Collected Short Stories: Volume V

  “Why are you telling me this?” Donna Hadley demanded in a decidedly pinched tone.

  “Local authorities,” he ignored the question, “passed even stricter legislation regulating creameries and poultry. Grocers couldn’t accept farmers’ eggs or chickens and small-scale dairy operations closed down over night.”

  “The public has to be protected,” The woman, who made no effort to mask her disdain, glowered.

  “Protected from what? People seldom got ill. The meat they brought home from the local slaughterhouses fed immediate families. It wasn’t a money-making proposition.” “Maybe a farmer kept a cow or two… sectioned off a milking stall in the barn with wooden partitions. So bacteria didn’t grow, milk was cooled in containers suspended in tubs of frigid well water. No one got sick. The locals knew what the hell they were doing. It’s what their parents did and their parent’s parents going back generations.”

  “The greater good,” Ms. Hadley insisted by way of rebuttal, “trumps personal consideration.”

  Hal’s mind wandered back to the Hong Kong Restaurant and its owner, Mr., Lee. Donna Hadley was untroubled by life’s ambiguities, nuanced shades of gray. A brittle-minded bureaucrat with a chip on her shoulder, the damage perpetrated over the course of a professional lifetime would be exponential.

  “Circled by waters that never freeze,

  Beaten by billow and swept by breeze,

  Lieth the island of Manisees,…”

  The woman, with the gilded spoon between her middle-aged lips was a government-sanctioned ignoramus.

  * * * * *

  The following Tuesday, Hal ate a leisurely breakfast then drove downtown, parking the Toyota near the public library. The Breakfast Nook was closed up tight, tables and chairs pushed against the far wall. Behind the counter a stout elderly woman was bent over the grill. Hal rapped on the plate glass door. “Not open.” Hunched over the food, the woman never bothered to look. “A week from Monday… come back then.” In response to the noise, Maria Santos emerged from a storage area, came and unlocked the door.

  “Just wanted to see how you were getting along.” Hal surveyed the room. The floor was spotless, the Formica counters and tables equally clean. “I brought you this.” He handed her a thick, blue book. On the glossy cover, a chef decked out in culinary white was chopping celery on a cutting board. “It’s the National Restaurant Association Servsafe manual.”

  Maria held the book lightly with her fingertips and her face assumed a look of reverence as she surveyed the table of contents. “I’ll need to know all this?”

  “Pretty much.” Hal gestured with his eyes. “What’s she preparing over there?”

  “Home fries… my mother will be helping out in the kitchen. She’s here today because she wanted to familiarize herself with the grill.”

  Hal edged closer. The older woman, whose grayish hair was tied back in a bun, smiled over thick shoulder. “Well, there’s a problem right off the bat.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What happened to her finger?” He gestured toward the grill, where the elder Mrs. Santos was flipping a pile of pearlescent home fires with a metal spatula.

  “Nicked it dicing vegetables the other day... a tiny scratch. The cut’s almost completely healed over.”

  “Yes but, a health inspector could shut your place down for something as minor as that.”

  Maria’s face dropped. She said something to her mother in Spanish and the woman’s affable manner quickly dissipated. Laying the spatula aside, she disappeared into a back room only to emerge a moment later with a band-aid covering the cut. Returning to the grill she retrieved the spatula and lifted a pile of potatoes that, in her absence, had darkened about the edges.

  “Stoppppp!” Hal shouted.

  The older woman promptly dropped the spatula scattering its contents on the clean floor. “Your mother just made a minor problem ten times worse,” Hal explained in a phlegmatic tone. “According to state law, all food handlers must cover cuts with both a Band-Aid and single-use disposable glove or finger cot.”

  Maria stooped down and helped her mother clean the mess. All the while the older woman was speaking furiously, non-stop in her native tongue. Ignoring her daughter’s placating gestures, Mrs. Santos no longer bothered to acknowledge Hal’s presence in the restaurant.

  “Show me the refrigerator.”

