Eggs at 3 AM: Anne's / Jack's / Maggie's

Lyrics

Three in the morning.
The city holds its breath.
But under the buzz of a fluorescent sun... someone's always awake.

Anne Clark, over on Northside Drive.
Said she'd fed presidents and paupers.
Kept a small pistol in her apron, just in case the paupers got ideas.
We sat on cracked vinyl stools.
Stared into the black coffee... watched it stare back.
The Formica tabletops... a map of a thousand other nights.
Scratched and stained. Holy in their way.

It was always eggs at three AM.
Scrambled hard. Bacon on the side.
Under the hum of the ballast, you could hear the city's heart.
At Anne's... at Jack's... at some Maggie's that never even existed, but should have.
Just eggs... at three AM.

Over on Ponce, it was Jack's.
Pizza grease and desperation.
The last stop after the last call.
The nurses came in from their shifts, ghosts in white shoes.
The cabbies, swapping stories of the fares who never tipped.
We were all just trying to get to sunrise.
One cup of burnt coffee at a time.
The waitress, she knew our orders.
Knew our sorrows, too. Never said a word.

Always came back to eggs at three AM.
Scrambled hard. Bacon on the side.
Under the hum of the ballast, you could hear the city's heart.
At Anne's... at Jack's... at some Maggie's that never even existed, but should have.
Just eggs... at three AM.

They weren't restaurants.
They were loading docks for the soul.
Places you went when you had nowhere else to be.
A truce with the darkness, served on a heavy ceramic plate.
The only real sin... was leaving your mug empty.

Now the lights are out on Northside.
Ponce is just another road.
And the sun comes up on its own time.
But I can still taste the coffee.
Still hear the clatter of the plates.
Eggs... at three AM.