From what Paul and Bill, Gus and Nick, and later on a-guy-who-used-to-come-to-the-bar-but-I-never-learned-his-name can remember, every few weeks they’d soberize and confer on what next to liquidate.
All the cars went. This took time because, in those days, guys would often keep more than one, sometimes several. Paul says he owned a nice ’58 Pontiac and a ’60 Chevy half-ton. But his pet was a ’65 Rover 2000, loaded with whiz-bang gadgets. Paul and Bill were relatively well-off, having worked summers in the Alberta oil patch and down in Texas.
They got good money for Bill’s near-new Monte Carlo. After a while, they started clearing out boats, trailers, motorcycles, ride-’em lawnmowers, mini-bikes, go-carts, ten-speeds—any kind of toy they had around.
The cars-for-drinks phase lasted the better part of three years. After that they trickled back to work, but old habits die just about never, especially where booze is concerned. Bottles in glove-boxes. After-work beers stretching ’til dawn. The bar became their Community Centre. There was guy-strife, marital discord, liver damage, mental breakdowns, DWIs. Through attrition the whole thing officially broke up after a decade.
Paul stayed at it though, full-on, going it near alone. Being that he ended up solitary, still driving cab, on-the-bottle daily, it was no surprise. He’s the classic rut-runner, a totally addictive personality and damn near powerless over it. He’s the first, last, and everyplace-else-in-line to admit it. A year ago he tried to quit cigarettes. Got the pills, patch, laser therapy, counselling, gum, sold all his ashtrays, everything. He lasted three days.
Bill and Paul are the final bar regulars around which the stragglers, late-comers, fringe types, and grunge tourists gravitate. Since they banned smoking, Paul has to get up every ten minutes and go outside.
He shifted uncomfortably in his heavy bandage and showed me where the glass had bit into his armpit.
“Man, that looks like it smarts.”
“Sure does.”
I noted a grease patch on his hand. “The accident?” “Naw. I was working on my car. Oh yeah. You got a tool kit on that bicycle of yours?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got to adjust my idle.”
We went to the parking lot and got my tools out of the pannier. Paul started the Honda and yanked up the hood. We tinkered and listened.
The hum of the motor was monotonous. Eventually Paul went to shut the thing off. He lurched, reaching in to get the key.
When the motor was quiet, I said: “It might be okay now.”
Paul tossed the door shut. “Yeah.” He pulled smokes from his jacket.
“So, seriously. How’s work?”
“Just awful.”
“Hoo … man.”
We stood for a time in the sunlight.
“What are you reading these days?”
Paul exhaled smoke. “Oh, lots of stuff.” He wielded his good arm to slam down the hood.
Bip, Bip, Bip ...
Rightly or wrongly it was me who suggested we throw a dinner party, though because Paul can’t smoke anywhere else I assumed it would be at his place. But somehow it evolved that because it’s bigger we would have it at mine.
So I borrowed Simon’s harvest-size table he got from IKEA. As he and his girlfriend Joan were on the guest list, this was easy to do. Then it was me who went ahead and designed the menu and invited the guests and just assumed Paul would cook. He is such a damn good cook.
“I’m not that good. I didn’t even get past intermediate pastry.”
“Forget pastry. Your meat loaf alone is worth committing a crime over …”
Paul had had many people to his apartment for dinner. He had trained at—but not graduated from, alas—Le Cordon Bleu, worked in a hotel kitchen in Denmark, and could make things like Coquilles St Jacques and vichyssoise and rack of lamb and duck à l’orange, all while puffing on a smoke and watching the hockey game. He would dissolve between the living room and kitchen. You hardly knew when he went and when he returned. He was conditioned to have all his ingredients ready to go—mise en place, as it was called—and to know how to season each dish to the acme of flavour. He cleaned the kitchen as he went, so it didn’t even look like anybody was working in there. And all the while keeping the perfect music on. I was persuaded that with him at my side it wasn’t too much of a stretch to transpose all this finery to a seven-member dinner party at my place.
Paul liked my apartment well enough. It had a fireplace just like his. I had a backdoor stoop where he could go out and suck back a cigarette.
•
Saturday morning I went out and spent a shocking amount of money on a deboned organic leg of lamb. I gathered all the vegetables I thought we needed. Fennel. Yams. Yellow potatoes. Things I don’t usually get. I phoned Paul in his cab. There was the sound of traffic on his cell.
“Busy for a change?”
“Yeah. Fares everywhere. Money coming in.”
“My man, you sound like you’re at it.”
“At last.”
“I hope you’re not too much at it.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m depending on you.”
“Why shouldn’t you depend on me?”
“Because in half an hour you’ll be headed for the bar. Right?”
“So?”
“So. I need you in a different place.”
“What do you mean? Where are you?”
“I’m where I should be. In my kitchen with sixty bucks’ worth of lamb sitting on my cutting board.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“What do you mean, oh, that’s right? You agreed to do a dinner party tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah—”
“So I’m doing the preliminaries like you said.”
“Good. Okay.”
“So remind me what’s in the marinade.”
“Oil. Vinegar. Wine. Garlic. Salt. Pepper.”
