Deportation At Breakfast

Larry Fondation's "Deportation at Breakfast" is a short story about a man who comes to a diner, where he finds out that he must cook his own eggs, and ends up owning the joint for at least a day.

The man in "Deportation at Breakfast" is both the narrator and the main character.

The setting is a homey diner called "Clara's", where the protagonist is "lured" into, with the promise of inexpensive food. The place appeals, "family-run and clean," the signs "neat," and the interior are "old-fashioned." But the protagonist also has an appealing disposition. He sits at the counter, "leaving the empty tables for other customers that might come in." He seems like a nice guy, just any guy looking for a clean place to eat, in what seems to be a very ordinary day in an ordinary diner, but the extraordinary event of deportation occurs.

The atmosphere is surprisingly relaxed in the diner in spite of the deportation. No one except the protagonist, because he is alone and sits by the counter, seems to draw any attention to the storekeeper Javier when he gets expelled.

"The eggs were spread out on the griddle, the bread plunged inside the toaster, when the authorities came in. They grabbed Javier quickly and without a word, forcing his hands behind his back. He, too, said nothing. He did not resist, and they shoved him out the door and into their waiting car."

So, Javier gets taken and in the next sentence the eggs are bubbling. We have a normal scene interrupted by something extraordinary, an action that needs a response. At this point the protagonist seems to care more about his meal than about Javier. The causality could be reasoned by a lot of illegal migrants in the USA.

"On the grill, my eggs bubbles. I looked around for another employee-maybe one out back somewhere, or in the washroom. I leaned over the counter and called for someone. No one answered." Javier starts the eggs, gets taken, and thus leaves the eggs. Something has to happen here.

"I could smell my eggs starting to burn. I wasn't quite sure what to do about it. I thought about Javier and stared [no gazing here] at my eggs. After some hesitation, I got up from my red swivel stool and went behind the counter. I grabbed a spare apron, then picked up the spatula and turned my eggs."

Here the character jumps right into things and everything from here on falls into place. He returns to the counter to ring people up then goes back to finish preparing his own meal. Another party interrupts the meal.

Fondation writes "I thought of telling them I didn't work there... ...I got busy at the grill." The story ends with a sense of "taking over." The main character will post an ad for help, and he reveals some hesitation about being in the restaurant business. But regardless of the total turnabout, the change that happens in the story, the eggs on the grill remain the causal agent. Thereby the eggs might be an allegory of the main characters mind. After