Fairly Spare Barely Care

I said, “Have you ever seen Billie Holliday in Born Yesterday?  Well, it’s not like that.”  I had been planning the response since I’d come from the Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church, but I had an alternate:  ”You can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.”  Soon, the time to deliver one or the other would arrive.

The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of Our Victorious Dead had convened.  On the agenda were several issues concerning their main charge, their pride and joy, their raison d’etre–a columbarium named, Fairly Spare Barely Care.  It is all that is left of a luxury residence that graced this–the Champs Elysees, The Regent’s Park, The Piazza San Marco of our nowhere town in which Pretense substitutes for World Class.  Instead,  all that remains of this presuptuous abode is a concrete block of compartamentalized burnt-up remains next to a not very scenic slough, but it’s all they have.  Their neighbors are rats, snakes, frogs, snails, some Primordial Ooze and the universe of rodents amongst the dots of Enormous Houses gated and electronically secured against Lord-knows-what surrounded by a 15 mile radius of gentrified pastureland.

Someone has taught Shirley to say, “Y’all, something has got to be done!” in a forty-two beat per minute Largo.  For emphasis, she beats the back of one hand against the palm of the other in time.  Fingers at attention, firm but dainty.  So learned, so done:  she lifts her hands from her Barbie Laptop (Pink) and says, “Y’all, something has got to be done!” just like she’s supposed to.  Who’s says the lower forms cannot be taught?  Shirley hasn’t been to next class yet so she can’t iterate “What” exactly much less “How”, but she contributes as she can.  ”Not all apples ripen at the same time.”  Bless her heart.

Patsy begins with the Presiding Comments.  She takes the microphone and begins to speak.  If she were a man, she would be a golfed retiree.  Skinny hairless legs shoved into a wide and flacid ass spilling up and over into a gut which would obliterate any vestige of a waist line.  She would accentuate her collapsed chest by hunching it over the trustees’ table.   A blotchy face would glow “a little drinkie” under a school-boy cut of blond going gray.  The tardy start of tonight’s meeting allowed for an extended Cocktail Hour.  Unfortunately, Patsy’s tongue tends to swell.  “It’s allergies,” she insists. 

 Tonight, she has decided to ad lib her opening comments: 

“Goo’e'ning’ning’ning” she mumbles and looks around quizzically baffled by the absence of her usually amplified artificially booming and commanding voice.  Jaxie, our little girl scout, 51 years of age, obligingly reaches over and turns on the microphone [click] so that Patsy can begin again, “Goo’eve’ing’ing’ing, ladeeeeees ‘n’ genital-germinal-Geritol…” she waves away the clouds, “Y”ALL!”  Jaxie, behind her pince-nez, surveys the crowd with her brown cow eyes, gloved and spinstered hands in lap, rail-straight  back forward in the chair, daring anyone to giggle because Patsy is having one of her “spells”.  WildWest, Sue’em, and I sit like little dolls at the front of the room because sadly there is nothing unusual in this behavior.  It’s de rigueur.

“I’r REALLY don’t ‘ave mush t’ SAY” Patsy continues, her head bobs a bit but not so noticeably.

Shirley is having trouble getting this kind of copy down for the record so she abandons her space bar and begins smiling and doing little beauty queen mini-waves to all her friends in the herd.  Shirley provides the baseline for “sentient”.  Shirley is at the age when the Beautiful Women see their younger, tighter, perkier competition for the first time.  She must now consider an ill-affordable surgery or stop eating or both.  “My, aren’t you skinny, Shirley?  You must eat like a bird!” remark her friends. 

She, of Swampy State, will always respond, “Au contraire, ma cherie, like a HORSE !” flattered but wondering when those friends will leave her.  They all do.  She is not happy.  The fear hangs from her eyes and darkens her smile.  “Is it trade-in time for me?” her most anxious thoughts prod as she keeps a close eye on her husband roving across the room. 

For now, she gleams and preens for her fans, until she sees Old Hen.  Shirley hates Old Hen.  Shirley particularly hates Old Hen’s Husband.  No one knows why.  Shirley certainly doesn’t.  But that doesn’t stop her from Hating Old Hen.  She feels it is her civic duty to hate Old Hen.  All smiles and Love drain from her 40! face to reveal the Ugly Green Glow of the Wicked Witch of the West.  No one can withstand this scowl of venom and contempt except Old Hen who has one of her own.  The two lock Eyes of Hate in a battle to the death.  And there we will leave those two to decide Which is Uglier.

“Ashyou know,” Patsy continues, “Ashyou know [pause while she gets her bearings],  Ashyou know [she begins a third time] the Sossity ofthe Glurificertifcation and Magnificencessation of Hour Victuous Led DEAD, I sed, DED!” she corrects, “[Aside: th'air's so bad'n here, y'know] Ashyou know” she begins again, “What?” she turns to Jaxie, “What’r you sayn?”

“You’ve said that part.” Jaxie coaches gently.

“What?”

“You’ve already said that.” more firmly.

“I did?”

“Yes.”

“Where was I?” she blinks at the crowd.  “Oh, yes.”  She pulls herself up with new resolve and begins again, “Ashyou all know the Saucity of the Gentrific, Gentrifica, Gentrifishun ‘n’ Mortizashun of Our Virtually Dead is decimated to the memorizashun of our be-luvved ones passed-sed aw-away.”  Her reverent pause becomes a little misty which gives way to her breaking down all together in sobs on the table.  Jaxie comforts her.

“There, there, Patsy.  Don’t you remember that you don’t actually know anyone buried in the columbarium?”

“I know.  But I ‘no’ wha’ it’s like to b’ ded.  It’s cold ‘n’ lonely ‘n’ nobody likes you ‘n’ nobody wants to be your friend ’n’ ‘n’ ‘n’…” she collapses into a torrent of tears and convulsions.

It’s neck-and-neck between Shirley and Old Hen.

WildWest, Sue’em, and I sit quietly, eyes front, with no glimmer of emotion.  If any one of us breaks rank, the three of us will be on floor contorted in abject hilarity.  “Not in front of the sheep.”

Jaxie sensing that the solemnity and decorous tone of tonight’s meeting is surely falling to staves suggests to Patsy that “perhaps I should take over the meeting until you are feeling alittle better.  No one will forget that you are really in charge.  I promise,”  coddling.

The sobbing, convulsing pile of obesity nods the head that rests on its own fat little arms flooding the table and wetting its papers.

“Shall I take the mike?” Jaxie suggests tentatively to the fat little hand clutching the instrument with all its might.

Slowly the grip relaxes and Jaxie prepares to begin rising above the sobbings, the whimperings, and the periodic vacuuming out of the nasal cavities beside her: “Snooorrt!…Snort…Snort.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen” Jaxie begins, she’s very used to the corporate way of opening a meeting, “on behalf of The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of our Victorious Dead, its trustees [acknowleging Sue'em, WildWest, and I at the table], and myself, Jaxie [little curtsey], we welcome you to tonight’s meeting.”  She feels the urge to stand.  “Tonight, we hope that you will come away with some understanding of the many varied and unique opportunities provided us by Fairly Spare Barely Care and, yes [head bow], some obstacles.  The trustees and I are certain that when we all pull together, the result will demonstra…”

“BOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOO!” Patsy’s tearstained, reddened face blows across the room out of rouge smeared lips wet with drool, “I wanted to say, THAAAAAAT!” and she convulses back into her sea of self-pity.

“WILL DEMONSTRATE!” Jaxie projects over the outburst, “to our neighbors that we are not misguidedly and obsessively attached to a rotten bit of concrete.  But, instead, that we honor the our Hallowed Past as a beacon of insight and knowledge of how to face Our Future.  [My head hums, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord...LA-la, LA-la, LA-la...the grapes of wrath are stored...his ter-ri-ble swift sword...His Truth goes marching", and so forth.  Back to Jaxie:]   ”Wasn’t it Judge Judy who said, “Those who are ignorant of their Past are doomed to repeat it”?  Now, in honor of those whose ashes did not get washed away in last week’s flood, let us bow our head in prayer.”

Shirley and Old Hen are locked immovable in their Race to Hell.

“O, Father, The God of Our Fathers and Fathers’ Fathers and Fathers’ Fathers’ Fathers, the God who lives in a far, far distant land far away from us and is hard of hearing and forgetful so we have to remind Him of who we are, we just want you to convey upon us, your lowly servants, the one’s not worthing to touch the hem of your garment, we just want to tell you to keep your eye on these deliberations as we ‘umbly try to serve you and your fallen and departed servants, your children, departed from this earthly plane but with you in Heaven, in Paradise, at your feet, [if you put on your glasses you can probably see us] loving and praying with you and all the angels of Heaven.  O God, we just want you to give us insight and wisdom in preserving the greatness of your kingdom in our own ‘umble way.  O God, we just need you to show us the way to turn this pitiful pile of crumbling concrete into a monument of your glory, like Lot’s Wife, a testament to your power over Death.  And, God, we just want you to strike us blind to the faults and shortcomings that we may have to-wards one another.  We thank, Jesus, your only Son, Our Lord, The Messiah, the ones the Jews Crucified in their hateful ignorance, for the opportunity to come together and love one another.  And, God, we just command you to send the Holy Spirit to our troops abroad who are annhilating two entire cultures, but not Your children, only those who belong to Allah, in order to protect our right to meet here tonight in peace.  In your Son, Jesus’, the one that never got married and wasn’t a doctor’s name, we pray in peace.  AMEN.”

And the sheep say, “AMEN”.

Patsy looks up,  “That was so beautiful.” and she begins to gain composure enough for a sip of water.  Someone flutters about with Kleenex and some make-up.  “I’m fine…I’m fine.” Patsy insists.

And the meeting continues, “As you know,” Jaxie feeling her role as Presider begin to diminish as Patsy sobers up, fortifies her delivery, “Fairly Spare Barely Care suffered a bit of damage from last week’s storm.  Identifying those challenges and strategizing on how we are going to rise above this set-back and meet Tomorrow is why I have called this meeting.  Let’s start with a list of the damages.”  And with an overly grand sweeping gesture, she introduces, “And for that I shall call upon our night watchperson, Pussy.  Pussy, as you know, is currently taking credit classes at the local Vo-Tech in Janitorial Sciences.  She is working on a research which will determine if swishing a toilet clock-wise is more effective than counter-clockwise.  And wants one day to not be lesbian.”

Pussy, off to the side, starts gesticulating something that looks like “little bunny, Fo0-Foo” while mouthing, “Other way ’round!–Other way ’round!”

“What?” Jaxie cocks her ear,  “What?”

“I AM FINE!” Patsy defines petulantly all the while batting at her attendants.

“Other way ’round, “  Pussy prompts.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jaxie feigns a professional laugh, “my mistake.  Whether swishing a toilet COUNTER-clockwise is more effective that CLOCKWISE.” she corrects.   “Anyway, I know she’ll do real good, and so let’s listen to what Pussy has to say.”  and she yields the mike.  The herd applauds.

Pussy stands up rather authoritatively like a second-grader determined to deliver her lines deliberately and correctly at the Annual Christmas Pageant.  She looks very smart in her olive drab, National Parks Department jumpsuit, freshly starched and pressed.  Her ankles together like they taught her in her class on Public Elocution; her pointy uniform hat make her look like a flawed emerald, marquis-cut.  On one breast a starkly white iron-on name patch calls out “PUSSY!” in embroidered red letters.  On the other, “LAST CHANCE VO-TECH!”  She’s washed her hair and polished her boots for the occasion.  An understated string of Woolworth hint at misplaced femininity.

“As you all know,” she begins and then looks up from her page to survey her audience like they taught her in her Public Elocution class.  Her bottle-end glasses make her eyes look as big as saucers and slightly vacant.  She presses on,

“The storm caused the creek to rise and spill over into the floodplain.  It did not wash away the ‘asset’ [she uses the word uncomfortably] but I’ve made a list of the work to be done:

• The entire block has come off its foundation in three places and has pivoted 90 degrees on the remaining anchor.
• Water wash in this unprotected area has dug out a divot about 27″ deep which needs to be backfilled and tamped before laying a new foundation.  It may be necessary to lift and move the monument up and away in order to provide room to do this work.
• The current swishing around this unsecure obstacle has eroded the bottom four levels of “lockers” on the downstream side.  They’re just gone!”

“What about their contents?” someone in the audience bleats.

“Gone!” Pussy insists looking up from her page for emphasis enjoying the shocked effect of her callousness

• “Doors of other ‘lockers’ have been ripped open and the dead people’s ashes carried down the creek.  What remains there have been picked over by the varmits.”

“We say, ‘burial chamber’” corrects Jaxie.

An optically enhanced “Whatever” protrude from Pussy’s eyes, and her list continues:

• “A tree limb fell through and shattered the stone top which led to even more water damage .  It will have to be replaced.  So, I guess the top couple of lockers chummed the fish, huh?   [she lets a smile slip out but corrects.]
• Lots of the decorative applied stone ornaments are missing, cracked, or damaged beyond repair.
• The surrounding pavers are all gone, so are the benches, the arbor, and the walkway.  You might find one or two stones under the muck, but I wouldn’t expect much.
• The Widow’s Weeds Wailing Well is somewhere downstream.  But they’re on sale at Wal-Mart.  Saw it in the paper.
• You’re buying a new parking lot.

That’s about it ‘cept what did survive stayed together.  It was surpisin’.  I mean, you know all those clips on the “locker” [frown from Jaxie] burial chamber doors that hold them fake flowers y’all put on?  There all there!”

“I’m glad you brought that up!” Jaxie jumps into CenterStage snatching the microphone from Pussy.  “I’ve ordered Pussy to remove all the non-white flowers from the columbarium.  Those people who have non-white flowers will be cited and fined until they put white flowers in those clips.  And they have to be plastic so they’ll wash off and not sag when we powerwash.”  She looks down at Shirley still in eye-lock with Old Hen. 

“Take this down!” she commands forcing Shirley to surrender the fight and return to her space bar with an eye-roll Stevie Wonder could see.  Shirley is famous for her eye-rolls.

“But, we’ve never had to have white flowers before.” the herd shuffles. “Baaa” “Baaaa”  “Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

“Right, but the rules of Fairly Spare Barely Care clearly state and I quote, ‘White Plastic Flowers only will be displayed on the columbarium.’”

“But, my husband hates white flowers.  He always hated white flowers.  I’ve never put white flowers on his vault in these 80 years since he’s passed.  He would just DIE!” laments an elderly ewe.  “No one’s ever paid attention to that rule before.”

“I DON’T CARE!”  Jaxie commands, “We’ll have only white flowers.”

“I’m the Presider” Patsy lays her stupor aside and covers Jaxie’s back, “and I say ‘No white flowers!’”

After a frightful grimace,  “No, no, no” Jaxie hurries to her ear to correct, “ONLY white flowers. ONLY white flowers.”

“Im-m-m-mean,” Patsy is confused, she blinks around, “Just white flowers–No other kind of flowers, right?” she turns to Jaxie for affirmation.

“Something has got to be done.” hand-slapping Shirley chimes in.

I have no idea who is in my unit.  I am certain I don’t know any of the remaining deceased, nor those that got washed away either.  I don’t know about this “rule”, but I am so sure that I am going to get ensnared in an a “Whites Only” vs. “Coloreds Only” debate with a Black Man installed in the White House.  My unit has a tradition of Red Plastic Roses, they’re the ones that were there when I took over care of the vault.  They’re a little slack and faded from the Long Western Summers, but they are a tradition despite the ”rule”.

 *********************

“Good intentions paved the Road to Hell”–with Gold.  I was at the Soak-n-Poke having my weekly spa treatment of much too much steam and water and after a good heating up emerged like Swamp Thing to run to the roof to cool off.  It was a gloriously rainy day in a long succession of Springtime Cold Rainy Days, the likes of which send even the citizens of Seattle launching themselves from their rooftops overlooking the Sound and plummetting to their deaths in the streets.  I get very warm in the Steamroom and then race up three flights of stairs to the roof where the freezing rain pitter-patters down my back and after a while drains in trickles between my buttocks and down my legs.  It’s sensual.  Eventually, the heat gives way to the cold rain and overcast skies and a refreshing chill becomes a driving shivver.  I wait until I just cannot stand it.  Convulsing with Cold, I race down three stairs at a time, back into the Steam to start the process again.  This sort of eccentric behavior keeps the leches and trolls at bay; it separates the Men from the Boys; only the curious dare to approach. 

“What are you doing?” Men in a towels will ask as I race by to alight at the top or land at the bottom.

“I’m bathing.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels good and is exhilarating and is more interesting than watching other fat middle-aged men in droopy towels damp with God-knows-what leer and grope.”  I offer which either scares them off or intrigues them and they stay.  Those who stick it out have enormous imagination and adventure but become bored after one or two rounds because they really came to feel up other men not race up and down staircases like wet banshees.

During one of these circuits, I stopped to refill my bottle with refreshingly refrigerated water.  Tacked on the wall was a plastic fish bowl holding a shallow layer of grey cinders with a sign above it:  “Adopt-an-Ashtray!” was scrawled in urgently bright lettering followed by an impatient “NOW!”; an arrow points down.  Another poster located below with a raggedly feathered edge, advises, “Take a number.  Requested donation $3 payable at the desk.” so I took a moment to tear-off one of the hand-cut tabs and proceed to the steam room.  As you can imagine, it didn’t take any time for the slip to become soggy on the tiled bench with lobs of condensate raining down periodically.  Plip, Plop.  My clutching it in hand only made the #1313 run off in veins of sweaty fingerprints.  “Bother.” I say to myself, “I wish I hadn’t done this”, but I liked the idea of supporting Smokers’ Rights and feeling  daringly Susan B. Anthony.  So, I hang my bottle on a towel hook and hoof it up to my locker to collect $3 and, then, return downstairs to the desk with my chit and my money. 

