.

Those two are back at it. Middle of Pike Street. Crying, carrying on in a slurry, a slowed-down, Academy Award-winning performance. Pulls her head to his chest. Both bow into each other, bow into the dirty gusts from air ducts and the Sound and bus after bus. His hands smooth her hair. The comb between his fingers, brushing like prayer, like Hail Marys, like your grandma on the rosary. Strands fan in the teeth, unfold a dark veil across her wet face against the damp air. A white bus interrupts my view.

Finally, the waiter shushes everybody out. Standing outside the chained gate to the diner, I let the swell of cigarette smoke and boozy voices railing over the same three songs wash over me. I choose not to drown myself here in the lounge. Belly full, I drift along, watching the gun-shaped sign of Liberty Loans where a lady in cutoffs sands the beige-gray paint. And then, I hear her, the messed-up lover, screaming at the spot where the tuxedo-vested hawker of the Déjà Vu used to stand.

There's the comb, lying in the middle of the street, laid out like a black mustache.

The Turf Restaurant

107 Pike St, 682-2323. Open 6 am-10 pm every day (Lord knows when the restaurant will close, though). $

Price Scale (per entrée)

$ = $10 and under; $$ = $10-$20; $$$ = $20 and up