I had written some, and then I'd listened to some music, and then I grew bored.  Jeremy had texted me from work, so I got engaged with that, and yes, maybe let's meet for one at Du Coin.  I'm only going to have one or two, and after that, fine, I'll get back and cook the duck breast I'd bought earlier at the market.  I walk down the street, past a small party gathered outside, then down, past the Quaker Meeting House construction site, across the avenue at the crosswalk, then behind Du Coin then around and in through the front door, the bay cafe windows open to the street.

There's my friend, fellow barman, still young and youthful, lean and strong, handsome, seated with the proprietor at the usual round table.  The proprietor, Michel, is enjoying duck breast himself, crusted darkly on the outside, reddish pink evenly within, a bottle of Bobby Kacher imports Costieres de Nimes rosé before him on the table, and he takes a Leffe goblet glass and pours me some, and we sit for a good talk.  "Good cabbage," he says, "Excellent," lifting a fork, and I see it is cabbage, not turnip.  "Well, let's close the kitchen, eh," he says.  Soon he is smoking a narrow cigar.  Talk of Panama.  Stories about his first days as a waiter in New York, unfamiliar with martini terminology (coming from Switzerland, a place where martini means sweet vermouth), breaking a bottle of chardonnay in the ice bin after pouring a glass, old Tony the bartender, who eventually grew to like him.  Yup.  I remember dropping a plate of enchiladas on a guys back thirty years ago, who luckily was not burned.  Yup, that's how you start.  The manager gave him a complimentary tee shirt and bought their dinner.

I eye the man's dinner, the magret sliced thinly.  I've been low on funds lately, don't like to splurge.  The kitchen is about to close anyway, don't want to be that guy.

Then the Chef comes in, and let's go to Russian House, uh oh, okay...  And we all go.  The adventure of a Friday night, meeting a mutual friend at the bar there.  Baltica beer, no. 7, and then a round, chilled shots of fig vodka, at least low in alcohol, appearing on the bar...  Stories, how to season steak...

I tip the barman what I would have spent on a decent dinner at the bistrot.   He's a Ph.D, from Western Massachusetts in Slavic religious history.  I feel I know.  Nights like that.



When seasons change, there is a day you rest the entire day away.  Silence.  Peace.  This is something writers like to do, to lay quietly and think of nothing.  Meditating.  Focus on a chakra.  No wish even to read anything.  A day of quiet, as if to detox from all the experiences of the week.  Jesus going out into the desert to find the pure thoughts of literary critique.  This might sound as exaggeration, but there is the same thought to it, to eliminate all the distracting things from one's mind, and it is no surprise that Satan comes with promises, each of a different sort.  Hunger, fame, sex, power, money.  Ease in this life.  No need to have to cook for one's own self.


But we needed the stories from up at the bar.  We needed a tale to tell in order to tell the larger one, somehow.  We needed our little toy soldiers and our little imaginary game in order to absorb the truth of reality, which we can never know anyway.  The lesson of death.   The death of a man beyond a friend.  The death of a symbol.

I had thought earlier of just going out and playing guitar, my Irish songs, Pogues songs on a street corner...  But I don't get much of a chance to talk to Mr. Jeremy, and it is good to be in his presence.  He's logged a lot of trustworthy solid hours, and I have the sense he is going somewhere, native smarts and capable practicality to apply and learn.  He's been out on a farm lately, where the farming is real, as real as the culling of chickens and turkey.  He has a source of goat milk.  He and the chef enjoy talking things like this over, and would that I had better powers of concentration.

The death in the Dying Gaul family has been hard to come to terms with, as if our friend were about to reappear, coming up the stairs in a Polo shirt with his blazer and jeans, looking for a good dinner, first a glass of champagne and a seat at the bar.

It gets later and later, and when we get out of the old Russia House I think of going across the street to the Rite Aid for a frozen DiGiorno sausage pepperoni green pepper mushroom onion pizza, but am dissuaded and walk home, alone, back up the street, duck sausages to heat up, a dinner I should have eaten a while ago.


The next day, the Fall Equinox and sleep and rest, talking to my old mom twice on the phone when she calls.

What one does not like is hypocrisy.  And yet in this world we get messages, such as, "just trying to see if we can all get along," and then receiving the opposite.  I suppose I am fortunate not to be a New Yorker, as much as I would like to be one in an ideal world.

Over dinner, the proprietor talks privately of his opinion on the Me Too movement, the Call Out culture...

Jesus came back from the desert, back from his detox, back to Galilee, his hometown.  There in the synagogue, and he offers up a reading from Isaiah, with certain implications, prophecy fulfilled, and the locals who know him just so aren't ready for it.  What he has offered them is a kind of literary criticism as much as anything else.