“Fine.  How wonderful of you to support our cause,” The Pepsodent Smile gushed and cooed while I stand there, drip, drip, drip.  It is wearing a tiny little tank top, the smallest shorts you’ve ever seen thin enough to allow the fire-engine red thong to show through, sandals on its feet, and has it all over The Girl from Ipanema, ”Now, would you like to take your welcome packet now or shall we mail it?”

Hands outstretched to show that I am ill-equipped to accept any baggage.  “The reason I’m here now is because I cannot keep the little slip of paper dry.”

“Oh!” the presumably male hostess swooped, arms and hands flying like the Wright Brothers, “Don’t worry about that!  We’re used to it.  It’s a bathhouse after all, isn’t it.  Ha, Ha, Ha.  But most guys want us to mail it.”

“Can I pick it up when I leave?” drip, drip, drip.

“Not a problem.  And if you forget, we’ll mail it to you.  Now, let me look to make sure we have all your contact information.”  And he snaps her pen at the various bullet points on the sign up sheet.  “Yes, this looks flawless.  Glad you wanted to join.  I’ll see you later.”

I turn to resume my bath.  “Thank you!” the twink calls out effusively to my retreating backside.  “You’re PER-fect!”

“Where am I going to find the strength?” I despair to myself and return to my cloister of elusive reality and clouded clarity.

Can you imagine?  It was not a Smokers’ Rights Campaign at all.  It was a fund-raiser and sponsorship drive for something called “Fairly Spare Barely Care–a luxury after-life lofty al fresco lounge”.  The brochure reports it is a sort of come-as-you-are historic landmark vital to the “legacy of the city and dedicated to entrepreneurial spirit of our Founding Fathers conveniently located in the Poshest Part of Town.”  Blah, Blah, Blah, contact  The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of Our Victorious Dead for information about upcoming meetings and events.  “And thank you for your support.” 

Within days of my signing up, Gladys calls, “Uhm, Mr. Watson?” she’s reading from a list and from her voice, styled after Lily Tomlin’s ”Ernestine”, I can tell she is a retired Attendance Office Clerk or School Nurse at the local High, she dyes her own hair a red that it has never been before, she wears green framed half-moon reading glasses attached by a rope of faceted plastic beads.  Her crepey cleavage reaches up to her crepey neck and it all jiggles when she giggles.  She’s widowed.  Her husbands are incarcerated at Fairly Spare Barely Care.  “Mr. Watson?” she commands and before I can answer, “This is Mr. Watson, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I say fatiguedly because I assume it is just another solicitation from the Women’s Auxiliary for the Advancement of Children Born with One Left Arm.  They carry a mean vendetta against right-handed people, and they feel that we ought to pay for their disadvantages in life.  For this reason, you will only ever see me answer the phone with my left hand.

“Mr. Watson, this is Gladys with The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of Our Victorious Dead.”

“Oh, yes.  Right.”

“Mr. Watson, please don’t interrupt [school teacher].  As I was saying, this is Gladys with The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of Our Victorious Dead.  We want to thank you for your commitment to The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of Our Victorious Dead and our flagship project Fairly Spare Barely Care–a luxury after-life lofty al fresco lounge.  We want to invite you to our upcoming meeting to discuss and demonstrate the upcoming events and upcoming improvements we have planned for the upcoming year.  Can we count on your attendance?”

“I thought I was signing up for a Smokers’ Rights Advocacy Group.”

“No, sir.  Didn’t Dusty make it obvious to you?”

“Who’s Dusty?”

“It says here that you signed up at the Soak-n-Poke.”

“Right.”

“Wasn’t it obvious when you saw Dusty?”

“You mean the twink?”

“No, that’s ‘Butch’.  Dusty was the one in the fish bowl by the poster.  He usually hangs out by the water fountain.  He always volunteers for the Soak-n-Poke,” she explains.  Then, she whispers into the mouthpiece, “he was closetted in this life.”  After a momentous silence she continues alta voce, “Now, about our upcoming meeting, can we count on your attendance?”

“Sure.”  Why do I say things like this?

“Good.  We want to thank you for your support of The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of Our Victorious Dead and look forward to seeing you.  I’ll send a reminder of the date to you in the mail so you won’t forget.   Would you like to bring a friend?”

“NO!  I like to keep my friends!” I exclaim to myself, but turn to the mouthpiece and say, “I don’t think so, thank you.”

“Fine, we’ll see you there then.  And thank you again from all of us at The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of Our Victorious Dead.”

When I hang up the phone, I get that sinking feeling that I have probably just committed to a lifetime of selling Amway or Mary Kay or Tupperware.  Maybe I’ve just become Hari Krishna!  Or, a prostitute in a Third World Country!

OK, long story short.  All they wanted was someone to adopt those burial chambers that go neglected because the descendants die off or move away or don’t care:  “That Woman!?  You want me to spend time and money on that hateful Witch of a Mother?!  I’ll deliver a blow-dryer to her in Hell before I’ll set one foot at her grave!”  That kind of apathy.  Someone to take an interest in a 3″x 5″ stone vault.  Replace the plastic flowers with anything you choose.  Participate in the “Decorate for the Dead!” events at holiday time.  And, maybe, do the odd dusting off or contribute to repairs and maintenance. No big deal.  Then:

“You should be a trustee!” the kindly old lady suaves into my ear, caresses my ego, and digs her boney fingers into my bicep.  “You’d be wonderful!  I know it!”   They say she’s an Inquisition survivor, you know.  I’m a trustee for three years.

*********************

Patsy convenes another meeting.  This time, she’s reading her Presiding Comments: 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to now convene the Open Monthly Meeting of The Society for the Glorification and Magnification of Our Victorious Dead.  Since our last meeting, Pussy has been very busy gathering bids on the work to be done, removing debris from Mother Nature’s little tantrum, and snatching the offensively garish mult-colored flowers off of the vault covers and throwing them OUT.  Each of you have received notices of our new fundraising campaign to commemorate our renewed enforcement of a here-to-fore  ignored rule.  But!  THAT’S ALL GONNA CHANGE!  We are here to unveil the new campaign.

“Y’all! Something has got to be done!”  Shirley sing-songs her support. 

And in truth, something has changed.  The small quirky rubix cube that sat contentedly in the glen.  A montage of cherished and cared-for by loving-hands-at-home:  their little trinkets, photoes of baby’s first steps, naive artworks of fingerpaint and cut&paste, prize ribbons won by the great grandchildren stickered and wedged onto the doors of the burial chambers.  These souvenirs and memoriabilia for the deceased to enjoy and revel in the love their descendants want to share are all gone.  In its place is a concrete relic reminiscent of a cratered pillbox on the Allied Normandy Coast ridiculously decorated in all white plastic flowers–a bitulithic Quinzeanera.  The sheep rolled over to the New Regime.  What used to be a gregarious meeting place, a synthetic outpost of the Chelsea Flower Market set in a Grotto has homogenized.  Now, not even Miss Havisham can find suitable repose here–unless you look closely.  Down towards the bottom corner, “There! you see it?” defiant, they burn the Sun.  Red Plastic Roses sent from Sodom stand guard at the door of one tomb stolidly holding back a barrage of perky white wax.  That’s my Box 1313.  Those are My Reds.

Back at the meeting:    “I have right here,” Patsy reads while Jaxie, Shirley, and Pussy begin to distribute, “press releases, mailers, and the posters for our new push for funds and renewed interest in this wonderful city’s historical heritage.  Bursting with Pride, Patsy stands by an easel behind whose drapery is a blow-up of the publicity piece.  She removes the veil.  ”WHITE SUPREMACY!” roars a masthead across what is easily recognizable as the pirated artwork of In the Garden of Good and Evil.  Patsy beams proudly at her accomplishment.  The room gasps.  Oblivious, Patsy resumes her script, “I think this is just what our project needs to tranform it from a Mexican trailer park in Ciudad Juarez to the upscale, posh, sought afterlife destination it deserves to be–a reputation it once enjoyed and will again!”  Sensing a lack of enthusiasm and applause in the gaping mouths and stunned eyes that face her, she rushes her lines in a panic, “As preparation for our ‘White Supremacy!’ campaign, Pussy has been busy issuing citations and-levying-fines-on-those-caring-families-who-do-notcomply-withourrenewed-commitmenttotherules,untilnow,leftforgottonandignored!THEEND.”  Andshesitsdown.

“You’re not supposed to read that part.” Jaxie sh-sh-es her coaching.

“It says right here, ‘The End’”, Patsy defends.

“Isn’t this a volunteer organization?”  WildWest reconsiders his involvement.

“I DON’T CARE!  THIS IS HOW IT’S GOING TO BE!”  Patsy retaliates for looking the fool.

“Haven’t voted on it.   Who’s going to pay for all this?  Who approved the slogan?” Sue’em wants to know.

“IT DOESN’T MATTER!  THIS IS WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO!” Patsy’s face becomes red and enflamed.

“Watchout!  She’s gonna BLOW!  HER HEAD’S GONNA EXPLODE!”  Wildwest gets up to take shelter away from the table.

“It’s  not in the minutes.”  I remind.

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times:  ’I don’t care about the minutes.’” and she turns to allow her harpies to fawn over their puppet and give it support.

Amongst the din of  the outrage and enthusiasm that now fills the room to overflowing, It is Pussy’s turn to drone in her monotone: 

 ”Crane to move the columbarium–$5600; Excavation crews to level and grade–$13,000; Backfill, sand and stabilizers–$1200; Permits, inspections, and certifications–$3400; Stone masons, restoration artists, clean-up crews $8750; …”  She contines on.

The crowd ignores her as she steadfastly as she reads her ledger.  They are too busy shouting each other down.  “Baa”  “Baaa”  “Baaaaa”

Over the passed weeks and months Outcast Red Hussies on Box 1313 have caused a problem.  Other families who “went along” with the new regime have second thoughts, regret that perhaps their compliance was too hasty or perhaps they gave in too quickly.  Maybe, Pussy is not being uniform in her administration of the “Whites Only” directive.  Rancor unchecked grows among the sheep . 

The herd speaks out:  “We liked it the way it was!”   

“Well, I don’t want it like it was!  I want something that I can understand!  Something I can control!”  Patsy snaps at them and feels the need for a diversion, an outlaw, a renegade, a source of all discontentment.  An example will be made of Red Plastic.  Letters will be written, demands will be made, and fines will be levied.  I call Sean “The Sickle” O’Shea, my lawyer.  He offers that “‘the statute of limitations’ has expired for the enforcement of the ‘rule’”.  I offer to meet and discuss, The Sickle offers; but all invitations are rebuffed.  Patsy holds herself above negotiation.  Pussy has to do what Patsy says.  The other trustees are mute.  Still, it has not gone unnoticed that my custodianship of 1313 is–unsatisfactory.  Patsy hatches a retaliation.

******************

Reverend Cashdollar Moneypenny climbs into the Pulpit of the $leepy Hollow Presbyterian Church, no relation to that beheaded cavalier, and he warns,  “Fasten your seat belts for the reading of the Gospel!”  Matthew 23:1-36.  Without that introduction I have never listened to this reading carefully.  It is a shame, too, because it gives me a spriritual balance to the Beatitudes.  The “blessed be’s” read very nicely but leave me flat.  They all sound to be variations of “Blessed be the dumb as shit ’cause they don’t know no better.”  What am I supposed to do with that?  Probably indicative that I am a miserable angry person, I relate better to Christ’s, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hyporites!…”  The Jesus at home in a Dulcolax commercial with cherubs buzzing about His head plucking at harps does not say these sorts of things.  The Sunday School God who just wants us to “love one another”, “play nice”, “just get along” frightens me in front of a backdrop of The Holocaust, The Civil Rights Movement, Our Congress in 2002.  The Jesus who says “You snakes!  You brood of vipers! (Matt. 23:33)”  has been around in my world.  So, as I weigh the pro’s and con’s of standing up for my rights provided by State Law vs. rolling over for Patsy’s Rule, I hear this:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith.  It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.  You blind guides!  You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!…Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you are like white-washed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.  So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness…You snakes!  You brood of vipers! (Matt. 23:23-24, 27-28, & 33)

And so it resolved:  A Civil Disobedience.   “Ghandi Akbar!”

*************************

Back in the meeting, Pussy drones in her monotones her list:

“Tree triming, brush removal, and general landscaping–$2475;  Grading, Leveling, Removal of Debris, and Pouring a New Parking lot–$17,500;  Benches, Pavers, and Security Lighting–$9230; the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and Crime Investigation Units will want to make thorough examination of the broken vaults which may contain contraband, stolen property, or terrorist risks.  They may have some tests and permits required.  Then, there’s insurance, attorneys fees, and misc.–$3278; and that’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

Needless to say, that the anger and hostility of the room re-aimed its focus.  No longer directed at each other, but turned against the disbelief  that Fate has dealt such a blow.  They had been leading “godly, righteous and sober lives” and then this had to happen.  “We are not the people you see on the news shooting each other, taking drugs, pimping our children.  We live in the fashionable parts of town, we go to the fasionable churchs, we drive fashionable cars, and wear fashionable clothes; we work so that we can be fashionable.  Things like this don’t happen to us.  We’re Sheep!  Why did God do this to us?”

“Who’s gonna pay?”  Sue’em, the Hebrew, asks.

Patsy, Pussy, Jaxie, and Shirley look at one another searching each other faces for an answer.  Surely, the “WHITE SUPREMACY!” campaign cannot fail, but what if it doesn’t bring in the money?

Shirley takes charge, she’s had an idea, she’s aglow with anticipation that she’ll now show ‘em that she can think, “Y’all!” she pauses for her enthusiasm to infect the room, “We’ll have a Bake Sale!”  she’s so thrilled.  Sadly, the room was not. 

“Why don’t we assess the occupants?”  Sarcasm demands to know.

Patsy snaps the trap.  Like that automobile that comes out of nowhere to cream your left front fender, this Shrew stands up and screeches.   She’s had a life of set-backs and disappointments.  This is just another in a long line of failures to meet expectations.  She’s mad.  She needs to share her lifetime of pain.  “All I want to know is when certain trustees are going to comply with the ‘Whites Only’ rule.  I don’t know why a certain person refuses to follow the rule, Mr. Watson.  Why can’t you comply?  Why can’t you just COMPLY?  WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO JUST DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD?!   JUST COMPLY!”  Patsy is pleased; however,  such a question is senseless when directed at me.  She might have well asked a Rhinoceros to slither or a snake to do a medley of Maria Callas’ Greatest Hits.  Nevertheless, as I was met with the face of a woman who gorges on anger and rage instead of sleeping, I had to choose.

I said, “Have you ever seen Billie Holliday in Born Yesterday?  Well, it’s not like that.  That is a story a woman whose Strength liberates her from her own Ignorance.  Ever seen, My Fair Lady?”

Hypocrisy

At musical presentations, oratories, recitals, concerts, oral program notes always disappoint me.  Invariably, the artist will stand up and say, “something, something, something, this is my favorite piece,” or, worse, “something, something, something, this is a most important piece.” or “…the most important piece.” or “…a significant piece in the life of the composer.” and then returns silently to the instrument and begins playing.   Any one statement begs the question: “Why?” if not “How?”  But those notes are invariably omitted.  So, it comes to a piece of art I saw at The PowerPlant Contemporary Art Gallery @ Harbourfont Centre in Toronto http://www.thepowerplant.org.  What is also significant is how we came to be there.  Where I shall start this story.

Dale and I are looking in the Montreal newspaper, The Gazette, I believe, for things to do for a few days.  This trip was the first of I hope many unstructured tours.  Usually Dale spends hours/days planning travel arrangements, accommodations, shows, events, attractions and visits with friends; but, this time, he ordered tickets only to those shows that we wanted to be sure to see, for example, Verdi’s MacBeth, performed and produced by the Montreal Opera Company.  The process of filling our days begins with a full English Breakfast at Café Vienne on the corner of Rue St.-Denis and Sherbrooke in Montreal.  The only English newspaper can only be scored within a walking distance across the street only in a tobacco stand where only fezzes are worn and smells of the Grandfather in Peter and the Wolf.   Neither my French nor my English work in here, but the index finger on my right hand does!  So we make our purchase and cross St.-Denis for a bowl of coffee, eggs, ham, and croissants with Nutella.  When we open the arts page in The Gazette, everything is listed.  Do you want to hear jazz in French or in English?  How about a couple of organ recitals?  French or English?  Maybe a play?  French/English?  The variety and scope puts Dallas to shame on a Tuesday in one language, let alone two.  But we’re not in Dallas, are we?  We begin to make lists and organize a schedule of what will be a very hectic few days, indeed, if we are to get everything done—impossible.

My eye falls among other things on Claude Tousignant at the Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal www.macm.org.  The art closest to Tousignant’s in Dallas are the color square equations that line the mezzanine at NorthPark Center.  Born in 1932 in Montreal, his works include the PopArt and OpArt phenomena before he pared down to the essences of color painted with roller and tray on wafer-thin leaves of aluminum (4’ sq. and larger).  How can explain his brilliance and genius other than to tell you that these large swaths of unframed color some stand alone others diptychs still others triptychs can hold my attention and interest for a surprisingly long time.  What would it feel like to sink your eye into a tangerine, a rose, a mint leaf, a cantaloupe, a cabernet?  Tousignant provides all the pleasure with none the pain.

