Friday, September 26, 2003
The Spirit and the Flesh: Chuckles Looks Inward; Adolpho Steps Out
Good yontiff to you all. Tonight begins one of my most intense periods of introspection and spirituality, the head of the year or Rosh Hashana - the first of ten days in which my forebears tell me I should clear my karma and get my head on straight. I’m not too good at following such orders usually, but this particular holyday really works for me. The hollow blast of shofars, the parables and prayers that salvage for me a sense of self-worth even in the midst of self-abnegation, the official permission to hit “restart” - I get a lot out of this process.
Maybe I’ll hear something tonight or tomorrow that will be worth sharing with you all here; maybe not. That’s not why I go. However, I’d be sorely distracted if I thought I wasn’t keeping up with my posts during my renewal phase - I’m just that shallow. What’s more, you all have given me a significant psychic boost in this past year, and I know you’ll be in my mind as I daven with the jewbu-s of Chochmat HaLev. Y’all are stuck in my head, whether I like it or not. I need to make accomodations for you if I hope to keep my focus where it belongs.
So here’s my proposal: Last year I wrote a story or five. (Not sure which.) The way it’s set up, though, gives me posting material for today and all of next week. So I’ll post the first portion here and now, and next week I’ll put up the rest, one chunk at a time. It’s kind of long (even by my standards) so you might just burn out on it. That’ll be fine. I’m comfortable dumping too much here for you; it’s the failure to dump enough that would ride my mind. So without further ado, I humbly present:
ADOLPHO’S BIG NIGHT
Adolpho stood with his back to the door while the others crowded around a cocktail table, leaning over it, focused on the effort of conversing over the throb of the house mix. The unfinished brick walls of the club compressed the long room, enforcing conviviality among the many nighthawks stopping in for drinks. Strangers were starting new friendships and friends forged new intimacies over finger food and tidy cocktails. Adolpho and his party stood near the back, where a dj spun vinyl in front of the door of a huge safe from which the front face had been removed, replaced with glass that exposed the massive mechanisms inside. The postindustrial tone was echoed by rippling plastic sheeting running the length of one wall and fiber-optic sputniks opposite it over the bar. The light was low but not dim, the air was rich but not thick, and the sound was pervasive but not intrusive.
They were seven in number at that cloistered corner of the unfamiliar venue - three women and four men, six each with a scant wedge of the table and Adolpho a pace or two to the side. He wore a black cap with a black brim, a loose jacket and sturdy trousers. His dark hair shone against the olive skin of his face; his dark eyes were half-hidden by drooping lids; he nodded his head, barely perceptibly, to the music.
The others with whom he’d arrived that evening formed a disparate group of old friends, new friends, and virtual strangers, newly arrived in town for a conference. As with any random handful of people, they found they shared certain common traits and tastes, the discovery and celebration of which occupied their full attention. Each strained to hear and share the others’ contributions, eager for that tidbit which would reflect their own experience, that would reinforce their nascent affiliation. Their drinks were sweating on the table and their foreheads nearly touched as they leaned to glean the gems of conversation each was casting, thirsty for every word that could be heard above the pulsing beat.
One, who stood with her back to the dj, glanced up, then stood and looked around, surprised. The room was not so crowded as it had been just moments earlier. “What happened to Adolpho?,” she inquired. The others set aside their conversation and joined her as she peered into the murky corners of the club. “Where’s Adolpho?,” was their joint refrain.