  “Why?” Maria replied in a beleaguered tone.

  “It’s one of the first places health inspector’s look.” Maria led him into the supply room and cracked the refrigerator wide open. “Who lined the shelves with aluminum foil?”

  “I did.”

  “Get rid of it and everything else that blocks the flow of refrigerated air through the unit.” Hal lifted the lid on a plastic container. “Chicken and all meat products are routinely stored on the lowest shelf so juices don’t accidentally drip onto fresh produce or prepared foods.” “An outbreak of Salmonella or E. coli could put you out of business over night.”

  “You should invest in a set of professional, temperature gauges – immersion for soups, infrared and thermocouple for cooking surfaces and general culinary.” Judging by her panicky expression, Hal doubted she understood what he was saying. He pointed at the three-bay sink. “And I didn’t notice any commercial-grade sanitizing solution.” When there was no reply, he added, “You’ll need a formal system for monitoring employee training, hand washing procedures, cross-contamination controls...”

  Back out in the main dining door, Mrs. Santos was glaring at the retired food inspector as though he was an emissary from hell. She handed him a plate of home fries and a fork. Hal teased a couple of potato wedges onto the tangs of the fork. “What did you use for seasoning?”

  “Dried parsley, paprika, thyme, nutmeg, salt and pepper,” the woman replied then burst into an extended harangue, the bulk of which was in Spanish and directed at her daughter.

  “What did she say?”

  “She said,” Maria translated, “that the herbs must be dry not fresh. Heat from the grill releases the subtle flavors. By using only a tiny pinch of each, the various, seasonings intertwine, marry so to speak, without overpowering the main dish.”

  “My wife used to cook home fries,” Hal mused, “but they never tasted this good.”

  “She doesn’t cook anymore?”

  “Died… a year ago,” Hal clarified. “Thirty years we were married.”

  *****

  Tuesday Hal clipped Teddy’s nails and trimmed the thicket of bristly hairs around his bulbous eyes. The previous spring the crazed dog ran headlong into a thicket of bramble and came away with a thorn on his eye. The vet cleansed the wound and applied a topical antibiotic. Now a faint scar was visible on the cornea.

 

  Tuesday evening Maria Santos was waiting outside when he arrived for agility training. “The aluminum foil… I didn’t realize it was the wrong thing to do.” The Scottish terrier by her side lifted his leg and a stream of steamy, fluid gushed from his hind quarters. Without waiting for the dog to finish relieving himself, Teddy promptly sniffed the dog’s privates.

  “An innocent mistake,” Hal observed. “Not the end of the world.”

  “The Servsafe book… we open in a week and a half. I can’t possibly read through four hundred pages and makes sense of it in such a short period of time.” She looked utterly miserable.

  The manicky terrier inspected Teddy’s anus and the Lhasa returned the favor. “Forget about the book. I’ll mentor you… make sure that the Breakfast Nook is up to code.” Hal rubbed his chin with a liver-spotted hand then scratched a hairy ear. “I’ll teach you to clean, rinse, sanitize and air dry all the prep surfaces, hot-hold foods at the proper temperature, inspect deliveries for damaged foods.”

  Maria looked the balding man full in the face. “I’m strapped for cash… can’t afford to -”

  “If you offered me a penny,” Hal brought her up short, “I’d be insulted.”

  “I don’t
understand.”

  The grizzled man grinned opaquely. “Circled by waters that never freeze, beaten by billow and swept by breeze, lieth the island of Manisees,…” In response to her baffled expression, Hal added, “It’s a private joke.”