In one gallery, in particular, hanging onto the floor and the wall are six panels of painted metal (eight feet x 12 feet, I guess).  Each one painted one color, the primes and the seconds.  These six blockades of solid, vivid, unadulterated color stand against six individual walls angled to engulf the viewer otherwise bathed in stark white, white from the architectural elements including a large skylight white.  By contrast, the adjacent gallery is Black. Ceiling, walls, and floor carpeted black offer relief from the outer tympani of color and serve to display four pyramids of varying heights but identically square bases.  Forming a four-square plan of identical proportions except for the differences in height, each pyramid is painted a different jewel-tone: emerald, sapphire, ruby, and orange topaz.  Theatrical lighting from above, highly focused and gelled accentuate these paint colors so that the sculptures appear to leave the floor and float on an independent and yet undiscovered extra-terrestial energy plasm.  The installation is not roped off because cultured people know not to touch the art.  The starkness of brilliant color against the dead black contrast burns the form onto your retina.

“Powerful, isn’t it?” Helena breaks the sanctified silence.

“Deceivingly so.”  I agree, “I was going to dismiss it quickly as glowing lexan pyramids, until I realized they were painted opaque forms, and…”How did he do that?”

“Sucks you in.”

“Yeah.”  I concur and we walk around and around enjoying how it feels. Each in our turn, exit to the bright space outside surrounded by comparatively tame Goliaths of Color.  And we begin to talk.

We talk about Tousignant, Houston’s art scene, Jaap Van Sweden at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, tonight’s performance of MacBeth. We end up introducing ourselves and exchanging cards absently. Betty Jane, River, Cincy, Lincoln Center, our plans, and World Peace become subjects of conversation held by the grip of this sun-brighten hexagonal gallery of Color: primary and seconds.  We would catch ourselves looking passed the discussion like one does at cocktail parties and church plotting the next lunge out of boredom except there was no crowd, only huge Sentries of Color to push us back into conversation, asking more questions, discovering more shared points of interest, blotting out the outside world.  We moved on.

“Want to join us for coffee?” Dale asks.

“Love to.” graciously, “Let’s do in when you are in Toronto. I’m at The PowerPlant. Stop in when you arrive.”  We agree before parting company.

“What’s the PowerPlant?”  I ask Dale who is holding her card.

“I don’t know, but she runs the place, says so right here. It’s an art gallery.”

So, upon arriving in Toronto, we get up to a Full English and go to the PowerPlant.  On exhibition is a display of Indian shopkeepers and housewives talking via webcam.  A short film about “Secta” a secret fraternity of individuals whose view of the world is singular.  I’m a member.  A series of photos capturing the construction and collapse of a human pyramid.   A commentary of hunting and Christianity as told by a menagerie of fairy tale animals set in a Drive-In.  A lot of provocative imagery and perspectives make up the featured presentations at the PowerPlant that day.

In the staircase, applied to a rather unimportant painted white wall, the kind of a blank white wall that says “Turn Left!” by virtue of the large gaping open unobstructed walkway leading away in that direction, applied to this wall were twelve by 18 inch sheets of paper silk-screened in an image and some copy.  The copy was immediately recognizable whereas the simplicity of the graphically simple monochromatic iconography took more study.  Again, quick to dismiss, I read the words of Sir Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs”.   Again, quick to dismiss, I scan the folii which are unframed and nakedly pushed onto the wall without any sense of commitment or permanence, but order affirmed as the lyrics of “Silly Love Songs”—Sir Paul McCartney.

So, while Sir Paul sings his little ditty silently in between my ears, I begin to recognize that these simple, almost cartoons, lock the picture plane immovable with the positive/negative space like an M. C. Escher http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/gallery-recogn.htms.   Each image is stands on its own, each image relates to its copy, only the copy to Sir Paul’s rhythm budges the eye from frame to frame.  But, wait a minute.  “The image and its copy are in diametric opposition.”  It’s “Visual Hypocrisy”. 

So, here is why that piece was important to me.  In our culture, hypocrisy is ubiquitous; in fact, I cannot imagine our world without it.  In our culture, music is ubiquitous; again, I cannot imagine a world without it.  If, however, you never saw a musical instrument, an orchestra, nor met a musician.  If you studied the art form through its accompaniment almost everywhere you go: shopping, dining, movies, theatre, church, waiting for a train/bus/plane, iPhone, iTunes, iPod.  Maybe you went to a live performance and didn’t face the performer s.  And, then, you got a visual image of Music and its Manufacture.  That’s how this artist’s work realized Hypocrisy for me.  What a relief, the monster who clangs around my consciousness has a Face:  http://flickr.com/photos/aleks/sets/106763.

Food

Adults. My parentage was deeply flawed and deficient in debilitating and dangerous ways; however, Nature, abhorring a Vacuum, struck a balance by granting them talents and strengths which were compensatingly meteoric to the Good. I rattled around like a pinball flying from one bumper to another just to stay out of the waiting abyss of darkness at the bottom of the decline. Separation was one technique until alcohol gave me the courage to be part of the problem or the apathy to surrender. Sometimes passing out was the best option. The point is that for each scar, each disappointment, each unfortunate lapse of guardian judgment; there is the equally powerful treasury of extraordinarily expanding experiences that offset the damage. Quick to criticize, slow to give credit, it has taken me almost 50 years of stringing life’s opportunities together to capitalize on the mine that was not the “Standard Issue Childhood”; 75205, notwithstanding. And, that the dark abyss is not fatal. Ask Jonah.

Children. My grandmother, Vivian, instilled in her daughter, Vivian, a reverence for food preparation and home-sewn couture. Where the sewing lessons inspired irascibility, the cooking instruction spawned an avocation of disciplined study and practice and enjoyment of the culinary arts including the cultures that they nourished. We children were the beneficiaries. There are conservatively more than 5,000 who will testify that Vivian the Elder and Vivian the Younger each put Jesus’ loaves and fishes trick to shame (John 6.1-14). Regardless of what fiscal calamity fell upon our household, there was always food and it was always good even if it meant that bag lunches had hearts of palm instead of carrot sticks or endive stuffed with olive spread substituted for tuna on white—we ate. Rigid Tupperware (deemed more valuable than one’s own safe return from Grade 1) containers in place of Baggies portended some explaining to my classmates at the luncheon table and barred any chance for a swap. Embarrassment’s lash, then, serves me well, now. Cuisine Gourmet became Cuisine Gourmande which yielded Cuisine Minceur to help us trim down. www.foodtourist.com/ftguide/Cookbook_Review/Cuisine_Minceur_by_Michel_Guérard.htm
The advent of Cuisine Nouvelle starved us on a fare of very large plates.

Hearth&Home. The foodie triad was complete when my adoptive father wed Mother. Saturdays the TV was locked onto PBS for all the cooking shows. All sets were inter-tuned to the same programs, The Galloping Gourmet, Romanogli’s Table, The French Chef each in their turn demanded no voice-over from the under 18 crowd. During the broadcast, something out of a wine-stained cookbook was on the stove or in the oven, M.I.A. glasses of wine were quickly replaced with fresh so that the population explosion of cheap pressed stemware required the conscription of cheap pressed barware to battle Thirst. Ignoredly cigarette ash would fall in the soup, on the floor, in the sauce; and forgotten butts smoldered gingerly on drain board or appliance edges. Their signature scorch would be the only testament of their participation. Everyone talked. The TV’s talked, mother talked, father talked, and Grandmother talked via phone from ½ mile away. Each one giving his/her pronouncements of how to improve and/or simplify the recipe or technique demonstrated so the “help” could do it or so “it wouldn’t take all day”. Grandfather was the sommelier. My brothers and I provided the adolescent appetites and the candid faces of Truth in Palatiability.

“Gross!” was an acceptable if disheartening criticism as long as the portion were fully ingested before an opinion filed. “Gross!” only meant that it may appear again on another attempt, except fried eggplant which got panned too many times, too unanimously, too vociferously to withstand perfecting.

If ever a minor child looked askance at the plat du jour, the results of this selfless discipleship, the reprimands would begin to descend unwaveringly and religiously. “You don’t want to grow up to be a HillBilly, do you?” inflected in such a way that we didn’t have to know a hillbilly in order to know that the answer was patently, “No.”

The Outside World. This same conditioning cut the opposite way, too. As I made my way into the world, away from the Vivians, their kitchenalias, and their censorship of processed foods; my friends and lovers introduced me to Shake ‘n Bake, Hamburger Helper, Mexican Buffet, Pizza Delivery, Mac&Cheese, and Manwich. Church Lady Casserole became my favorite dish at the new-to-me venue of Parish Hall Buffet. “You don’t want to grow up a HillBilly, do you?” the mantra pounded. Mother’s work paid her back the day my brother called in a panic from Nashville, TN: “Mother, there are no olives for my salade nicoisse in this town! What do I substitute?” Mame met Beau.

Summer 2008–“Necessity is the Mother of Invention”. At first blush, Sallisaw OK looked like Deprivation Depot; but, on the contrary, it has been an integral part of the River Journey by demonstrating that solutions lay in open view beyond the horizon yet broadened. Our initial mistake was underestimating how different it was from our familiarities which is, of course, what made it so rewardingly successful. One of the challenges was food. My error was denying the importance of well-prepared food to me. Just because I don’t have to have Mozzarella swimming in brine on hand or Corn-Fed Veal on ice does not mean that I don’t need a good grocery store or decent lunch out. Sallisaw has one grocery store, one Wal-Mart, and every fast food joint you can name. Pad space for Drive-Thru’s is so valuable on the frontage road of IH40 at US Hwy. 59 that Arch FastFry Competitors share a pad and co-market under one roof. Soon, 80 mile round trips to Fort Smith, AR at $5/gallon gas in a 10mile/gal. F150 seemed cheap after exhausting all other local options.

One of the local options was the restaurant named, The Chinese Buffet, but you just had to know that because the sign had blown over and rested face down on the roof (“Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain!”). To eat in Sallisaw, one must overcome one’s aversion to Steamtable—All U Can Eat—Buffet. Even so, Chinese Buffet with the sign blown down seemed dicey. So, we made do by ordering from the menu and were probably served unawares from the kitchen the same food that was on the line. We learned to rely on these Koreans’ penchant for fresh food with taste and texture, and we could pirate the Wi-Fi from the adjacent Microtel. Eventually, I warmed up to the four rows of self-serve steamtable because next to the Jell-O were Sushi, California Roll, specifically, but Sushi. “Curiosity Killed the Cat” so after resigning myself to an excruciating death of salmonella compounded by e-coli, I tried some. “Don’t want to grow up a HillBilly, do you?” I didn’t die; on the contrary, it was satisfying and delicious. Wasabi made up for off-days. I became about Sushi as Frito-Lay would want us to be about potatoe [with my love to Dan Quail] chips, “No one can eat just one”.

Our final meal in OK was a fish fry at Casi’s Barefoot Bar where we feasted on catfish jug caught by Walt from River. Rhoda and her family catered the entire event for the guest list of most of Sebastian County. We celebrated Casi’s 21st and Our Summer of Change.

August 2000—The Fags and Bags Tour. Dale and I had concocted a tour of the Ohio River Valley, The Hudson River Valley, and The St. Lawrence Seaway via rail and canal barge that would have bankrupted the Queen. Instead of cutting back, we recruited passengers, two septuagenarian widow-women who jumped at the chance for two younger men, albeit, Gay (“any port in a storm”) to hand them around for three weeks on tour. Dale served as the courier and purser. I provided cartage and food service. They deferred expenses. As caterer, it was my responsibility to provision the boat & prepare the meals at sea. On shore, I scouted suitable dining venues and made arrangements. On rail, I ordered food to be packed in boxes. Even for a three hour layover in Ottawa, it was my responsibility to find the Mayfair Restaurant where all the cabbies go for Fresh Grilled River Trout Almondine (Fridays, Noon-1P only, please) with sautéed asparagus spears in butter and potatoes gratinee. Or, the Maple Leaf in Gananoaque—another story…

This arrangement worked out well: Dale wanted to know when the train pulled. I wanted to know where we were eating. The ladies wanted to know in which bag was the Scotch. We had all agreed before departing Dallas that an airport was always at hand for opting out. For the entire three week tour, no one dared.

Montreal—August 2000—The Fags and Bags Tour. Montreal is a treasure in August. No Southwestern Sun to burn up the vegetation, we were outside touring the Mosiaculture, www.pbase.com/dumontd/mosaiculture_international_montreal_2003
www.mosaiculture.ca/index_va.html, during the day and crawling Ste. Catherine’s for dinner after dark. Rue de Ste. Catherine is a Boulevard of sex shops, video stores, fruit stands, and cheap food conveniently on the opposite block from our Hotel on deMaisonneuve, O. This strip competes vigorously for the many students in the city by keeping prices low while pushing quality and variety up. More than one night we could be found sandwiched between piercings and tattoos, standing at a counter pressed against the glass eating Greek, Indian, or Oriental foods out of paper cartons, engaging the locals in whatever combination of languages we could patch together. We were the novelty act of the only 40-, 50-, and 70-year olds who would darken the door of these low bistros and engage teens and 20’s in conversation. “You don’t have children, do you?” a youngster would eventually venture. However, for our last day in Montreal, we wanted to celebrate with an adult meal in a real restaurant, Chez Enzio had linens, metal flatware, and crystal stemware.

Chez Enzio located in the 1600 block of deMaisonneuve O. was my first introduction to the one-employee restaurant. Across the street from our hotel, I stepped in just before the dinner hour to make reservations for a table. Below street level, one steps down into an entry hall where in the wintertime flailing off of coats, hats, gloves, and scarves doesn’t disturb the Dining Room whose décor looked like “Grandmother’s House” in Alsace-Lorraine. Over heavily textured walls painted that singularly Germanic Pale Rose were paintings in oil or watercolor of landscapes, interiors, or pets. Interspersed were photographs of loved ones born, dead, and in between. Simple iron chandeliers glowed the apricot of the pleated and ruffled window coverings. Mis-matched chairs like at Granny’s on Sunday Afternoon marched around tables of white linens, crystal stemware, and surgically bright stainless utensils. The kitchen smelled of food as March smells of rain.

Shortly, from this oasis from hunger steps Enzio who is not Quebequois but is French. Short and stocky he was a Gallic fireplug 25 years ago who has traded wrinkles and hair for hospitality and charm and a couple of pounds. Calling from the back of the kitchen: “Bon Jour! Bon Jour! Monsieur! Bienvenue!” He makes his way through the cadre of waiting tables and takes my hand which is inconvenient because it is how I speak French.

“May I make a reservation for four people at 8 PM, svp?” I inquire in that sort of French that resembles English.

“Non,” responds Ennio, “I canz tayquez yu at 7:30 ou 8:30.” without looking at the book.

“D’accord. Nous arrivrons aux 8:30. Merci.” I confirm the 8:30 time, I think.

He responds in full-blown French, a long discussion with hand gestures, dependent and independent clauses, the subjunctive mood for Pete’s sake. Obviously something more involved than “Fine. We’ll see you then.” Seeing my face collapse, he started over in English sort-of. All alcohol needed to be purchased at the liquor store next door and be brought in. Of course, he said you cannot possibly know what you will want to drink until you have ordered your meal. “Of course!” I think to myself glibly.

As it was late-afternoon going on to early-evening, it did not strike me as strange that I didn’t see any activity in place. All over Manhattan at this time of day, restaurants are bereft of any staff save the proprietor, usually perched on a stool sipping a coffee, waiting for the evening’s take to arrive.

Fags & Bags arrive at the appointed hour to find a room comfortably but not overly full of diners. Enzio waved us in from the kitchen, but, soon came, wiping his hands on a towel, to embrace our welcome and show us to the table. As we settled, he returned to the kitchen again. Some of the formerly laid tables have been used and their cloths folded up from the corners to hide the remains instead of being cleared. Honoring the alcohol rule, we installed our bottle of Scotch at the center of the table for lack of a more discreet location.

“Oh!” Ennio said when he arrived looking down at our bottle, “Yu needz glasses. Arez yu American or Engleesh?”

“Texan.” one of the ladies asserted with her new dentally implanted smile.

“OH! yu willz needz ice. I come back.” and away Enzio went leaving menus behind for our entertainment which was good because “I cum back” with glasses, a bucket of ice, and a pitcher of water indicated that this was not a place to go for a quick bite. We were in for the evening which was fine because we had been whirl-winding all day on a Grey Line bus, now we were sitting in a dining room not a chop house, soon we would be ready for our bed for tomorrow we shall pull out.

The parties around the room looked to be engaged in quietly discussing World Peace, the relevance of robin’s egg blue to hemlines above or below the knee, or whatever are we going to do with Auntie Old Maidie. Occasionally, a joke would ring out; but, out of respect for others, one confined one’s party to one’s table. We talked about the excitement of going to Toronto on the first train out, the beauty of Montreal, and return trips. After ample time to consider the generous menu and swill our Scotch, Enzio reappears to buzz the other tables and arrive at ours to take dinner orders.

“What’s the special?” we ask brightly.

“Eeet ees all especialle” Ennio assures us. “Comme appetizaire, I soujhest la soupe.”

“What’s the soup, today?” we ask brightly.

When traveling in France, if the soup is an appetizer, a special, or comes with the entrée, it is always legume. The only time soup is not vegetable is when it is called something other than soup, like vichyssoise, or bouillabaisse. “Soup” implies legume and anything else that fell on the floor and requires boiling before it can be sanitarily served instead of wasted.