“Okay, I got all that.”
“Did you roast up the garlic like I told you?”
“Last night.”
“Good. Did you get the rosemary?”
“I had some from before.”
“Make sure it’s not too dry.”
“I made sure.”
“Lots of salt.”
“Okay.”
“Balsamic.”
“Got it.”
“Lemon pepper.”
“Yup.”
“Extra virgin.”
“Got ’er.”
“Fresh parsley.”
“Just chopped it.”
“Okay. So you mulch all that stuff together and paint it on the meat.”
“Right.”
“Then you put the whole thing in a plastic bag with some cut up pieces of fennel and put it in the refrigerator.”
“Got it.”
“When do you want to eat?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Who’s all coming?”
“Simon and Joan.”
“Okay.”
“You. Me. Nick.”
“Yeah. Who else?”
“Well, we kinda owe it to Jeannie.”
Paul did not speak. I could hear the traffic more clearly on the line.
“I hope that’s okay, Paul.”
“That’s fine. I can handle it.”
“She’s been darn nice to us.”
“I agree.”
“So what if she brings somebody.”
“Who’s she going to bring?”
“Damned if I know. Maybe nobody. Or some show-boy or other. Maybe even a girlfriend.”
“Hokay …”
“Paul. You’ll be fine.”
“Hokay. This is your thing.”
“I thought it was our thing. It was our thing when we first thought of it.”
“When did we first think of it?”
“You know.”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of clouded up over here.”
“Well uncloud. This ha
s to be a cooperative effort.”
“Whatever.”
“I want you to be here.”
“I’m going to be there.”
“I need your help.”
“You have the skills.”
“I need solid cookery talent on hand. So I can be the good conversationalist.”
“Simon’s a good talker.”
“Yeah, Simon is good if he’s on. But we need a mix.”
“You have Joan and Jeannie. You’ve got a mix.”
“Don’t start waffling on me.”
“I’m not waffling.”
“When do I put this thing in the oven?”
“Don’t forget to sear it first.”
“Oh. You sear it?”
“In a big pot. With a little oil and as hot as you can get it. You need that brown to get the sugars.”
“Okay, now I know I need you.”
“I’ll be there. What time?”
“I told everybody six-thirty.”
•
I spent the rest of the day cleaning the place and chopping vegetables, putting off opening wine until the first guests arrived. I seared the lamb as instructed and put it in the oven on its bed of fennel. Joan walked over from Simon’s place, alone. I took her coat and gave a quizzical look.
“Oh. Simon’s going to be a few minutes.”
“Huh? He’s never late.”
“Well. Today …” Joan’s sweet countenance flagged into a comic frown. “Actually he wanted me to tell you. He can come but he might not be such an entertaining dinner guest.”
“Let me opine, he accidentally went too far into a new load of weed.”
“How did you know?”
“Twenty years of close friendship. I’ve seen him comatose. How bad is he this time?”
“It was way stronger than he thought.”
“So he’s ambulatory, I take it. But semi-catatonic.”
“I think that’s the word.”
“Oh man. The only guy I know beside me who’s got decent conversation skills and something to talk about and he gets slain by a viral batch of BC Bud. I hope Nick’s on tonight.”
“Everything will be fine. Paul is cooking for us …”
“Ah, well. That’s another issue.”
“Oh?”
“Never mind. Let’s start drinking.”
“Absolument!”
I tuned the CD changer to random.
We sipped Chardonnay.
Joan sniffed the air. “I love the smell of warm rosemary.”
“It reminds me of walks in the woods. Even though I’ve hardly ever walked in any woods.”
“It reminds me I grew up in Quebec.”
“Yeah, it has that eastern settled smell of feasts long ago. A tradition of meat-roasting. Established middle-class white people in comfortable cottages cooking animals in late fall. Affluence. Power. Leadership.”
“Houses with servants.”
“Politics. The entrenched servitude of the masses.”
“All of that.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Joan.”
“Why? Expecting trouble?”
“Yes.”
The doorbell went off just as my heavy word hit the floor. The effect was so artificially melodramatic Joan started giggling and was still at it when I got back up the stairs with Nick close behind, his super-cold bottle nearly anaesthetizing my hand before I could plop it standing up on the cutting board. “Wow, man. What did you do? Dip this thing in liquid oxygen?”
“I like my whites cold. Near frozen. Like the landscape of this great country.”
“Hah ha …” Joan was still in a laughy mode. “Do you always talk like that?”
“Joan, meet Nick. Nick, Joan. You guys have something in common. You’re both trying to break into art galleries.”
“I don’t know about Joan, but in my case I’d do better with a crowbar and tungsten drills.”
“Oh. Do you paint?”
“After a fashion, I’m told.”
“I’m a sculptor. Mostly in metal these days.”
“Well it sounds like you might already have the tools on hand. Shall we get tanked up?” I handed Nick a glass. “And go break into an art space together tonight?”
“Joan is waiting for Simon to show up.” I eyed Nick. “Her boyfriend.”
“Of course. All the best ones are taken.”
“Ohh …” Joan was suitably demure but nonetheless enthralled.