  They entered the building where the charcoal-gray, toy poodle was sprinting about the course. Several obstacles had been reconfigured. The teeter totter, which originally stood in the center of the room, was near the far wall. Without warning, the poodle suddenly veered wildly off course heading in the direction of the tunnel. Emerging from the tunnel he skittered through a crack in the fence. The owner finally retrieved his pet, which pulled up short alongside a frizzy Pekinese, but the frazzled pooch was unable to pick up where he left off.

  back to Table of Contents

  Succotash

  The evening Alexis brought Tom home to meet her parents things went reasonably well. Mrs. Hamilton flitted about the kitchen overseeing the meal – a spicy pot-roast with candied carrots, potatoes au gratin and asparagus in a lemony butter sauce. She basted the meat in a Kikkoman teriyaki marinade before slow-cooking the roast in its own juices with garlic and black pepper. For dessert, she served a lavish selection of creamy pastries from Konditor Meister.

  "Where did you meet that silly boy?" Mrs. Hamilton queried after Tom went home. A tall, fair-skinned blonde with broad shoulders, her tone was blithely dismissive.

  "At a book store."

  "He seems rather… limited."

  Alexis, who hadn't expected her mother to like Tom, would have been shock to learn otherwise. "That's the appeal. He is rather limited but in all the right ways."

  "Needless to say, your father was even more disappointed."

  Alexis’ mother grinned maliciously. “Peter Pan syndrome,” Mrs. Hamilton continued when there was no immediate response. “Perennial adolescents slough off adult responsibilities. Among today’s young people, the aberration is epidemic.” The woman was thinking out loud, asserting a convenient string of unassailable, apriori truths.

  “That might be fine for professional beachcombers and middle-age hippies displaced from the psychedelic sixties, but...” The verbiage dribbling away, she left the unfinished thought dangling in midair.

  "Your collective disgust is duly noted. I won't bring Tom home ever again."

  Mrs. Hamilton opened her mouth to deliver a rebuttal but reconsidered, settling on a sullen frigidity. Later, as Alexis was getting ready to leave, her mother asked, "Whatever happened to that lovely Harvard man... the economics major Aunt Edna introduced you to?"

  Alexis felt something snapped in her brain, a subtle misfiring of neurons somewhere in the frontal lobe. "He groped me... in the parking lot of the Newbury Steakhouse three blocks down from the Prudential Center. After quoting a paragraph from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, the Harvard man stuck his grubby hand up my crotch.”

  "Oh, dear!" A fluttery palm drifted to the milky skin at her mother's wrinkled throat. "He seemed so refined and self-assured."

  Alexis laughed sarcastically. "Unfortunately, those are the ones you have to watch out for."

  Mrs. Hamilton pursed her lips. “You’re opting out of the American dream for what?” The tone had turned decidedly caustic, almost accusatory.

  “Haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  Mrs. Hamilton countered with an indignant rant but her daughter was no longer listening. She was reflecting on something Tom told her the previous day.

  Mother Teresa of Kolkata was once asked what words she used in her daily silent prayer. ‘I don’t say anything,’ she replied. “I just listen to God.” When the interviewer asked what God said to Mother Teresa, the nun replied, “Nothing, He only listens.” Alexis’ mother inhabited an insular world of moral certitudes. Tom was a flat earther, a Luddite. A person of no pedigree, promise or consequence.

  Unlike Mother Teresa, Mrs. Hamilton felt no obligation to listen.

  Alexis drifted over to the baby grand and ran a taut index finger across the middle register. Her father purchased the instrument, which was fashioned from East Indian Rosewood veneer, to celebrate her parents’ silver wedding anniversary. Lowering her voice several decibels, she added, “I’m rather fond of Tom. We’re twin souls.”

  “Twin souls,” her mother repeated derisively. “God, what will you think of next!”

  “It’s rather late and I have a long drive.”

  Alexis went home and poured herself a Heineken. Three beers later when she was reasonably drunk, she reached for the phone. "What're you doing?"

  "Nothing, why?"

  "Come over... now. Bring a toothbrush and change of underwear."

  *****

  In late March Alexis meandered into the Brandenburg Book Nook. Unable to find what she wanted, she returned to the front of the store. “Edith Wharton... I checked the stacks but found nothing by the author.”