“La soupe tudaay, ees like tous les days, legume.” See? What did I tell you?

We went around the table. For those who did not order a specific appetizer, Enzio would look down his Gaul nose through his lenses and mark “soupe” by their place on his pad while his mouth would silently shape the sounds “ssssssooooooouuuuuu” allowing the final “P” to pop percussively, “PUH”.

Entrees were more involved because there were the discussions of what we would call “sides” which got rather involved. We struggled with all the ways and manners of cutting a carrot while Enzio struggled with what would enhance the selected meat. So, we compromised. “I weel bring plats to shaire, a la famille.”

“D’accord.[OK]” “D’accord.” “D’accord.” we all rang out with glee, our pronunciation spanning “Duckerd” to “Duh-Cord to “Darfour”, however, Francophones genuinely feel that Anglophones must not be discouraged no matter what the cost to their language. Smiles it matters not whether out of support or embarrassment from other tables prompted us to venture into “Merci” and “S’il vous plait” before the ordering process was over. The reader’s imagination will give greater justice to what actually came out than I can do limited by mere print.

Then, there was salade to consider. Well, that was a problem. We didn’t consider salade and Enzio didn’t offer salade a la famille. This was not Olive Garden. Four individual discussions ensued about la salade. If the kitchen were on fire, if another table needed salt, if the phone were ringing off the wall to book a reservation, and when another party arrived; Enzio did not flinch until the question of four salades had been totally and completely agreed upon and decided. “D’accord ’s all around [“Duckerd” “Duh-Cord “Darfour”].”

A satisfied “Bon!” concluded the ordering ceremony at which time Enzio took the slip of paper threaded between his fingers and began to write as a doctor would a prescription. “Okaay.” he began, “tayqhe theez ovaire to zee personne ovair zhair [eyes raised over glasses indicating the liquor store next door] an’ tell ‘eem zhat yu wantz theez wine.” And he departed the table, buzzed the room, welcomed the new arrivals and motioned with his eyes to “Go next door and get what I told you to get.” So, I did. And a choice. Two bottles in hand, I return to the table to find two diners abandoning their soupe; and, instead, ravaging my carpaccio. Dale stupefied glared helplessless as the Rape of HIS Escargot unfolded before his eyes. The crimes perpetrated by two old women who “just couldn’t eat another morsel!” fifteen minutes prior. “I’m not very hungry are you, dear?” they asked each other en route to the restaurant. “I’ll think I’ll have some soup and maybe some cheese with bread” “Me, too” they conspired on the street before arriving at dinner. A deceitful ruse.

“You didn’t tell us this was good! We didn’t know what it was.” they defended, “It’s deeeelicious!” drool running off their chins unbecomingly.

“Right. That’s why I ordered it. It’s not French, you know.”

“No?” in unison, “Well, It’s deeeelicious!”

“Fine.” I huffed at a postage stamp of ravaged carpaccio staring back from my plate as seductively as possible.

“We left you some.”

“How’s your soup?” I inquire pointedly.

“Oh, it’s divine! But. Not as good as your what-is-it?”

Enzio hears the enthusiasm, exits the kitchen, buzzes the dining room, and stands ready to accept accolades. “Encore de carpaccio,” I ask for another order of my appetizer.

“’Ow ees zhee soup-puh?” Enzio asks while his eyes drop onto the alien bottle of wine.

“Who cares?” I whine, “They’ve eaten my carpaccio!”

“Whaht eez zhees?” he picks up my wine selection as if it were the handkerchief of Typhoid Mary, “Du yu ‘ave a problem wiz zhee, ‘ow du yu call eet where zee wataire goze ou’ zhee bazhtub?”

“Drain.” Dale prompts.

“Zhair eez zhee problem wiz zhese ‘drain’?”

“No.” I hold my ground.

“Zhen why yu bigh?”

“Because I thought it would be nice to have a choice.” holding my ground.

The light shone in his old face, his eyes sparkled and he said, “Zhen, yu want tu cum een zhee kitchen an’ choose ‘ow I kook? Hmmmmm?” after a pause, “”Ow much yu pay?” he asks. I told him. “OOOOOH-LA-LA” wagging his head in hands and clucking his tongue. “Yu like?”

Michelangelo would have abandoned authorship of David after this display of disgust. “Don’t know” I shrug.

“Non. I uze zheez to cleen zhe kitchen. I be back.” and he leaves his guests, his kitchen, his restaurant for two seconds, he goes next door, and returns with another bottle and some change. “When yu want a choeese, yu ask Enzio. Voila! zhe choeese.” He buzzes the room as he returns to the kitchen. This one gets water, that one salt. All in an unhurried but near-officious manner.

Enzio speaks to each table with equal interest and enthusiasm. He is our host, we are guests in his dining room. The meal was only long with respect to our fatique, but after a couple of weeks of being on the move, it was nice to sit still and quiet for several hours. We were properly restored with food, wine, coffee, and cognac when the check did not come. And did not come. And did not come. The rest of the group chose to go back to the hotel rather than fall asleep in their plates. And did not come. I said, “I’ll see about the check. Y’all go on.” And, I sat. By myself. And sat. Finally, I ask another solo diner, “How do you get the check?”

“Presentez-vous a la cuisine.” disdainful of the Anglophone begging me to admit “je ne comprend pas” or even the more shameful, “I don’t understand.”

But, of course, I would have died first, before giving him the satisfaction he craved. In fact, I did not understand anything but, “a la cuisine.” Which was sufficient for me to reply, “Merci beaucoup, Monsieur.” dripping of saccharine and deference. “Jerk” I think to myself.

So, I go to the kitchen and ask for the check. “Don’t you have any help? Someone to pick up the dishes? Pour the water? Cook the orders?” I gape while Enzio figures my bill on his hands.

“Zhen, what wood I du?” he says with a smile and my change. “Bon Voyage. Merci!” he walks with me from the kitchen to the entry hall. Gives me a big hug and my hat. “Bonne Nuit, Monsieur, Merci! Merci!”

Looking back, I see the corners of our tablecloth fold up to cover our mess.

Toronto—The Fags and Bags Tour—2000. The following day we arrive in Toronto for a late lunch and a nap at the Royal York Hotel, formerly a Canadian National Railway property, but now managed by Fairmont. I was anxious to find dinner so Dale and I set out by ourselves secretly. A short walk up King Street into the Theatre District there is the KitKat www.kitkattoronto.com
a Holstein’s butt sticks out of the front façade over the door. Dale and I walk in to meet John who, like all restaurateurs at this hour, is at the bar with his coffee waiting for the dinner hour and its promise of hungry patrons. The front room is the bar no wider than a train car.

“Hello, Gentlemen” John gets off his stool. “Would you like a table for dinner?”

I am leery because his approach more than his manner reminds me of the barkers on Times Square Deli’s where Bagels are $5, Cream Cheese is $5, Fruit Cups are $18.50, Coffee is $5 and Sugar $2.50 each. “No”, I resist, “We’re just scouting right now, but I’d like to see a menu.”

“Too bad.” he turns his back on us and says, “Chef’s just made some gazpacho. Best in the City.” and he saunters back to his cooling coffee.

“Gazpacho?” I say to myself, taking the bait. “Gazpacho?” I call to John. “Hot or Cold.”

“Cold.”

“Well, the best Gazpacho in the World came from my Mother’s hands” I throw down the gauntlet, “And, she’s dead now 10 years. Bet yours is no where near as good as hers. I bet yours is too acidy, too sweet, or too watery.”

John turns slowly. The challenge struck. “We’ll see. But first, since your mother’s dead, I’ll have to trust you to be honest.”

“Don’t worry.” Dales smiles while planning his escape. “Three paces to the door. Turn right. Right again at the corner. Run ½ block to the subway and home.” he calculates quietly to himself. “Dial 9-1-1”.

And, in short order, a demi-tasse of ice cold gazpacho felt good in my summer hands. I looked into the cup the size of a Toonie and my heart sank. I looked exactly like my Mother’s gazpacho “not too chunky but not minced” she would drill into me at the Cuisineart. Perfectly chilled I brought it to my lips and before taking it into my mouth I breathed in its aroma, “too much acid spoils the appetite, too much water tastes stingy, if it needs sugar throw it out” she would instruct. It smelled like Mother’s gazpacho. I took it into my mouth by half. “the vegetables must sit like finely cut jewels in your mouth while the tomato baths your tongue minty with white pepper and basil” she whispers. I swallowed. “it must go down of a piece letting the slight garlic finish urge the next taste”. It was my Mother’s gazpacho. I took the second half to be sure. It was the gazpacho that I have ever since failed to duplicate despite constant instruction.

“May we have a table for four at 8:00 PM?”, I asked in abject defeat.

“See you at 8, gentlemen.” John the Victor made note in his book and returned to his coffee. No name asked nor given.

At the appointed hour, after Scotch time, we arrive at the KitKat, Bags in Hand. The joint is jumping. Theatre-goers are on their way out. Bus boys are clearing tables in order to seat the mob at the bar. A puddle of people spills out the door trying to get on the list while a string of single-filers races across the street fumbling for tickets and adjusting lipsticks on physically impossible Jimmy Choo’s. No one can go anywhere without passing through the thin corridor between the bar patrons and the mirror wall which doubles the effect. “Good-bying”, “Loved seeing you!”, “Kiss! Kiss!”, “We’ll meet up at intermission!” mingle with The Big Game announced on several sets hanging over the crowd, “SCORE!” and the crowd goes wild in and out of TVLand. The phone rings absently without pause. I push my way to the rostrum like Orpheus climbing out of Hades.

“You’re here!” John shouts into my ear. “I almost had to give away your table.” jokingly. The clock serving to hold down the pages of his book blinks, 7:59 over the blank entry that reads 8P… four…gazpacho…Table 1 now being checked off. “Follow me” he signals and stops, “Where’s the rest of your party?” he screams into my ear. I am afraid that the noise is going to drive Dale crazy. I’ve made a huge mistake. No one will be able to say a word to anyone else.

“The rest are behind me, I guess.”

“C’mon” and John cuts through the crowd like warm butter. “I put you back here.” He calls back.

“Okay.” I scream very concerned because I don’t want to have to beat a retreat, I don’t want to have to find another restaurant with its requisite “I don’t care where do you want to eat…I don’t care I’m not really hungry…wherever is fine”, and I want to eat here. But the noise in the bar is prohibitive even to Helen Keller.

Just passed the bar and through a Rabbit’s Hole of a door, passed a stairway going down which clings to a tree growing up and penetrating the glass canopy overhead, passed the refrigerator case which displays dessert and other eatables through its curved glass front is a dining room made out of reclaimed back lot of this once-warehouse building typical of those that populate the Theatre District of Toronto. Next to the service area against the wall is a booth with high backs, simple cushion, room for six and one step above the floor. “How’s this?”

It’s quiet. “Fine!” I am thrilled and relieved. It’s quiet like the difference between a playground and a tea room.

“If I see the rest of your party I’ll send them over.” John jokes. And one by one they squeeze through the throng to arrive grateful for this oasis of comparative calm if not a little disheveled. One stopped by the tree to make sure she had come out with all of it. We settle down and slide in. “This is fine!”, we agree as our waiter comes up.

“What are we having to drink?” our waiter asks.

“SCOTCH!” the table defines with the abandon of junkies over Cocaine.

“and a diet cola.”

The waiter: “Sorry the kitchen caught on fire just as you walked in. The chef’s burned up. The sous-chef is convulsing in pain from third degree burns over 90% of his body and the fire department is caught in curtain traffic, but I can call in a Pizza. Do you want a menu?…Oh, and…The Scotch was arrested in cuffs as an accomplice. Sorry (pronounced SORE-ee)” and beats a retreat.

“Yes!” I proclaim knowing that this is going to be FUN. A waiter who can play.

“What did he say?”

“What?”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Yes!’”

“No! the waiter!”

“Who cares? Is he bringing Scotch!”

“Yes this is going to be fun.” I affirm to myself as I cast my eye around the room. I love cosmopolitan cities where the denizens don’t match. The diversity of this room inspired the bar scenes in the Star Wars trilogy. The up-and-coming financier lech sitting with his Goth tartlette and her Edmonton parents; his hand firmly writhing high between her thighs. The former ex-beauty queen her lips just a touch too bright, her outfit though current a little to tight, her surgery not quite healed, but “I just can’t stay in the house another minute!” and her not-quite-well-enough-to-do husband but “He loves me. How can I leave?”. The wannabe player and his brain surgeon wife. The revered star of stage and screen with Tarzan’s Big Brother in a little more than a thong and chemise. A couple of tables of college interns waiting for their gender to drop. Over there is the Frommer’s couple in the corner. The old crow alone in the corner probably owns the land we’re sitting on and half the city council and John. She scowls disapprovingly her Nancy Marchand. The lilt of French soprano voices colors the bass guttural and nasal gruntings of the men in English while dishes clatter the beat and waiters bark orders into the kitchen. I am reminded of Debbie Reynolds opening line from her one woman revue, “Isn’t wonderful we’re all here and we’re all still alive?”

“Scotch, Scotch, Scotch, and Diet Coke. Menus and I’ll run downstairs to see what the kitchen has that’s ‘off-menu’” Waiter appears and disappears.

I open up the menu to find all the favorites from Vivian’s Kitchen. I cannot possibly decide. “I know”, I suggest, “Let’s just order stuff and pass and share instead of each gets an entrée.” Well, after our experience at Enzio’s the night before, the ladies were glad to just sit and watch the crowd. “Besides, Alexander, you always order best. You do it. Carpaccio.” So, Dale and I started to make the list for the waiter. “Okay, girls, you do the wine.” “Gazpacho!” “Hooray! the wine! where’s the list? Lessee.” they coo searching their pencil-box purses under the cloth for the glasses they are too vain to actually wear on their faces but cannot see without. Improvised lorgnettes at arms length prove a fashionable alternative.

“We’re just going to order dishes and taste”, I begin to the waiter “when we’re full we’ll stop ordering. No need to worry when any of it comes out we’ll eat it just the same.”

“Great.” The waiter beams.

“We want wine.” the Scotch blurts out.

“Great.” The waiter beams.

“We want this [pointing], this [pointing], and this [pointing] Ha! Ha! Ha!” the jocularity and enthusiasm of the room was contagious.

“We have to have carpaccio” I begin “and this soup with four spoons, that soup with four spoons, in fact, just bring lots of forks and spoons and we’ll work it out.” It was that kind of a place, it was sort of a College Campus Dining Hall but will adults and a serious menu. “Osso Buco, saltimbocca, crab cakes, field green salad, sliced tomatoes, and soufflé to start. How many chocolate soufflés, girls?”

“One for me, I’m not sharing!” you see how the party got out of hand. “Don’t forget the Garbanzo Soup!”

“GAZZZPACHO.” the table corrects.

“Whatever” the withered voice follows the indignant hand waving us aside.

The evening romped along with tables turning for yet another permutation of God’s creative sense of humor, talk centered on what a swell time we had had as our tour together was coming to an end. Other trips we had taken or wanted to take. Interruptions came from waiters and waitresses who wanted to meet the squatters from Texas. “Hi! Who are Yew? We’re from Texas!” was the standard conversation starter from another in our party, not I. She used it to charm lock masters and train engineers as long as they were men. It worked here, too. Part of glee was that we had actually spent three weeks together without unpleasantness and part was the celebration of new and old friendships and part was this venue of conviviality with sophistication and erudition. I don’t know how much of the menu we actually ate, however, no plate left the table wet nor sullied. And each of us tried at least one new thing.

Toronto—The WinterWonderland Tour—February 2009. On our first night in Toronto, the Theatre District was dark so we thought we’d walk down to see if there were any free tables for dinner. We had no intention of going to the KitKat, we walked by the KitKat which was jammed.

“I’ve eaten there. It was fabulous.” we reminisced but were more interested in trying something new.

There are lots of restaurants along this strip. Several Italian. One French. Two Chinese. One Japanese. Two Korean/Viet Namese. A hamburger joint. And a Sports Grill. But not being a Theatre night, they were open to sparse crowds. Their waiters leaned languid against the bar looking more like buzzards waiting for something to die than eager to serve dinner. Their lights glinted stale like the eyes of a courtesan jilted late in life. In short, they were dead.

We engaged a street person for several blocks in conversations about world politics, Obama and the Canadian Recession, and proved to him that “I’m not giving you any money today” meant “I’m not giving you any money today.” Maybe tomorrow. Unlike the homeless in Dallas and NY, Canada’s homeless are not hard-lived, middle-aged, skid-row types. They are young men, almost entrepreneurs. They are well-spoken and well-read, articulate, and probably available for hire of a type without soliciting. On our Montreal Street Rue St.-Denis, one young man illustrated a proposed oral technique with his mouth and middle finger he assured would send me to coasts uncharted for the price of a cigarette. Suspecting that there was a little more Madison Ave. suggested than even he could deliver, I declined; but it is fodder for fantasy. Back in Toronto, “I used to be clean shaven, like you.” he pointed to my face, “but I make more money with a fuzzy face and ragged hair.” Their opening line is almost always, “Got a nickel?” to which we learned to answer truthfully and enthusiastically, “Yes!” and walk on. Irony is always attracted to itself because “it is a sign of intelligence” according to Carol Burnett. We walked to the end of the strip where the two us turned around and left the third behind.

“Got a nickel?” we were approached by another in the second block of our return.

