Missed walk on wild side leads to diner and great BLT
By SANDRA THOMPSON
Published August 7, 2004
Last Saturday evening we went to the movies at Channelside. Because my husband and I were going to different movies, and mine (Before Sunset) started 15 minutes later than his (The Bourne Supremacy), I figured I'd have to sit around in an empty lobby and stare at the wall.
Not so. The place was buzzing with people, mostly guys sitting at long tables and milling around. The dress was weird, as in art-students-have-nothing-on-them weird. Some young women had long cat tails hanging from their butts, for instance.
It was Fantasy Hero Con IV, and I guess the aforementioned women were dressed for the Catwoman Costume Contest. The tables were filled with (mostly) young guys passing cards around or playing board games, but not, like, say, Monopoly. I was clueless, but my husband pointed out one game was an updated version of Risk that involved Atlantis. Don't ask. A girl was directing her own Catwoman on a video screen. Everyone was wearing black.
I spent my 15 minutes window-, or rather table-shopping. Right inside the door I got stuck at a table with a young woman with very black hair and silver studs in her face selling all kinds of nifty things like cosmetics compacts shaped like Dracula-style coffins, and condom bracelets. Yes, I checked. You could take the condoms out of the bracelet and use them. If you needed a larger supply, there were condom belts.
I considered a silver case with historic poison stickers on it but passed, because I had found out all this funky stuff and more is for sale at State of Delirium on N Florida Avenue. I asked what times the store was open and she said either 11 or 1 until about 9 p.m. So Thursday I drove up to take a look.
It's just north of Hillsborough, on the east side of the street, she told me. Nevertheless, I drove right past it. It's in a small cottage right after a gutted house in the midst of used car lots and pawn shops. I doubled back and got it on the second try. It wasn't open. It was only about 11:45, granted, so I guessed she had said 1, not 11.
I figured I'd just pass some time on N Florida, have lunch. I pulled into the parking lot at Nicko's, the diner down near MLK, next to a Fire Rescue car.
They seemed a little surprised to see me there. As my eyes were adjusting from the sunlight outside and scanning the seating possibilities, a woman asked me what I wanted. I said lunch, and now that I had determined the place was almost full, I asked, "Would you like me to sit at the counter?" She said yes, if I didn't mind.
I didn't. I'm a sucker for good diner/coffee shop food you can't get anymore, like, from a place that can still make toast. I ordered a BLT on whole wheat toast and iced tea. "Sweet or non?" a waitress asked.
I said non and looked around and noticed the customers were almost all men. There was one woman sitting in a booth with a couple of men and two women in another booth. The rest of the booths and counter seats were all men. Police officers, construction workers, even guys who clearly work indoors.
The menu told me Nicko's has hot turkey sandwiches with gravy and cranberry sauce and that it had been family-owned since 1980. The cover also had a little drawing of a guy with a white sport jacket and black pants with gyrating legs and the words, "Elvis ate here."
When I paid my bill, I asked the tall guy behind the counter I assumed was the owner (he was) if that was true.
It is, he said. In that booth right there, in 1956. His family didn't own the place then. Elvis had played at Fort Homer Hesterly Armory, and Florida Avenue was the main drag then. Elvis was there until 2 a.m.
He motioned to the second booth to the right of the door. "If you sit in that booth you get all shook up."
The people eating in the booth seemed fairly stable.
I had left my cell phone number and a message on the machine at State of Delirium, but they hadn't called to tell me they were open, so I headed back home. Lose something, gain something else.
It was a great BLT.
Sandra Thompson, a writer living in Tampa, can be reached at tampa@sptimes.com City Life appears on Saturday.