•
Paul wandered in at seven and planted himself on a kitchen stool. He handed me a warm bottle of white. “Put it in the freezer.”
I poured him some of Nick’s frigid Blanc de Blanc. I watched his hands. I did not like the look of his face.
Simon followed a few minutes later. He took one glance at Paul and made immediately for the living room. I put everything on automatic pilot and herded the others there myself.
“I want scintillation …” I swept my glass hand grandiloquently. “Pure intellect tonight.”
Joan was game. “I’ve done my reading.”
“Excellent.”
“And what all’s for dinner besides lamb?”
“Well let’s see. Roast potatoes. Candied Brussels sprouts …”
“Sounds fab and smells even better.”
“Just don’t overdo the yams.” Paul stood up waggling his empty glass. “I assume it’s where it’s always at?”
“I’ve got one going in the door of the fridge.”
“Don’t let’s forget the one in the freezer.”
“You’ll have to help me with that, Paul …”
While Paul was by himself in the kitchen I heard the back door open and there were voices. Before I could get there, Jeannie had introduced her date, a gaunt, frowning young guy.
“Oh, hi.” She turned to me. “Thanks for having us, dahhhling. This is Damian.”
“Hey, hello.” I offered my hand.
Damian barely gripped and lightly shook. “What’s that cooking?”
“Lamb.”
“Have you got strong wine? Heavy stuff? Like Retsina?”
“No.” I spoke while noticing that their hands were empty. There was no paper-wrapped silhouette on the cutting board. There did not appear to be a bottle in Jeannie’s handbag.
“Well you should.”
“Oh?”
“If you’re going to cook something leaden like lamb …”
We all let that statement hang as Paul poured the rest of my Chardonnay into glasses for the two of them.
Jeannie sipped and her face darkened. “I hope you don’t mind. Damian has to be home by midnight.”
“Why should I mind?”
“How late are we eating?”
“Soon. Not late. I guess.” I turned. “When do we eat, Paul?”
“Accidentally.”
“What?”
“On purpose.” He wandered back to the living room.
Jeannie rolled her eyes. “I see he’s the usual Paul.”
“Aw, come on, kid. Don’t be like that …”
I looked again to Damian. He appeared fascinated by every item in the room. I noticed how extra thin he was. All-black clothing. Large, shiny, platform shoes.
“… And besides …” I turned back to Jeannie. “I see you are the usual Jeannie, Jeannie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why didn’t you bring wine?”
“I’m broke. And other than this …” She tipped her glass toward my face. “I’m not drinking.”
“Okay. No biggie. But just go easy on Paul.”
“Am I being hard?”
“Tonight, for some crazy reason, almost everything seems to be hard.”
“Oh, surely he’s not still pining.”
“Pining? Of course he’s still pining. Pining’s a light word for it.”
“Oh for goodness sakes.”
“You know him. You went out with him.”
“For three months.
Two years ago.”
“Elephants and Paul.”
“You don’t think he’s still interested?”
As Jeannie and I talked, Damian had wandered away. I sensed he wasn’t heading for the living room.
Jeannie leaned close. “Damian’s just out of rehab.” She narrowed her eyes. “Be cool, okay?”
“Rehab? We just fed him some wine.”
“It’s okay as long as he doesn’t have too much.”
“What rehab program allows for limited drinking?”
“The problem wasn’t alcohol, okay? Just relax. I’ve known him since high school.”
Joan walked in with two empty glasses. “I thought I heard voices. How are you, Jeannie?”
“Joan. You look lovely.”
I heard the bathroom door close heavily. While the women got reacquainted I pulled the cork on another bottle and charged out to the living room. There was no conversation. Paul was sitting limp, staring doe-eyed at the fire. Simon was reading a CD cover. As I refilled glasses the bathroom flung open and Damian’s hard shoes tromped their way on the hardwood into the living room. He held out an empty glass and gave a kind of smirk. The women entered the scene. I filled Damian’s glass. We all seated ourselves.
“So, Paul …” Jeannie’s acting voice offered her interpretation of reticence and the concomitant amount of courage necessary to overcome it. “How’s life?”
The look Paul gave her said no sale. “Oh, blih-blah, blih-blah.”
As in awkward situations down through history, chance played a part: As Paul blithered and stopped, the music took a mechanical pause and the room assumed crypt-like stillness.
“Hey cool!” Damian’s interjection resonated within the absence of sound. “There’s documented observation of nonsense diction among South American tribes. It’s considered a sign of hostility.”
I pounced. “Thank goodness somebody in here took the trouble to study anthropology. It’s a balm for dinner parties the world over, don’t you think?”
Joan giggled. “Thank you, Margaret Mead.”
“Bullshit.” Jeannie was sour. “You made that up, Damian.”
“Of course I did.” He tipped his glass all the way back, guzzling. “None of your friends would have picked up on it, though, you dumb skank. The least you could do is play along.”
“It sounded fine to me.” I chuckled hard, hoping for the best.
“It really was quite amusing.” Joan was right with me. I could have kissed her full on the mouth.
Anticipated Results Page 2