“Yes, but I promised the homeless guy back there a nickel tomorrow so how can I pay you when I owe him?” I explain hat in hand.

“Good line.” he says with a smile and a wave, “Have a nice night, guys.” and faded off.

And we arrive at the KitKat, tighten our winter wear, secure our belongings and plunge into the puddle of pulsing, drinking, laughing, talking Humanity.

“Hi, guys. Two? Reservation?” John asks over the din.

“No.”

“Okay, sit here by me.” Tucked next to the rostrum, jammed up against the mirrored wall, sheltered from February’s draft by two rows of bellies against the bar upholstered in overcoats, scarves, jackets, and hats, was a discreet table for two. Hidden by the hat tree which looked more like a Tiki Hut thatched with Burberry and Jos. A. Bank than a garment rack, we dined. Conversation barred by the ambient noise, we would talk later or yesterday or next week. Now, we would eat.

“Off-menu are mussels in a tomato sauce.” Our waitress bellows over “SCORE!” from the now three flat-screens pendant over the bar made six by the mirrored wall over our heads. The last row of bellies breaks away from the herd to reproduce the slap shot that replicates the exuberant mayhem, “Did you see THAT!” to no one in particular “I’ll have another whiskey” to the barkeep. Our waitress regains her balance. John threads through a party of four while its host introduces each diner to his friends watching the game. “LOVELY TO MEET YOU!” at a public hanging would be more convincing.

“Then can I have them in a white wine and butter sauce?” My Meg Ryan impersonation asks on the third attempt.

“Certainly. No appetizer? No salad?” her face begins to realize that she’s got the Frommer’s couple.

“No,” I was a little motion sick from the 8 hour bus trip from Montreal and I didn’t want to commit to the noise. I thought I had little appetite.

“I’ll have the special pasta,” Dale orders. Now she knows she’s got the Frommer’s couple and sees a whole lot of ice water and bread being served without much recompense.

Sharing the front room with us and the bar full of sea lions on an ice floe was a table of 16 executive assistants at that looking for husbands age, celebrating a birthday in preparation for anticipated showers—bridal and baby. Often something extremely funny or embarrassing would happen at that end of the room and the crescendo of cackling imprinted itself over the “Aw, dammit!” of a missed shot in triplicate—sixicate counting the mirror. Drinks spilled, bear-hugs exchanged, “I love you, Man.” mingled on the same level as “That’s sooooo cuuuuuuewte!”, deals concocted and friendships for life forged as people threaded themselves to and fro from the rear dining room. “Bitch!” “Jerk” “Ken you believe that guy?”

“Youse, all right?” John would would bend down and ask as he scuttled diners back and menus forward.

After my mussels, “May I have some more bread, please.” confirmed my waitresses suspicions and bolstered her disdain, I was still hungry. I ordered la soupe. Dale ordered a salad. Our waitress’s disposition improved. The noise blanched.

Then, I wanted some Antipasto and Dale wanted Dessert and Coffee. Where can you order a meal backwards in Dallas? When we mentioned that we had been there nine years prior, John said, “Right, Gazpacho, you’ve let your hair grow!” Not professionals. “Don’t be so long next time.” he snags the waitress, “You remember these guys from what was it? nine years ago? They had some ladies with them and they sat in Table 1 and ordered all of the menu in courses and drank Scotch and Wine. You remember? don’t you?”

“Yeah.” non-commitally since she still had tips to earn.

“Go ahead” he tells her, “I’ll settle the check.” and he returns with our card, “There’s a recession on guys, come back tomorrow night before theatre or maybe tormorrow for lunch.” Always hustling which is why the place is packed. We hack a trail towards the door through a heaved mob extricating ourselves from the gravitational pull of the sirens’ din to land onto a street scene of utter quiet.

“SSSHHHH” says the Street whose taxicabs lumber across Winter’s slick with a steely shimmer of sharpening knives

Toronto—The WinterWonderland Tour—February 2009, the following night. On our final night in Toronto, we had tickets to Ubuntu which is a story unto itself. The tarragon theatre, www.tarragontheatre.com, is just out of the CBD like the Kalita Humphreys Theatre is removed from Downtown Dallas. “Let’s find food in that neighborhood” Dale suggests as we set out at our usual time for dinner before curtain, 6P. We climb out of the Rocket at the DuPont Station, in Toronto you “Ride the Rocket”, on the yellow line, www.ttc.ca departing Union Station. Walk down DuPont like you know where you are going and you find Trattoria 328, “Let’s eat here” I steer Dale into the dining room below street level restaurant like Chez Enzio. The place is empty. Empty except for banquettes and tables denuded of all but royal blue cloths. The room is abandoned like the registration corridor of a large Convention Space after the Ball except the litter is picked up. This is really a lobby, there is the elevator. It, too, is abandoned with a serving station set up at its door. “Are they open?” we murmur quietly as if not to disturb the lifelessness.

“Halloooa!” screams the Kitchen at the end of the shotgun layout, “Halloooa!”

“Hello!” I call back.

“Come in. Come in.”

“Are you serving Dinner?”

“I would love to.” the person says. He is larger than Enzio, more outgoing, his 60 year-old body needs lots of personal space for moving around in. He dances joyously around his dining room. Luxuriant Silver Hair and a Pepsodent smile set off white trousers, white shirt, white apron.

I waited for the “but…” which did not come. Instead:

“Please sit down.” while flourishing us over to a vacant table in a sea of empty tables. We drape our winterwear over the chairs opposite so we can sit together on the banquette and monitor the room. “What can I get you to drink?” eager as Christmas Morning without being solicitous.

“Diet Coke”

“Coffee.”

“I’ll bring you some menus.” There is no one around except our waiter.

“Risotto is on the menu” I say to Dale. “Risotto” I affirm. Risotto is one of my favorite things. I make it when I pour too much rice into my homemade soupe (legume). “’Risotto…Market Price.’ It says” I whisper to Dale. “What do you think ‘Market Price’ is? Hundreds? Thousands? Obama-pricing?”

“Dunno. Ask ‘im” Dale is busy pondering the pork loin and does not want to be distracted by my musing of “’Risotto…Market Price’”.

“What’s the Risotto, tonight?” I ask.

“Whatever you want, I haven’t made it, yet.”

“How’s the pork loin?”

“Fresh as it can be, haven’t made it, yet.”

“We’ve got an 8PM curtain at the Tarragon.”

“No problem. Risotto and Pork Loin right?”

“Yeah”

“How do you want your risotto?”

“Vegetables.” I answer.

In the course of waiting, the table of two ladies walks in as tentatively as we had. “Are they open?” they glance protectively at each other. They see us. They clutch their purses.

“Take a seat, Ladies.” I call out. “The hostess is busy burning my Risotto and butchering a pig. He’ll be right here in a moment.” which in hindsight I am surprised didn’t send them racing for the door, but they turned out to be smart asses, too. Dale disappeared himself into maps and ticket stubs plotting a route to the Tarragon.

After a time, the ladies were welcomed, drink orders taken, and dinner finalized and prepared. They on their side of the room and we on ours we did not talk beyond that initial greeting, however, with our host/chef/waiter/busboy we had a lot to say. If the name of the establishment, the Italian fare, and the proprietor’s accent were not enough, we discovered his hometown was where I went to school, Florence. “Wouldn’t recognize the place.” shaking his head piteously. “It’s all gone—CHINESE.”

When asked how was my risotto, I responded, “Perfetto” with a convincingly enough accent to bring him into a full-blown soliloquy in Florentine. Fortunately my Italian is stronger than my French so I was able to continue the conversation. I do this sort of thing primarily to impress Dale. It works.

With “Scusa”, he leaves to pull this or that dish for the other table out of the fire, serves it with the usual ceremony of “Formaggio?” or “Pepper?”. Refills their wine and their water and returns to our table.

“Per Dolce?” I inquire about dessert.

“Niente.” flatly

“What do you mean ‘Nothing’” I continue in Italian feigning utter disbelief and consternation for Dale’s benefit. “Is this not a trattoria? What kind of a trattoria does not have dessert?”

“Solo Gelato.”

“What kind of ice cream?” I challenge indignantly. Dale is embarrassed.

“Cioccolate.” He answers with that matter-of-fact inflection Italians use for “bugger off”.

“Nothing else”, I prod knowing full well I’m not having dessert.

“Caffé e Tiramisu, I think.” he holds his index finger to his lips and rolls his eyes to the ceiling as if there would be the inventory of the refrigerator box written above. “Let me check.” So, with a swing by the other table, he refills the Ladies’ wine glasses, “Everything OK?” he asks to a duet of “Delicious!”

“OK”, he affirms on his way back to the kitchen whence he returns promptly to the competing table who are totally unaware of the game afoot and offers, “Ladies, tonight I have a special on Tiramisu. I made it at lunch and there are only two servings left. Would you care for dessert tonight?” He issues this invitation in his stage voice with his back prominently stationed against us but the corner of his eye glued for our reaction.

“No, No. We are on our way to the Tarragon Theatre. We have to pick up tickets. We should be going in a bit.”

“These gentlemen are going to the Tarragon Theatre.” careful to wave his arm across the desolation of empty tables, naked of serving pieces and patrons to highlight our presence.

“Are you?” they ask us to confirm.

“Yes, but we don’t know where it is.” I answer.

“We’ll take you.” and they returned to their entrees and conversation.

“Signori,” my host returns to his other table. “I could not interest my ladies” he sweeps his arm across the desolation of empty tables, naked of serving pieces and patrons to highlight their presence “in the Tiramisu, would you like to try it?”

“It’s day-old. We’re sloppy seconds. Is it discounted?”

“Premium!” he calls back as he accesses the kitchen.

When real men quit eating quiche, I quit eating Tiramisu and Crème Brulee; both have become universal catch words for an entire class of indigestables. Crème Brulee spans any custard from Jell-O Vanilla Pudding through Flan and egg custard being careful not to leave out Tapioca; the common denominator is: Burnt. Tiramasu just as easily can be bread pudding or alternately milquetoast with sugar sprinkles coated in brown crayon. I don’t order either, and I didn’t that night. No matter, didn’t have to, because it appeared at my place—Tiramisu with a very self-satisfied chef/ maitre d’/lave-vaisselles.

You remember Tiramisu. Homemade lady fingers soaked in rum and Marsala until they can be arrested for “public intoxication” if they leave the house. Marscapone that Cool-Whip never heard of. Espresso that will corrode a Sterling Spoon. And Cocoa, its mere presence in the larder would get you labeled a Secessionist from the War of Northern Aggression even in this Racially Enlightened Age. We used to call it Tiramisu, at it was in front of me threatening my sobriety, and, of course, I ate every bite.

Curtain Time approaches and our guides are beginning to rustle. “Il Conto!” I call for the bill.

“Signori” our waiter/proprietor/busboy/chef begins apologetically, “I did not tell you that my credit card machine is not installed, yet. I just opened last week. So, if you were planning to pay by card then the meal is on me.”

Stunned. Stunned. Usually, I’d jump at the chance to walk a check. I’ve always wanted to walk a check but never had the guts. But, tonight, the food was exemplary; and I would be stiffing this man, not Coagulated Restaurants of America Corp., LLP, Inc., FSB, ADD. Besides, this happened to be the cheapest Best Meal on the trip—40$CAN.

“Is there an ATM?” Dale asks while the other table is getting antsy to leave.

“Go ahead.” I urge.

“Do you know where you are going?” one lady asks.

“Yes” Dale answers.
“NO!” I answer.

“Are you lying?”

“No.” Dale answers.
“Yes.” I try to compensate. “We are fighting over the check. It’s what men do. Go on along we be all right. Thanks, anyway. We’ll see you at the Theatre.” I encourage, waving them out trying to sound assuring while knowing that all I know about this part of Toronto is the 1500 feet of DuPont I walked from the Rocket to here. Dale is confident though. Now, about the check. Our benefactors sees the other guests out, leaving us alone.

“How much money have you got?” Dale asks.

“Little to none, you said, ‘spend it because I cannot deposit coin when I get home.’ So, I did.”

“Empty your pockets.”

I pull out my wallet and fish for my change while he does the same. I believe I have produced all liquid funds that are on my person.

“Empty your pockets.” he commands impatiently—the “I said” is implied.

I comply and produce another fiver from somewhere.

“What about your coat?”

I comply and produce two toonies.

“AND your sweater.”

Nothing there, but I prepare an involuntary orifice search.

“Where else do you keep money?”

“No where.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah.” trying to remind him through body language and delivery that though I am ten years his junior I AM 47 years old.

“OK” and he begins to organize and count in descending valuations: bills, twoonies, loonies, quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies. 40.68$CAN all in a pile in the middle of the table. We beam in the glare of the coinage as Signore il Propietario approaches.

“Christ! What did you do knock over a goddamm church?”

“We stiffed your tip.” Dale offers sheepishly.

“You’ll give it to me next time,” still laughing at the pile of change looking more like a Mardi Gras decoration than settlement. “Now, better get going or you’ll be late for the show.” He bundled us up for the cold, kissed us each on the face, and sent us out the door. “Arrivederci!”

“Bye!”
“Bye!”

Toronto—The WinterWonderland Tour—February 2009, the next day. At the other end of the spectrum in Toronto, there is always lunch in the PATH, http://www.toronto.ca/path/pdf/path_brochure.pdf, an underground mall that connects the major commercial, transportation, and entertainment venues in the CBD. It is hard for a Texan to imagine such an elaborate system of tunnels which is lined on both sides with retail businesses. The usual shoe shine, hair salon, Jamba Juice, Financial Houses, and Psychic Readers exist just like any city; but Toronto’s tenants include jewelers with Dutch names, fine crystal with Czech names, stationers good enough for the U.S. Mint, parfumiers with French Names, and silversmiths with English names. Any kind of portable merchandise that takes not a lot of floor space crams in along the corridors like Rally Day at the Church. Of course, there will always be food. And along these foyers are all things walkable: pasteries, ice cream, skewered food, bite-sized canapés, anything by the slice are neatly displayed in antiseptic cases with seductive low-voltage lighting.

When you enter the office towers, the space billows up into at least a two story atrium with some kind of roof treatment to remind you that there is an out-of-doors. Today, it was raining. Plink, Plink, Crash would the thunder boom over the Food Court. Food Court takes a little getting used to like Chinese Buffet with the sign blown down. My first experience was at the Texas State Fair. In the Tower Building is the Food Court where coupons substitute for money and the food promotes a make-believe nutritional value. Here, in Toronto, it is the money only that is make-believe and only to me. Lined against the walls or on multi-sided kiosks are little stage set store fronts all designed to put the diner “in the mood” for the fare at hand. The layout of each stall is consistent, only the façade changes, the offerings vary only slightly: Fried anything. Wrapped everything. Frozen a lot. McDucks to Starbucks.

But if you hold out for Scotia Plaza, there is Sushi-Q located alone by herself in the middle of the Food Court. Sushi-Q busies herself with preparation, freshness, quality, and taste more than decoration and gastronomic fantasy. Two open refrigerated chests separated by a cash register. Storage and Stock behind with a hot plate, napkins, and chopsticks. Everything is in less than Swiss white melamine except the sign which is red with white Sushi-Q scripted in Orientalia. Two young attendants in Clinique lab coats bustle around to restock the case, make change, and dispense soup. Unlike the cacophony on the fringes composed of “You want Fries with that?”, “Chicken or Beef?”, and the other details of the finer lunch, Sushi-Q displays a Communist Stoicism or is it a tacit tolerance for the capitalists? Regardless, the result is a quietly efficient exchange of goods for cash.

We approach the first case and peer down onto stacks and stacks of rigid cellophane boxes organized into “dishes”. All of it exceedingly beautiful to look at in its intensity of color and uniformity of design, like tiles stepped one atop its other. If the box contains California roll, then each box would have eight slices displayed as medallions with two remaining on edge at the side separated by a green grass cellophane cut-out plus two soy sauce packets and a dab of Wasabi. Fluorescent green seaweed glowed under plastic lids in identical whorls and volutes. Black something stood on point, painted lead soldiers regimented for battle under a glass shadow box.

Had I been assigned to inventory Pandora’s box, I would not have more careful in inspecting the contents, reading the ingredients and avoiding salmon before proceeding to the next specimen.

“What’s this?”

“I don’t know, it looks like California Roll.” the only thing we know how to say in Sushi.

“Then, what’s this?”

“I don’t know, what does it say?”

“I don’t know I don’t have my glasses.”

So as we fumble with this box and that, carefully setting aside things we might be interesting as Christian Ladies do at Rummage Sales, calculating their expenditures, weighing their options, the rest of Toronto is reaching around our woolen wrapped bodies to grab their purchase and get on with Lunch. Pincers in the shape of human hands connected to human arms would appear secure an item and retreat from between our bodies and over our shoulders like robotic arms in Detroit. Purchases were made with the exact change swap of traders at the Chicago Board of Trade. Supply and Demand quietly going about its business while we gawked. Finally, we approached the register, the Visa emblem faded, yellowed, curling its way to freedom from the Saran wrapped machine. Just ladled soup had just been set out steaming hot, could-be legume, probably not.

“Look, they’ve got hot soup!” I point out to the Blind. “Wonder what kind?” offering an entry to the attendant to engage the customer. Not.

“Probably Fish-Head.” Dale grunts watching the crush of people surround us in Bastille style while I take in the essence of it all. “Do you want some?” more insisting a decision than encouraging an opportunity.

“Do you?” more interested in the essence of it all than the inconvenience it is causing Toronto.

“Yes, get two.” impatiently.

“What if there are two kinds?”

