If you could properly understand time, as the Tralfamadorans do, then you could be able to understand faith.  You could have faith.  You would not be crushed, put-down, run over by the pressing concerns of middle age.  You could take things in stride, as Jesus did, and even be able to implement your own sort of faithful plan.  You would know the foolishness of attempting to please two masters;  you would see things correctly.  And faith would be key.  The faith to embrace the fictional, the seeming fiction of Jesus Christ and all the wise thinking that comes from planets wiser than ours, tuned into by adepts and masters and wise men and women, captured, written down, put into philosophical form, as if in the very face of "real world reality, socio-economic, physical, political, militarily, technological, etc., etc., etc..


Sunday night, the ironic return to work, in the evening of the 7th day, a Sabbath to some.  Late afternoon.  I'm going to work.

Wait around, after the set-up, and no one shows up, but then a familiar couple, sweet retired folk, visiting from Oklahoma.  Tony and Claire.  They are surprised I remember them.  "It's easy.  You're my friends."  His usual, Makers and Sweet Vermouth, no bitters, no cherry, almost equal parts.  "As I get older, I like 'em sweeter."  She likes the glass of white burgundy, a Viré, labelled as a Macon Village.  We catch up.  They look slightly older in the not exactly counted months, but they are in one piece, and he comes with her as she does business.  Bike rides in Montana.  We talk of Bourdain, and like me, Tony was devastated, had read every book.  Yeah, what a shock.  What great work he did, on television, for us lonely bastards drinking wine by ourselves, living uncomplicatedly after a shift.  We talk about Jim Harrison.  Doing our dishes, in other words, and resting.  Was it the Burgundy show, yes, with Bocouse...  I saw Johnny Apple once, down below, drinking a Costiere de Nimes...  The recognizable shirt...

The lady likes her red Burgundy.  Beaune wines in particular.  I recommend the Savigny Les Beaune over the Tollot Beaux Chorey Les Beaune.  The younger wine seems better to me.  I find the Chorey a bit muddy.  I run down to the cave.

And then the lull.  Nothing.  I find a book in the office, a little refresher on French Wine.  And it's good.  Very good.  Thorough.  The right blend of history, grapes, good wine, bad wine, over the years.  Bordeaux merchants blocking Rhone wines from seeing the light of day in London...  Roman history, papal history, Gallic war history...  The AOC...

And then, the DC ABRA inspector.  Downstairs servers come up, where are liquor orders for the last three years records...  None of us can find them in the dusty corners we look in, and just then, a regular couple not seen in a long time...



Finally, I get home.  Pretty exhausted from the wanes and the waxings, the slow slow slow and then the bump at the end which drives one to drink out of sheer rising nervousness and anxieties that make the heart palpitate and run.  Screeching inside, and I can only calm down after putting most things away after the dishwasher run, the busboy sweep, badgered by the rest, need to eat something good, a chicken curry at the end of the night, with whatever wine is open...

Home, I nap.  Want to sleep, couch.  Television on...  Neurotic, feeling trapped, worries about mom...



The Tralfamadorians...  They were amongst the wise beings from outer space who helped the human ape of rugged ape face become civilized, and one of their things was wine.  And cooking.  Good cooking.  And matching wine with cooking.  The Romans, it turns out, brought the big escargot they liked to Burgundy, along with the garlic and the parsley, and the herbs.  The local wine, planted originally by them, that became the tradition...

Human beings, wishing to cook, developed gastronomy.  This is one thing we can share, and not argue about, no wish to kill each other over parsley, a wine match, a braising technique....



He gets a day off.  He is tired anyway from the hectic pace of jazz night.  The trees in the distance wave their branches lazily in the still light.  The text, around one in the afternoon, waking him up, it's slow, you take the night off if you want, sure...  It's famous Wine Tasting Night.  Guilty, but exhausted.  Even after only two nights...  People expect him to be there, as he's been there for years and years, putting on the show...  Allergies to the pollen, tree, grass, ragweed...  He's felt this way for months now.  And the muscles are tight, weary from the night, and even his mind is dull.  I need to slow down, anyway, he says to himself.  I can't do this at this pace anymore.  I need help.  He knows he will miss friends, whose cycle it is to come see him;  he knows this deep down, and he is even psychic about it, predicting visitations from out of the blue.  "I was just thinking about you," he would say.   But he had to protect himself.  It had been hard lately, with his old mom sounding confused...

You pay too much attention to your body, his mom tells him.  Hmm.  Well...