Thursday, October 07, 2004
the yummy lunch (updated and finalized!)
I just finished typing up a powerful and moving essay about having lunch with
Jules
and
Pete. As I finished the final touches of editing, I somehow disappeared the whole thing and now I’m mad. The story of the crazywoman and the creepy cat will have to wait for later today at the earliest, when I hope I get a chance to update this entry. Meantime, here’s the photographic evidence that, at least, Jules and Pete were both in a room with yellow walls. I’ll get back to this with more details when I have more time.
UPDATED: IN THE EXTENDED ENTRY!
Well I can’t quite reconstruct my original post, what with it being clever and poignant and crap, so here’s a syndicated version that should be better than nothing:
The day was overcast and chilly when I walked the two blocks to the power company waterfall to wait for Pete. He soon appeared from behind the partywagon and we strolled half a block to the muni lines, down the stairs and through the stiles and onto a K car for two stops to Powell street, where we disembarked underneath a ritzy mall, rising to the sidewalk next to the Nordstrom’s valets, and then around the corner and down half a block to Jessie Street, which meets up with Mint Street up behind the old federal Mint, standing grizzled and dour with worn stone columns, but behind its austere facade is only jumbled vacancy, and behind the building, Jessie and Mint intersect and turn into each other at a corner where windwhipped trash settles down for the night and a stuttering neon sign says Taqueria Balazo. There, our date, the gorgeous Jules, stood pacing with radiant impatience. We entered the restaurant, ordered, waited (Pete and I had fish, it was fried fresh for us), ate prodigously. We had a comfortable conversation punctuated with some comfortable silences, and as I sat in the digitalis frenzy of the yellow room hung with Mexican folk art and Posada prints, I truly felt that this short break in the middle of my workday was almost as good as a mid-week weekend.
Sated, we left and loitered outside on the stoop for a few minutes. While there we saw:
* A woman, surely younger than she looked, but looking like a terrible crone; she seemed even from a distance to be either psychotic or homeless, and probably both. She wore mismatched clothes: a skirt that was once too formal for this setting but now looked like it belonged with the garbage strewn around the alley, an erstwhile-perky little hat, eccentric accessories arranged uncarefully. As she walked up (her steps clenched and tight), Jules escaped to the other side of her car, leaving Pete and me to confront her. She spoke to us through pursed lips, her eyes angry and cold: “You shouldn’t have killed him. You had no right. He wasn’t doing nothin’ and you shouldn’t have done it and now he’s dead. And what are you going to do about it?” I saw she was serious, bitter, utterly convinced; I tried to respect her with my response: “It wasn’t me; I wasn’t there.” Pete started giggling. The woman turned to him and told him it wasn’t funny; Pete agreed. She turned back to me; I was expecting more accusations. Instead she asked me for spare change. I dug out thirty-five cents and told her, “There you go.” And so, she went.
* As we chatted idly in the suddenly-warm afternoon sun, Jules looked up over Pete and my heads and stated matter-of-factly, “That cat is mummified.” We found what she was describing quickly enough: a normal-sized housecat that had dessicated into nothing more than parchment over bones, posed in a standing posture with tail curled under, each vertebrae visible, each rib pressing out against the skin that had closed like shrinkwrap over the skeleton, empty eyesockets gaping, unfleshed paws poised eternally to scratch and claw at ghostnip toys. The ex-pet hung from wires in the window, overseeing the crusty corner like a sentry from beyond the grave, but one that wouldn’t give a damn whether you trespassed or not.
Jules then drove Pete and me back to our respective offices and then the sprites spirited her away on wings of petrochemical exhaust. I was sorry to have had so short a time with my friends, but grateful to have seen them at all. Next time I’ll take more flattering pictures, I promise. In the meantime, that was one lunch that continued to satisfy me for two days so far - and still counting.