“One kind soup.” answers the cashier who has already brought our lunch to a total.

Dale produces the credit card with the grimace one uses when preparing for mob disappointment, like large luggage through the two-way turnstiles at Times Square. No sooner out of his hand and thrust back in with a “Thank you, Sir” and three patrons paid-in-full while I load the tray. Painless. We made a beachhead on the other side of the ceramic tiled continent awash with people in parkas, suits and cellphones, prams.

Do I know if it was good Sushi? No, but it was delicious and fun to eat and pretty to look at. The soup could have been consommé of cat or reconstituted eye of newt from concentrate (sodium removed, of course) but it didn’t matter because it was hot on a cold day of traveling together and trying new things because we “don’t want to grow up to be HillBillies”.

Standing O’s

I cannot remember when I first discovered that my perceptions are different from other people’s, but I am reminded regularly. About 20 years ago, I served on my first and last jury. It was an experience I enjoyed because I learned so much about how the legal system works, how other jurors thought, and that I don’t think like other jurors. I also learned exactly what to say and not say in order to avoid serving on a jury.

It was a drug possession case involving an accused African-American, a gram of cocaine, and a discarded paper matchbox. A common white forensic technician female was willing to testify the fingerprints on which were that of the defendant. As the trial progressed, the prosecution succeeded in proving their case to me “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Having made up my mind, I regretted that I was not going to get to deliberate the facts with my fellow jurors; that, as closing arguments ended, we would be charged and retire to the jury room and convict on the first vote. Another “open and shut” case. I did not look to be another Clarence Darrow, however, I did want to gain experience. Which I did, in fact, do. Contrary to my assumption, it was not cut and dried. We deliberated for three days before returning to the judge a “hung jury”, 6 vs. 6, which reminds me of the 3-3 of the Society for the Magnification and Glorification of our Victorious Dead. Anyway, Judge declared a mis-trial and we all went home. The split was right down racial lines–Rodney King Paybacks. I failed to see that the case was about black against white; not whether the “perp” was in possession of what the State asserted when the State asserted it. Had I known, I would not have paid such careful attention.

My favorite violinist is, Nadia Salerno Sonnenberg. When she takes the stage, I’ve only seen her in front of a huge orchestra, never as a stand alone perfomer like James Galway or Yo-Yo Ma; she commands the attention of the entire room. During tacets, she moves and jives sometimes most animately, waiting, waiting for her entrance, waiting for her cue. When the nod comes, she and her instrument commandeer the space and all available light. “I’m playing my violin! And this is how I play it!” she screams with each bowing. My eyes riveted on her, the vehicle which translates the instructions of her muse into something I can hear. The music renders her transparent as her body and the sound coalesce their powers to transport me away and above, tethered to a flock of birds like those in The Little Prince. The orchestra fades from view because I cannot keep up visually and aurally with all that is happening at once.

In Dallas, one must merely fog a mirror on stage and the audience will stand and bray for hours. I sometimes feel like they are urging the artists to judge them not as just “ignorant hicks” but “rich ignorant hicks who are trying ‘real hard’”. Consequently, the reverse snob that I am prohibits me from standing for anything unless I can fly away such as I can with Salerno-Sonnenberg, Ma, Galway, Dessay, Fleming, Michael Farris [RIP], Kimberly Marshall, and others on my secret snobby name-dropping list.

4 Feb 09, Kurt Masur conducted the NY Philharmonic Orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center as part of the Mendelssohn Bicentenial Celebration. Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin. Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra from which you have heard all or excerpts since you were old enough to pick you own nose. The second half of the program, after Anne-Sophie went home, included Die erste Walpurgisnacht sung by the Westminster Symphonic Choir from Dale’s alma mater, Westminster Choir College, Princeton, NJ. There was special interest there for him.

For me, the room was of special importance. Avery Fisher Hall, originally NY Philharmonic Hall when Lincoln Center was conceived as the performance venue for the NY Philharmonic Orchestra; however, upon completion, audiences soon discovered that they just couldn’t hear. Incongruous to the adjacent Metropolitan Opera House in which you can hear a pin drop on stage while hailing a downtown taxi in a tulip tafetta gown and black patents. You, not the cab. We did discover that the Met was the exception to the rule.

We attended the revival of Rodger & Hammerstein’s South Pacific also staged on the Lincoln Center campus at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre. The stage reaches well into the room with the audience puddled on three sides, however, unlike the Kalita Humphres (sp?) in Dallas, the Vivian Beaumont has a large stage area with wings behind the proscenium and seating is heavily raked in an amphitheatre format. The orchestra beats, blows, and blats beneath the retractable “in the round” apron. We scored walk-up seats #304 & #305 in the first row, directly behind the conductors head which I could reach out and touch. From #304 & #305, we could hear and see every note, nuance, and block; however, before the end of Act I, I HAD to pee. A function of too old, a compulsion to stay hydrated, and being unused to being away from River where you don’t have to schedule these things. I waited until a scene change and dashed out fully expecting to miss the remainder of the act. Not true.

In and amongst our friends, “New Yorkers are so rude.” I have never felt that to be the case. Quite the opposite, if I don’t know what to do, how to get what I want/need, when I need help; there is always a New Yorker to point the way.

Have you ever seen little boys stand contraposto clutcing their penises with one hand while holding back the pain in their heads with the other whilst an adult talks to them? Upon exiting the auditorium, an usher greeted me and asked to see my ticket which I amazingly could produce. His interrogation continued, “Do you need to use the Restroom?”

“Yes”, I purred in that intimate way lovers talk right after foreplay except that I had waited until the very last second and spoke not out of eroticism but instead out of abject pain.

“Something…Something…Something…Blah…Blah…Blah…Oh, and…”

“I have REALLY got to pee.” I croak out sofly because if I hadn’t overcompensated I would have screamed, “I HAVE TO PEE, RIGHT NOW, GODDAMMIT!” thinking all the while that it must be obvious that I am in an emergency situation if I got up in front of 1,000 people in order to race up and out of the theatre three steps at a time clutching my DICK. Here I stand twisting and turning as if hung on a wire while answering questions that in my view could wait.

Perhaps I did wait alittle too long but whose parent didn’t say, “Just a little longer, it won’t be long now. You can wait.” NO! I can’t. Also, had I blurted out, my diaphragm would have pressed too hard on my bladder and overwhelmed the sphincter which would have solved only one problem and created a cascade of others. Interview over, I was across the lobby in three bounds, had my trousers down around my knees which were become weak from relief as he was raising his finger in the now-distant Past to point the way, “Well, Sir, if you’ll…” the rest faded away out of earshot, drowned out by the rushing fire hose force between my fingers.

The finish was one of those Epiphanal moments when you finally are granted the answer to that question whose solution continued to gnaw at you over time. That static moment of peaceful pleasure that punctuates the “Ah ha!”. The time when the glare of the light bulb fades and the world comes back into focus as you contemplate the power of your new found wisdom. I stood a moment airing myself out as etiquette about re-entry in to theatre, if even possible, came to my mind. “We’ll have to wash first,” I urged silently, “Can’t we just stand here for a moment and feel nothing for a minute?”. “What are we going to do?” I asked myself, “Can’t we just wait a minute, stand here a minute, feel the moment?”. “Do you think we are going to be let back in?” I persist. “Do you not remember that you almost pee’d all over yourself and flooded the row and the incumbent pit full of musicians?” “I know, I know, but that’s over, and we didn’t. So, NOW, what are we going to do?” Relunctantly, I pull up my panties, my trousers, button my fly, and cinch my belt. “YES. I flushed.” “Yes. I washed.” And was no sooner out of the Men’s room and striding across the lobby when I heard.

“Sir! Sir!” from a bent-over woman whose mother probably was the one at the well when Jesus got thirsty. “Sir! Let me help you.” in that authoritative voice that we first heard from an adult posing that first of rhetorical questions: “Why aren’t you in bed?” the intonation conveying more than the words themselves. Later, it would become, “Where’s your hall pass.” or “May I see your license?” All rhetorical.

I turn to see a small pudgy women dressed in all black with short silver hair and spectacles from the Hubble Telescope. “Sir. What’s your seat? Do you have your ticket?” I nod defeatedly and hold out my credentials. “Let’s have a look.”

I begin explaining, “I know that I won’t…”

“I cannot put you back in your seat, now.” she gently but firmly says more to herself than to me.

“Shall I sit over there?” indicating a spot in the lobby.

“Sure” she says, “but don’t you want to see the rest of the act?”

“Yes, but I thou…”

“OK. But, you’re going to have to be very quiet.” she interrupted omitting the motherly, “can you do that for me?”; and, eventhough I tower over her I feel very young. She opens the outer door to the corridor and two ushers inside snap to attention. I am with the mama-goddam of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre. It could be Vivian herself for all I know.

“Yes, ma’am.” he stands Michael Jordan high.

“‘Ma’am?’ in New York City?” I wonder to myself.

“John, do you have a seat on the side for this gentleman?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Will you put him in it for me, please?” she hands me off by transferring my ticket to John, “Enjoy.” she turns to me.

John stides over to the side door and instructs, “There is a curtain in front of this door. I’ll let you in and close this door behind you. Do not proceed to a seat until your eyes adjust. The stairs are right in front of you. If you cannot see the stairs don’t go in. There is an aisle seat two rows down. OK? You must be quiet.” Do I look like the sort of person who would stumble in and plop down in a seat and broadcast, “Boy, is that a relief! I almost pee’d my pants. Wouldn’t that have been a mess! Man, what a load off my mind.”

I discovered that one must be quiet above the five or six hundred rows because unlike the 300 row, one cannot hear anything that is going on onstage. I heard the drums drumming like being next door to an Action-Thriller Feature at the Megaplex, and Nellie Forbush was singing in a foreign to my ears cellophane strain about “I’m in love. I’m in love. I’m in love.” Not at all the experience of #304 & #305. More like Edith Piaf four days cold than Mary Martin and the birth of the Hi-Fi LP. So, from this extreme demonstration of the way sound degrades in the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, NYC; I could certainly understand Philharmonic Audiences not being able to hear.

The acoustics in the ’70’s at Philhamonic Hall were so poor that the Philharmonic Orchestra for whom it was built abandonned the venue. Totally. Then, Avery Fisher, the electronics magnate/czar, offered the city to pay in toto all refurbishment expenses in exchange for naming rights. The interior of the Hall was totally scooped out, all vestiges of failure removed, and a blank shell awaited the new acoustician’s instructions.

It is a box. A big box. Three thousand I would guess and unlike the Meyerson or the Music Hall in Cincy or the Bass in Fort Worth; the rows of seats are not bowed toward the stage. Every row is straight across with two side aisles and two center aisles on the floor. Balconies, called tier boxes, on the sides are extremely shallow at only two rows deep at most. Tier two, where we sat only had five rows. Upper tiers are deeper but all seats face forward. One side of the hall faces the other side. The rear tiers and the floor face the stage. For Philharmonic Audiences, sound is a ear thing not an eye thing. Why should you need to see the musicians? Forward facing seats without focus on the stage also facillitates “Bling” sighting.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is as great a perfomer as my best bud, Nadia; except that Anne-Sophie respects the tradition of Germanic reserve. Both artists have expressive and exacting techniques. Both have something to say and convey their muses’ wishes accurately, powerfully, and specifically without need of wiggle room. Nadia says, “This is how I play my violin!” dramatically, volcanically, provocatively, “You wanna make something of it?” Anne-Sophie says, “This is how I play my violin.” teutonically, reservedly, without interest in discussion. For her, it’s just a matter of fact like Sun comes up in the East.

So, as Miss Mutter transfixes me. Makes me question my course and insists that I chart a new one. As the orchestra, THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC under guest conductor, Maestro Masur, recedes into the background and Fisher Hall falls away leaving me and Anne-Sophie alone in the palm of her hand. I cannot wait to jump to my feet with the thundering crowd around me braying their gender insensitive, “Bravo!” to a girl. I’m gonna stomp my feet, beam, and applaud over my head. I have been to where the air grows thin and back on the recoil of a taut slingshot. Oh my dear, oh my dear, oh my dear. “We are NOT in KS anymore!”

Imagine my surprise when I was the only one in Tier Two to stand. Imagine how out of step I felt being the only one on Tier Two, including the Tier Two Boxes. Imagine how individually set apart, self-ostracized, I felt being the only one in Tier Two, in Tier Two Boxes, and on the floor who bothered to give anything more than a perfunctory, “Thank you for showing up” applause. I turned to Dale quizzically.

“She and the Orchestra did not stay together. There were some parity issue in the Tempo Department. They’ll have to work that out before the next performance. It is opening night, after all.” dismissively. pat, pat, pat. “This isn’t Dallas.” patiently. pat, pat, pat. Fully aware that I am making a spectacle of myself as an “ignorant hick” and there isn’t anything he can do about it. pat, pat, pat.

“Orchestra? Orchestra? Was there an Orchestra? Who gives a shit? She was breathtaking! She’s individual! She’s a maverick! She’s Nadia!, for chrissakes ‘cept she’s blond! Who cares if she can play with the Orchestra!”

“They do.” pointing to the floor.

Pat, pat, pat. “Perhaps the second half will be better.” you could hear them saying. pat, pat, pat. “Where do you send your laundry these days?” pat, pat, pat. “Isn’t nice that we’re having weather?” pat, pat, pat. “it’s chilly this time of year, isn’t it?” pat, pat, pat. “Have you seen the restrooms?” pat, pat, pat. “Are taxis going to be yellow this year, y’ think?” pat, pat, pat.

I’m too proud to retreat. “It takes genius to recognize genius” I console myself. “Fuckers.”

“Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow”–Irving Berlin

We arrived Cincinnati surprisingly on time after an equipment delay of one hour at D/FW, we made up the time in our Layover in Indy, IN which was supposed to be lunch with a friend, but was abbreviated to a Diet Coke with ourselves. No lost luggage which is unusual for us. Because we are too cheap to fly real airlines to real destinations non-stop our bags always arrive in Abu Dhabi before rejoining our tour. For example, the flight from Indy to Cincinnati is 20 minutes flight time. It takes longer to load and do the safety pre-flight than to actually get there. The aircraft is a city bus with wings. 50 seats. The only thing missing were the standee straps. More fucking fun!

Transferred to Cincinnati City Center via the TANK (Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky) where we got off the bus on 7th. Walked in the fading sunset across town with bags an unknown distance perhaps a mile in the day-before’s snow. CBD sidewalks were shovelled, others not so lucky. Casters are fairly useless on 12″ snowdrifts so we had to schlepp. As we crossed the viaduct over IH 71, I thought of the “Not Exactly” ad campaign Avis launched a decade ago.

“You wanna get a cab?”, Dale would volunteer.

“No, No, it can’t be that farther, can it? What are we going to buy a two block ride? It’s just a little farther, right?”

Crunch, Crunch, Crunch, the snow would glaciate under my 175 lbs. plus large case, plus small case in clogs with no tread. Dale picking out the trail in pumps. Crunch, Cruch, Crunch. Just a little farther. I began to feel like Omar Scharif in Dr. Zh. searching the horizon for Tom Bodett’s “light on for ya”. Just beyond the viaduct beamed our Quality Inn wherein Elaine was prepared with our reservation.

“You must be Mr. Harris!” she announces as we feel the slush turn to iced water drowning our socks, cotton, of course.

It’s nice to be expected, but it gave me pause. Especially since a month ago, ALL the Downtown rooms were sold out.

“Not a lot of check-ins, today?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“Welcome to the Hotel California” rings in my head. “Oh well, if you don’t try new things you stay stupid. Besides, few things could be worse than our $75/night hotel in NYC and I loved it; Dale, not so much. We don’t stay there any more. Pity. When I ask why?

“They are always booked.” Dale lies.

Room is fine, clean, with running water only where it is supposed to. FRIGID. So we turn on the heat, make contact with our local appointments, return to CBD for dinner. This time on the bus. There are only eight routes that go right by the hotel.

“Just stand out there,” Elaine coaches us, “One will be along.” In clogs. Me; not the bus.

Dinner at Cadillac Ranch on a dead night which was good because it was not noisy and the mechanical bronco was asleep. There was an attendant in the Toliet. I haven’t had an attendant since deb balls in the Fairmont Hotel, Dallas, TX circa 1975. He’s just been laid off as a buyer with Jared Jewelers.

Saturday Morning: Up for Continental Brksft in the Hotel much better than “Free” would suggest. Next stop, CBD via bus, for BOOTS! Macy’s had several beautiful styles with everything on Sale. None in my size. Our salesperson, Bruce, a hormone therapy patient whose body hosted a dead heat between Testosteron and Estrogen and poor judge of how shoes wear, suggests, “Go to Payless! It’s just down the block.” and proceeded to give us directions. We agreed to look for a size 13 red stilletto with peek-a-boo toe “for his sister” if he’d hold a couple of “adequates” should we find nothing.

Payless was an emporium full of boots. Two black women who were eager to get us into a pair and separate us from our money. “If we sell all these boots, we can go home.” was their work ethic. They had customers and “Ain’t nobody getting out of here alive ‘thout no boots.” Store policy.

We had a 1PM appointment with our realtor, so we worked doubly hard to find something. 1/2 hour later we were fitted, billed, settled, and back on the street. I needed moisturizer from the CVS located across from the Walgreen’s. Dale went on to the Macy’s to tell Bruce that 1) we don’t need the boots he held. and 2) His “sister” need only ask for Margot at the Payless before 5P, we found a pair of 13 red stilletto’s with peek-a-boo toes. Nobody is buying peek-a-boo toes in this weather.

Ellen arrived to take us to lunch and show us two apartments in the Belvedere, a building we had fallen in love with on our last “fam” trip two years ago. 1920’s beaux arts. Plaster walls over concrete decks covered in intricately laid hardwoods. Human sized rooms in excellent condition. Cheap to buy. HOA dues are comparable to Dallas but high for Cincy.

First unit was under $30,000, bank owned, and T-R-A-S-H-E-D. Plumbing fault buckled all the original floors, an attraction to the building, wall and ceiling restorations needed, and 2000 ft. About 2/3’s too big. Floorplan suitable for roller-skating. If one wanted a home, and had the furnishings for a home, it would be a wonderful steal. We want out of the rain and snow. Second unit is 800 of the most wonderful feet. Perfect. Decorated by a QUEEN! but a little Benjamin Moore #951 with some Benjamin Moore “Linen White” for the trim, and it would be our home. Price is good. HOA dues won’t bankrupt us. Perfect. Now, we need only to decide. Time is on our side. Cincy is not selling.

Sunday Morning we meet a friend for Brunch in the CBD. “Have you looked at the Belvedere?” he asks.

“Yes!” in unison enthusiastically.

“Have you seen the one bedroom plan?”

“Yes!” in unison enthusiastically.

“I know the faggot whose selling it…What a queen!”

“Thought so from the marketting materials he left by the door and from the interior design.” He is also a realtor, he’s moving next door. He reminds me of the sociopath who introduced me to Boo-Boo. The sociopath also grew up in Cincy. He will be our neighbor at the Belvedere just like the sociopath was our neighbor at “21″. Do I attract sociopaths?

“Anyway, I’d just LOVE for those two guys to buy my place and be my new neighbors!” our realtor reports of the seller.

“From all he knows, we could be leather and stud queens with an all-night drug habit.” I tell her.

“Probably like that.” she smiles, that professional tolerant smile that tolerant professionals smile when they’re being professionally tolerant and not saying, “‘Danger! Danger! Will Robinson!’ He’s a fucking sociopath!” Anyway, “He knows that you have a boat and that you are cruising up some river or group of rivers to get here. That’s ALL he needs to know.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Yes.” our brunch friend the following day affirms.

Friday’s dinner at Skyline Chili where a bowl of spaghetti is served “4-way” with Habanero Cheese and onion on top, a local delicacy. Greek Salad on the side. It is very good and is to Cincinnatians as Philly Cheesteak is to Philadelphians.

Saturday Brunch with friend at the Cincy version of Lucky’s in Dallas followed by touring the Contemporary Art Museum where Teri Donovan is installing a honeycomb of styrofoam to-go cups on the ceiling in an amorphous hornet’s nest pattern. Each cup is crimped and molded to give the sculpture its undulating shape and held together with hot glue and wooden clothes pens. Other installations are under construction on other floors but we aren’t allowed there today. On the top floor is the childrens’ discovery gallery where is a nice BA urging us to engage in an art project. All the paper and water colors and pastels and tape and glue and tissue and contruction paper I can consume. I grab a twelve color watercolor palette and a huge pad of paper. Dale vanishes, “I’ll be back.”

One work of practice before I have to find Dale for some help. We together puddle colors in pools on the paper and then sling the tablet about to move the color. Dale is more worried about the mess we’re making. I’m proud of our endeavor together. Dale bores and begins to mop up. Time to go.

Next stop, Batsakes Hat Shop. Dale wants hat covers for inclement weather. I want a new hat. Black Bowler, Black Hamburg, Black Bolero. I find the styles amongst the racks in two sizes too large.

“Honey,” must be Texan woman says, “Try on this cap.” The salesladies in Batsakes are exceedingly patient and know how to sell. The victim is Billy Bob Bubba Bo for whom is moll, Freida, has urged him to buy a fur “stroller” of the most unflattering design and color. Now, she insists that he buy a cap.

I lay out my three styles and climb up on the shoe shine rack like scaling a Jungle-Gym or a pyramid at Giza. “Do you want a shine?” the man asks.

“No, I am just presiding over the Inquisitions work while waiting my turn. Is that alright?” My new boots barely out of the box.

“Yeah,” he permits, “It’s gonna be a while.” Our attentions return to the floor.

“I don’t want a cap. I have a Stetson in the Hotel Room.” BBBB complains pulling the fur jacket together over his gut and straining the zipper.

“You’re going to look pretty silly with a cowboy hat on over that jacket. No one wears a cowboy hat with fur.”

“A beret would make him look sillier,” I guess to myself. And as to the rules of fashion, “Didn’t glitterwear go out decades ago, except Vegas?” I become indignant because my purchase is easily going to cost 5x what Billy Bob Bubba Bo and Freida are arguing over this cap, but a friend of mine introduced me to concept of “practicing my sitting” so I “practice my sitting”.

“There,” Freida says, “coaxing Little Billy Bob Bubba Bo into parting with his $6 for a piece of shit woolen cap that looks like it was sewn out of felt scrap dropped off a Kindergarten Instructors Felt Board and assembled by the local State School Rehab Class. He sheds the fur, the floor needs to be vacuumed anyway, she scoops it up gingerly, hangs it on a wire hanger, covers it in the “Fun Furs for U. Pasadena, TX” plastic bag. They leave the store.

“May I try these three styles on in a 7 3/8 & 7 1/4. Also, the curly lambs wool hat in the window?”

She ignores my request about the curly lambs wool cap and lays out the other goods. Other customers need attention and I just need to decide.

I try each model on for fit then for style. Bolero, Hamburg, Bowler. Bowler-Hamburg. Bolero. Walk around the store. I ask, “Do I break the brim?”

“At your pleasure.” My saleswoman replies very diplomatically. These girls are smooth.

Bolero-Hamburg. Hamburg-Bolero. Bowler and walk around the store. Bowler and look at Dale who smirks as I catch his eye.

“Is it funny because it’s a natural or because it’s dorky?”

Smirk.

“Well…” I insist.

“It’s a style not seen alot. It’s distinctive.” Dale has been taking lessons from the Batake girls.

Bowler-Bolero. Break the bill. Cast to one side. Replace overcoat. Check the look. Bolero-Hamburg. Push back away from the face. Pull down Marlene Deitrich style. Hamburg, walk around the store. Look at Dale who face has gone poker. Hamburg-Bolero. Bolero-Hamburg.

I begin to hear Elaine Stritch singing from the original production of Sondheim’s Company, “Here’s to the Ladies who lunch/…Claiming their fat/ And looking grim/ Because they’ve been sitting/ Choosing a Hat!/ [Miss Stritch's aside: does anyone still wear a hat?]” Discard Bolero in favor of the formality of Hamburg or Bowler. Bowler around the store. Bowler in the mirror. Push Back. Pull forward. Bowler around the store. Discard Hamburg. “May I see the curly lambswool in the window.”

“Certainly, sir.” She replies. Because I have dismissed her to wait on others while I do my “choosing a hat” ceremony, she idles around with other clients before going to the drawer and pulling out a sample. She presents it half-heartedly. I try it on. Style it with my hands, pointy, collapsed. It just doesn’t have the body I was expecting. I ask for the two prices. I can have several curly lambswool hats for the price of one Bowler. “That’s the delay.” I tell myself.

“I’ll take the Bowler.” confident I have made the right decision. I climb back onto my perch at Giza while Dale settles the bill. “How much to monogram?” I ask.

“No charge, sir.” She replies with a siren’s smile because personalized headgear is not refundable. “But I need you to write the initials you want on this slip.”

“Dale can do it.”

“I’d rather you, sir.”

“Alright.” I climb back down. I write, “A M W”.

“I’ll ask Gus [the proprietor] to freshen this hat and emboss the sweatband. Would you like to wait?”

“Yes.” because Gus is hunched over a steamer fitting hats and smacking gold letters inside hats as fast as he can. I love to watch him work and blarney with his customers. His clientele spans Who’s Who and you’d never know it from Gus or the shop. Shortly, MY hat is ready.

“Would you like a box?” She asks.

“No, I’m travelling.”

“Better for storage.”

“I’m travelling. I’ve got storage at home.”

“OK. Thank you, sir.” She moves to her next victim.

“Thank you, sir.” Gus calls out from a waft of steam. “Oh wait! That feather is all wrong for you.” His Greek accent still evident. “Come back, let’s pick out the right feather for your hat.” and he exits his work area and comes to the counter to open a drawer of feathers. It looks like a fly-tying kit. Here, he pulls out four. Black with red, Red with Black, Black with Aqua. “Now, watch how I style it.” and he folds the feather carefully to put the black in front of the red. “Now, these four are for you. You practice. You put your feather in your hat.” and he slips my homework into a wax paper pocket and presses it into my hand. “Now, go! We’re very busy in here. Go!”

It is one of the most indulgently masculine activities one does at Batake’s (buh-TAHkees) of Cincinnati. I wear my new Bowler out of the store. It’s eye-catching. I’ve made the right choice.

“Hey man, like your hat.” a black man calls from a passing truck.

“It’s not the hat!” I scream, “It’s how I wear it.”

Waves back and forth.

Batsake’s of Cincinnati.

Next stop, Union Station for a tour. Beautifully authentic Art Deco. The kind of space where you want to linger in your new bowler and be important. Truly a space to linger and be inspired by extravagance of vision and mastery of detail and execution. Totally restored and revitalized as a Museum Center with several galleries in several disciplines so its covered with the life and activity that families give a place.

Dinner at Washington Platform Restaurant on the outskirts of the Over-the-Rhine district of Cincy and a short walk for an 8PM curtain of Cincy Symphony Orchestra doing a All-Mozart Concert. Bath and Shave before a train pull to NYC at 3A. What a wonderful day.

Searching an Endpoint

On the road for a couple of weeks looking for a propsed endpoint for the journey. Not Death.

Good Luck, Boo-Boo

In borrowing the essence of Agatha Christie’s title, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, I offer that the screen was torn, the celluloid scorched, and the film stopped.  The persona I projected onto Boo-Boo left today.  My life is changed.

“Do not put people on pedestals” They warn, “they will always fall off.”

I first met Boo-Boo in 2005 at the hand of a sociopath.  Boo-Boo was at 45 all to which I had hoped to aspire in my 20’s, the son of my mother and grandmother’s ideal.  The suave and debonair homosexual my grandfather suspected and disdained.  Not only was he all the success that had passed me by, but I was sharply drawn sexually to his body, a type not usually mine.  Shorter than I, slighter than I, he was probably one of the firecracker sprinters at Lost Land High who overcame an abbreviated stride with grit and determination.  A Determination that would one day serve him to run all the way out of West Texas.  The part of West Texas that even the Roswellian Aliens cannot find.

Nor am I his model partner.  He is always impeccably groomed.  Straight brown hair freshly barbered in a preparatory school cut, no sign of grey, but perhaps a little thin.    A myriad array of dark suits, none brighter than charcoal, professionally tailored to enhance the lines of his professional physique but not inappropriately.  Brown belts circle his waist and matching brown shoes highly polished cap his dark-stockinged feet.  Over wife beater undergarments, linen shirts, always lightly starched, in white or ecru only, serve to reflect light and animation upon his face.  Clean shaven even after a long day of meetings, councils, and meals of power.  He has a genuine smile, eyes that sparkle the green of the Geico Gecko and a naïve manner that puts people at ease, naturally.  His tie is the only accessory of fashion that enjoys any extravagance.  His type is of this model except much younger, Muscular, and whose ambition leans towards the circles of Power and Influence.

But, my Cupid does not bother with these details.  I thought he was Heaven.

He moves with facility amongst the Society of Dallas.  Glad handing the Fete Set and schmoozing the up and coming.  Behind those fashionable gold wire rimmed glasses is a political genus who knows instinctively which soil can germinate which seed and when.  He is a paragon of self-restraint and comports himself so professionally and confidently that “butter does not melt in his mouth”.  I adore watching him in action especially under fire.  I study his repartee, and, after four years, I grasp at these poor examples:

Always standing to speak, he can say, “Peas and Carrots make good mortar whereas Beets are fine for Carburetors.”, but he inflects those words to sound like, “Anyone can understand your concern and frustration.  You are absolutely correct in bringing this to my attention.  I will see that the remedy is in place before 10 o’clock in the morning and give you a call back before noon.  Would that be convenient?”

Where my impatience and compulsiveness insists, “You are the dumbest, blindest, densest Jerk God ever conceived much less made to think that way!”  He says, “I understand you think that the sky is magenta.  I do, too.  However, don’t we, you and I, have other more important things to do that try to set the rest of the world straight on this matter?  What is obvious to us is not to them.  What say we just let this one go…for their sakes?  Shall we?”

When Boo-Boo and I are away and alone over a lunch with linens, we regale each other uproariously with war stories like “’And, then, I said…’  But, wait!  Here’s the best part, ‘Then, HE said…”  The dining room fills with the inappropriate laughter of Charlie Brown’s Classroom.  He charms me into believing I belong in his world.

You know that one at every meeting who stands up at every Question&Answer and begins a game of “I’m thinking of an answer, and I am going to interrogate you until you give me that answer”?  A sort of perversely inverted “I’m thinking of a number”.  She stood up tonight.  She posed her question.

And Boo-Boo did not rise.  He did not unfold his hands.  He did not uncross his legs.  He did not smile and engage Miss My-Answers.  He said, “The answer you want is not yet available.” 

“But, surely you can understand my concern…” she perseveres as her type always does, undaunted.

Boo-Boo’s body remains in the chair having disposed of her question, but the one that I loved is gone; gone on to bigger and brighter things.  This remnant here only holds his place until the replacement can be found.  And one will be.

Good Luck, Boo-Boo.  I so admire your achieving what I could not.

River’s Call

There is the Call of River.  Those who can hear it are called “River Rats”, and they are not just boaters.  Crappie (pronounced KRAH-pee, grow up!) season starts this month.  Opening Day is not as ceremoniously observed as Deer Season the prelude to which is Bow Season.  Its arrival dresses in camo (camouflage) and walks around the Wal-Mart and the Kroger Store.  Even the vehicles get plastic camo treatment which is similar to the advertising wrapped city busses, except it’s green and grassy.   Mostly though, these vehicles cannot afford to go off-road, they cart camo-ed children to camo soccer practice, camo ballet, and camo play group.  Even available for the festivities are elastic camo ponytail holders, camo phones, and camo seat covers.  I’m sure that there are camo crocks, but doubtful that camo appears in the Jimmy Choo line.  City folks probably have to go to Escada.

Crappie season by contrast dresses in faded, torn, and camo stained from Holiday Parties, Holiday Brawls, and just plain “fallin’down”.   This tired and more sedate camo leans up frozen stiff on some dock or boathouse.  Drip usually hangs from a nose left uncovered to facilitate smoking but only after a hand, palsied by cold, succeeds in lighting the tobacco.  It’s a way to inhale heat.  For these men, dock stamping and frost blowing is to staying warm as rutting to Bucks to mate.  Emanating from a mountain of wadding which could easily transform “millefeuilles” from a culinary concept to the world of outfitting, comes a languid pole which dangles a languid line into the gelatinous black water.  Occasionally, you will see a piece of raw flesh uncover to fulfill some bodily need: smoking, drinking, or dispensing processed beer into the water in which we are fishing.  Thus bundled, it’s okay for straight men to huddle, but only against the cold.  23 cans of beer with one in hand stand at the feet of their owners.  Refrigeration is not necessary on days like today, but foam coozies are.  “Keeps your hand from getting cold.”  Crappie live in the shallows and the brush of shorelines, so you can fish without getting “out in your boat” which has been lovingly and consciously winterized in the garage (not!).

Today, River calls, nay, screams the Siren’s Song of Glenda the Good Witch, “Come out! Come out! Wherever you are…” and so forth.  The sky is that blue that only January can deliver.  It is that blue that has never heard of “Cloud” much less met one.  It is that blue that defines “infinity”.  If marshmallows came in blue, they would taste this color.  The uniformity of this blue mesmerizes me, hypnotizes me, takes me in that embrace that defies gravity, and would prevent bedsores.  Sun, at his zenith, is low and blinding.  A subtle but unmistakable gilding trimmed in shadow black highlights every tree, every blade of grass, every structure.  “Wake up!  Wake up!”  Sun insists, “I’ll not be this way again.  Stretch and toss and turn while you can before your hibernation returns.  Wake up!”  And we do.

“After breakfast, Pramela and I want to go out on River.”  I announce over 12” pancakes and bacon with warm maple syrup (real, like from trees).“I’ll come, too.”  Dale agrees which is unusual.  Dale picks and chooses his outings selectively using cryteria kept carefully cryptic.

Stunned “That’ll be great!”, I say.  I love for Dale to “come, too”.  For one thing we usually get into some meaningful conversation about him, me, us, world politics, “what are we doing?”, the daily list of those parties who need to go “directly to Hell”, or silence.  Guys talk in silence.  It drives Girls nuts.

As for Pramela, I get to row from her bow with her passenger astern rather than amidships when it’s just she and I.  When Dale makes three, she is more susceptible to current but sails less.  Her skeg is deeper in the water so she tracks better but is less nimble.  Greater momentum yields a longer glide between strokes but rowing is harder.  If you pull starboard and then port, you can make her stern waddle seductively leaving a tailtell “s” in her wake.  With just me, it’s a quadraplegics shudder.  In short, she is a different craft.  Rather than a leaf floating atop River’s face, she becomes a vessel which sits in River’s lap.

Quickly, with the exercise and Sun’s kiss, I begin to warm.  The contrast between my body temperature and the chill make the air taste rich, full, and nourishing.  Each breath a feast expelled simply for the gluttony of tasting it again.  Wind dashes about the surface like that frenetic figure in the “Bride’s Parlor”, the one that the blazing white summertime thunderhead has overtaken—Her.  He rushes West only to change his mind and retreat South.  “No that’s not right.” and he feigns back East.  Sometimes, in confusion, He stands still.  He really isn’t enthusiastic.  The waves glinting in the light pass Sun down through the clear siltless water so that River’s veil is of fine cotton moiré, today, Spanish olive green.

On the shore, we have progressed downstream to the Corps of Engineers RV Park and picnic area.  “Right this way, your table’s waiting…” belts out Sally Boyes.  Liza Minelli could be dancing and singing in her costume of black goosesteppng leather and fishnets her role from Cabaret.  It is lunchtime and a cortege of family cars laminated in fake wood grain rather than camo parade down the line of day sites.  Over each picnic table the simple Parks Dept. A-frame shelter stretches attenuatedlly upwards in that Dr. Seuss sort of way, their brown paint contrasts invitingly against the Blue, they say, “Come have Lunch!” enthusiastically.  Just as the wheels cease and the roll arrested, all doors and the trunk open on cue from the first vehicle.  Several egg-shaped children come spilling out in Easter colored ski ensembles, plus gloves, plus mittens, plus scarves, plus earmuffs, plus leggings, plus toys.  Each following vehicle repeats the process until the assembly looks like Jackson Pollock has spilled a dice cup full of peanut M&M’s across the flaxen carpeted shoreline.  Lots of running around and screaming ensue, an excuse for eating the air, feeling the sun, and staying warm. 

“Look! There’s two fags in a boat!” no one says.  But notice is taken, the “no pointing” rule is ignored, and play is suspended in waves until the chill sets in again and running around resumes.  Tag, kickball, and War Games commence.

“I shot you!” can be heard broadcast over the plain to a supposed cadavre.

“No, you didn’t!” rebuffs the alleged decedant.

“Did so!” the attacker persists as he approaches his victim.

“Did not!” the accused dead speaks still.

The attacker approaches, nearing his unsuspecting target who is smug in his denial, “BANG! Now you’re dead.” and the vanquished falls under the Reaper’s weight.

Away from the land mined and barbed wire trenches of battle, rather on the flats, you hear:  “Out!” The ball rolls down the boatramp into the icy water, “splash”.  “Now what are we gonna do!” as the rival gangs convene at water’s edge to devise a strategy.

“DAD!” transmorphs into the two syllables of the air raid siren.The take-charge father looks up anxiously from his kindling.  “What happened?” he sees a line of boys on the shore near River’s edge.  “Stay AWAY from the water!  I mean it!” he stands up, “What Happened?” more insistently.  “Who fell in the water” he turns to his wife, “Get Jason’s change of clothes out of the car and a towel!” he orders.  “Dammit, been here less than ten minutes and already Jason is in the water” he grumbles to himself.  “Is Jason in the water?” he calls as he comes toward the clutch.

“No!” in unison “It’s our ball!”

“Forget it!” Dad calls back to Jason’s mom, “It’s the ball in the water, not Jason.  This time.”  He finds a stick and retrieves the bobbing toy.  The game resumes, I believe with more than one team since their are no uniforms.  Instead the sidelines are lined with the redundant layers of batting and fill discarded for cooling and ease of motion.  In between the piles of jackets, scarves, hats, and gloves, several of the girls content themselves with jumping up and down while watching the boys run the field or save Democracy and the American Way of Life, their pony-tails whip and lash in Sun’s light. 

Looking back up river, at shelters 34&35, Fashion is the topic of the day.  The “Make-Believe” set must inflict their fashion sense on Barbie by staging a fashion show.  The older girls pore over Vogue and People in order to know what to wear to class to catch a “man”, or at least a date to the dance.

Spring must surely be on its way because Barbie, Skipper and Ken are sporting beach and active wear this morning.  Bathing suits in High Heels.  Tennis dresses in High Heels.  Poolside in High Heels.  Fashion obviously takes priority over the Weather.  And models must be of a certain fortitude to withstand these conditions. 

Interesting footnote about Ken:  just out of Mattel’s Clinic for the Mortally Mutilated.  Seems he was on a hunting trip with “the guys” when an errant shot blew up his head–shattered it.  A certain VP was in the party.  No matter, a few days in Hospital and he is good as new.  Still nothing to fill out a Speedo, yet, but liberation over Puritanism cannot be far behind Obama’s election.

Girls who are old enough to turn their attentions to womanly matters consult first their Charts and then the Best and Worst Dressed of this week’s star-studded event.

“Look at that.” they whisper lustfully over Rene Zellwegger’s decolletage.  Glancing back at their own mismatched pair wondering if it will ever happen.

“I want to wear my hair like that.” one would venture only to be heckled by the immediate presentation all the reasons such a dream is utterly impossible.  “First you have to have hair like that!”  How comforting. Colors and Seasons continue the discussion as visual aids from the magazines, sketched on pieces of paper, or in the air tumble out of the enthusiastic teenaged female mind.

By contrast, against the fence separating the picnic area from River, a languor of string beans suspended in boredom and the stupor of “couldn’t care less” rely on the rails to keep these testosterone junkies off the ground.  Our Little James Deans are overwhelmed with the art of looking cool.  All under-dressed to prove that they can take it or to flash some achievement at the gym or to work on a tan.  Talk is spare because handling one’s hormones requires lots of concentration.  Vulnerability, that feminine trait, must be expunged from the body, lest one be called “Fag!” and someone believe it.  Better to just stand still and look cool.  Nervous twitches include:  compulsive hair combing, foot tapping to an imaginary rhythm, fumbling with sticks found on the ground, scratching non-existent itches located usually on the back of the neck, adjusting one’s hat, and feeling one’s face for perchance a facial hair but more likely a zit.

Parents busy themselves with securing the vehicle, unloading materiel, spreading lunch, screaming over the din, broadcasting a general APB not parent-child specific, “Stay away from the water.  Where’s Jason?  Oh, ok.”  The dad’s build fires; mom’s lay tables; and one or two grandmother types, armed with cellophane wrapped packages of travel Kleenex provide a roving nose-blowing service.  Their clients are ambushed rather than attracted.  I think they are paid by the number of tissues used, probably a Scott Tissue Community Outreach Project.  They are committed and become maniacal under protest.

As we pass this scene, the channel comes close to this shore.  River grabs our stern and whips us around.  I have to pull hard to get us around Daymark 130.1 and back upstream.  We’re 130 miles from the Mighty Mississippi.  Our conversation turns to the upcoming meeting of the The Society for the Magnification and Glorification of Our Victorious Dead.  And the children squeal.  And the fisherman fish.  And the parents watch. Sun shines.  River sparkles.  A gorgeous day on the River.

It’s 29 degrees Fahrenheit in the Sun.

And Everyone’s Eyes Glistened

As I watched the Inauguration of President Obama on Tuesday, an enormous sense of pride and relief overcame me.  Pride that we Americans had taken an historic step.  Relief that a debt had been paid.Our country was founded on the refuge of immigration.  “Give me you tired, your poor…” is more than what the Statue of Liberty says, it’s our motto.  Unfortunately, it is politically unfeasible to carry that sort of inclusiveness to the level about which I fantasize; however, the point remains the same:  all of us are guests to this land.  None are indigenous.  Let’s not go splitting hairs about the Native American Population.  Diversity is what we hail as the cornerstone of our democracy, and yesterday we got to prove it.  Pride.

Relief that the only race brought here against their will is no longer the second-class citizen of our society.  Frighteningly, they, the creditors, repaid the debt.  I’ve never seen that before and I revere the people who showed me how it could be done.  Their actions were not the forgiveness of a debt.  But, rather the gift of reconciliation to a nation hardened by ignorance, prejudice, and tradition not to accept.

I cannot take any credit for the rise to Presidency of the first African-American.  I was blithely sitting at Asian Mint, a Dallas Thai food restaurant, with friends when the conversation began to lag so I offered, “Who am I going to vote for?” in a fey, far-off, non-committal sort of voice.  Partly, I was curious as to what the current PC tactic was for avoiding the Polite Society Axiom to “Never Talk Politics”.  Partly, I was interested in what they had to say.  Partly, my candidate, “Hill”, hadn’t won the nomination, and I was in a funk.  Partly, “if you don’t ask questions, you stay stupid.”  Partly, you have to talk about something, right?

“Palin is evil!” ejaculated my dinner partner through a mouthful of Pad Thai.  This eruption only after a full sensory shut-down and reboot recognizable by all the muscles in his face going slack.  So, having gotten my attention, because my friend is a retired University Dean and not prone to Alexandrine proclamations of probable fact, I mopped up.  The complete examination of my sanity, moral rectitude, and my values vis-à-vis civil rights ensued.  The complete evaluation showed empirically that I had no choice but support Obama/Biden.  A support limited to ticking the correct box on the ballot.

Like all of us who stood and took the oath of office with Barak, I convened a forum in my heart of my beloved dead with whom I could share the joy.  It was a special day for Sallie Mae and Albert Jackson, my black parents.

I was raised in the 60’s, in the South, in the City that assassinated John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald.  Mother desperately trying to make ends meet without looking desperate to her friends who were desperately trying to decide what color stationary the next baby announcement should be printed on.  Mother working out of the home making decoupage screens for the interior design industry in order to keep an address and wear a pretty dress to friends’ galas.  Mother filing for divorce before it became fashionable.  Father was in abstentia and the lore that surrounded him is humanly impossible.  I was just two years arrived before my home was broken.  No nuclear family.  No income.  Single Parents. 

Grandparents’ homes were both within walking distance of a toddler; however, they distracted themselves with business empires, church circles, garden clubs, women’s clubs, trade organizations, and traveling between houses in France and corporate apartments overseeing jobsites in foreign lands.  But, God does provide.  In my case, it was Sallie Mae Jackson. 

Imported from East Texas in a time before African-Americans were Black.  Before they were even Negroes.  Their common name ended in “-ger”, southern women would say, “-grah” indicating gentility, and those who had gone to finishing school would say, “-gre” swallowing the final syllable in the French style.  She was handpicked off the farm by my grandmother to “help” her with the domestic duties including and not limited to the care, feeding, and raising of my Father.  The story goes that I have barely drawn breath upon this earthly plane when somehow Father gets separated from the nest in retaliation for some misdeed either real or imagined.  Here the details have always been sketchy and cryptic.  Let’s just leave it at, this was a time: when women did not work, especially Dallas women of a certain postal code and if they did it was not for need of money.  When husbands and wives did not divorce, especially when there were children involved.  When wives were not shrews, husbands were not philanderers, and in-laws did not get involved.  When it was assumed that children would be provided for and there was no need for CPS.  Donna Reed was on the air.  Jackie and Jack were in the White House.  The Viet Nam War was merely a “police action”.  And Spencer Tracy was marrying off Elizabeth Taylor in Father of the Bride.

Mae Jackson, dropped off by her husband, Albert, who was working as a brick mason for my grandfather’s construction firm, arrives at the back door of the house we lived in rent-free on my grandfather, Pap’s, land at 3633 N. Fitzhugh, Dallas.  Standing in November’s cold gray drizzle on the deck that my father had built, she knocks deferentially but insistently on the glass pane.  It is before sunrise; Albert must be to work at a construction site.  Mae has to try to raise the household.  Mother skidding barefoot across the icy hardwood floors that lay throughout the first floor of this pier and beam house comes to let Mae in. 
Standing on first one foot pressed to the other for warmth, then the reverse she shivers in the cold kitchen.  Toys and clothes scattered throughout the adjoining family area swamp up to the laundry set which were too great a luxury to be banished behind clothes doors unlike today.

With her eyes swollen from weeping and worry over the Future, Mother lets Mae in.  “What are you doing here, Mae?”

“I’s hear Mr. Mitchell [my father] dunst provide fo’ his chirrens.” Mae responds factually without judgment.  Her hat and coat remain.  Her purse in both hands by the strap.

“Yes.”  Mother lets a trail of worry fall from her cheek.

“Well’um [Well, ma’am],  I’s here to run dis house.”  Mae explains.

“Mae, I have just gotten a job in a showroom.  I have no business clothes.  I have past due grocery bills.  Mike and John need school clothes.  The utility accounts are late.  I cannot pay you.”

“Miss Vivian, we’ve gots chirren to raise.  If Mr. Mitchell won’t do it, guess I’s has to.  Hope I do better than I’s done better wit ‘im.”  Her hat and coat came off.  Her purse found a spot in the cupboard next to the paper bags as if they had always been its assigned space.  The oven lit.  The larder raided for any bit of something for breakfast.  “Go out of dis kitchen.  Git John and Mike up.  How they can sleep with that baby [Alexander] bawlin’ is besides me.  Where is the phone?  G’on”, she insisted.  After mother left, Mae called Sedalia who raised a family next door to Mitchell’s mother.  “Sedalia, I’s down at Miss Vivian’s.  Chil’, these peoples ain’t got nothin’.  Mike and John ain’t got no lunch for school ain’t nothin’ to make ‘em with.  Um…hum,” she hums through her lips which is Black women tongue clicking.  “You makes they lunch.  I’s come ‘n’ git ‘em while they’s havin’ breakfast.  Um…Hum.  Um…Hum, I ‘no’.  Chil’, I hopes it don’t com’a rain.  They’s no raincoats.  They’s not cleaner bags t’ make’m.  They’s nothin’.  Um…Hum.”

That’s how Love came into my life.

Mae became the only mother I knew during the daylight hours.  Vivian went on to become a successful business woman in her own right despite her demons and alcoholism.  Mitchell had more time to capture my brothers’ hearts, than he did mine.  When the split became final, the two sides of my parentage once fast and earnest friends divided and became further and further apart.  A succession of walls ensured the isolation as the gap widened.  Mae cleaned the house, mended the clothes, made the meals, taught me to walk, talk, laugh, and play.  Mike taught me how to ride a bike and fly a kite.  John taught me to be devious without getting caught, “When you do get caught, you best first defense is denial.”

My early days were spent as Mae’s constant companion and she mine.  Our house fronted on a busy thoroughfare and backed up to Turtle Creek.  Not a very child friendly environment; so, consequently, there were no children to play with while my brothers were in school.  Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner came out of Mae’s hands as well as bathing, dressing, and nursing.  Much of the day, I was left to my own diversions because Mae had a house to run.  Eventually we moved to a neighborhood of children, I began elementary school, and got a bicycle which took me well out of the house for hours.  However, when my youthful life became confusing or painful, it was Mae who would organize the facts, sprinkle in a little wisdom, and comfort me with one of two maxims which I will abbreviate here:  “Hit ‘em back, ‘cept harder.”  Or “Fuck ‘em”.  Even today, I still have not mastered which to apply to which situation.

During puberty, Albert would “carry” me to school.  In the car, he would deliver morning sermons on the harshness of men, the incomprehensibility of their actions, and how to deal with it.  He insisted that you must always stand in the light.  If you stand in the shadow, you’ll rot.  Pretty heady stuff for an angry child in training to be a greedy materialistic capitalist.  But those lessons came from my white parents and my schooling and the example of my peers.

I have more than once relaxed in Mae’s comment in response to my envy, adolescent and beyond, over my peers’ ski trips, cars, clothes, wealth, privilege:  “Somes of us’s don’t gets all that.  Some’s of us’s gets respect, admiration, and love.”  Dale Harris teaches me what those can buy.

I remember more than once one of my black parents turning to the other and saying,  “Lord, it’s so harud to be’s a white chil’”.  It was Albert’s mantra as he sat in the yard (he almost never came into the house) and grieved the suicide of my brother, John.  Sitting on the back stoop like a football, he comforted himself by rocking back and forth, a regular drip of tear onto his shirt,  “Lord, it’s so harud to be’s a white chil’…Lord, it’s so harud to be’s a white chil’” he would murmur to himself.

To their friends, their church, their lodge, they were “Mrs. Jackson” or “Mr. Jackson”.  To each other they were “Honey”.  To us they were “Mae&Albert”.  Since they administered to my formative years, I commend my spirit to the Black race; and my body to the White. 

Doris Faye and I were walking yesterday afternoon and we struck up a conversation with the Security Patrol at a neighboring shopping center.  He emigrated from the Congo in the 80’s and became a US Citizen in ’85.

“Did you vote?”  I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you see the inauguration?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a special day.”

“Yes.” he said, “But, the special is not in the day or Obama himself.  It in the fact that America has finally lived up to its creed:  ‘And liberty and justice for All.’  Now, we have an administration of Black, White, Hispanic, and Oriental.  For years, I’ve heard, ‘color doesn’t matter.  color doesn’t matter.’ now we will see and can believe that ‘Color Doesn’t Matter’.

I hadn’t thought of it before, but in talking to this Black African-American, I heard myself quoting Mae&Albert:  “If the Past is ugly, don’t look at it.  Instead, Focus on the Future—on what there is to gain; not what you have got to lose.”    Most of the blacks I have known have had this higher perspective and the patience, persistence, and perseverance to pursue it.  For this reason, I am comforted, because if ever there were a people on earth who could restore America as a world leader it would be the African-Americans who will light our way.  They’ve overcome so much more.

“Free at last!  Free at last”:  They from Oppression.  I from Shame.  On Tuesday 20 Jan 09, we collectively held hands and Leapt in Faith and Abandon gleefully into a world we know not.