  The clerk, who looked to be in his late twenties, stepped out from behind the counter. A mop of dirty brown hair and wispy, anemic beard did nothing to dispel Alexis’ initial impression of a bleary-eyed youth trapped in a man’s body. “Ms Wharton is situated in literary fiction.” He led the way to the rear of the store directly behind young adult fiction. Teasing a slim paperback off the shelf, he handed it to her. “The House of Mirth was a relatively early work. The author won the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence. I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

  “No, I wasn’t aware of that.”

  The clerk, who was following the peregrinations of a dust bunny the size of a silver dollar as it caromed drunkenly off the baseboard heading in the direction of the Travel and Leisure section, had a queer penchant for drifting off topic. “Keeping up with the Jones... are you familiar with the expression?”

  “Yes, sort of.”

  “The Jones originally trace back to Ms. Wharton’s wealthy family.”

  “You’re joking?”

  “No, that’s historical fact.”

  Ten minutes later Alexis wandered back to the front of the store and found the clerk hunched over a cardboard box of paperbacks. “Which did you choose?” he asked.

  “Age of Innocence. I’ll read it first and work backwards.” Alexis stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  Only now did the clerk straighten up. “Excuse me?”

  “Would you like to go out?”

  He glanced at her but only briefly allowing his eyes to droop until finally settling on the bright neon cover of the book he was holding. “A date... that would be nice.” His right hand came up as though he meant to shake her hand but thought better of it. “I’m Tom.”

  “Alexis. Alexis Hamilton.” She resumed talking in normal, conversational tones. “Here, let me give you my cell number.” She jotted the digits on a scrap of paper and handed it to him. “Since I put you on the spot, choose whatever you like.”

  Easing a stack of books onto a shelf, Tom smiled affably. “I’ll call closer to the weekend.”

  ******

  Friday evening the phone rang. “Any thoughts about succotash?” Tom was on the other end of the line.

  Succotash – wasn’t that lima or shell beans cooked together with corn in a sweet broth? “I’m rather neutral on the subject.”

  “The Seakonke-Wampanoag Tribe is holding its annual Powwow in Rehoboth this weekend. Indians from all over New England will be converging -”

  “What time,” she cut him short, “will you pick me up?”

  “Around noon. We can eat there.” He hung up the phone. Alexis drifted into the bedroom. On the comforter, a black strapless bustier outfit with metallic beading at the waist lay next to an Andrew Marc drape chemise with cap sleeves, an asymmetrical neckline and ruching at both the sides and shoulders. Having pulled them out in anticipation of Tom’s call, she hung both dresses back in the closet.

  Saturday, Tom arrived a little after noon. They drove through Brandenburg center, pass
ing out of the city into a rural stretch of New England country. Out the passenger side window, a blur of oaks, box elder and maples descended to a wide lake stocked with largemouth bass, sweet perch, pickerel and catfish. “Where'd you go to school?” he asked.

  “Wellesley College.”

  He flipped the directional and took a sharp left onto Arcade Avenue heading towards Seekonk. “Didn’t Hillary Rodham Clinton attend Wellesley?”

  “Yes, along with Diane Sawyer, Secretary of State, Madeline Albright and. Madame Chiang Kai-Shek.”

  A fleeting smile drifted across his face. “Anyone among those A-list alumnae you care to emulate?”

  “No, thank God!” They passed the Grist Mill Restaurant with its huge turn-of-the century paddle wheel originally powered by a relentless deluge of water cascading over a granite dam. In recent times, the immobile wheel was more decorative than functional.

  Up ahead and to the right stretched a huge open field. They could already hear the pulsating rhythms of a huge tribal drum being struck by multiple sticks. Tom pulled into the grassy parking area at the front of the field alongside a stand of birch trees. A profusion of wigwams and eggshell-white, EZ-Up canopies ringed a hundred-foot enclosure where both men and woman in Indian garb were furiously dancing. Two sets of drummers and singers were alternately accompanying the dancers as they twirled, trotted, skipped, shuffled and hopped about the perimeter of the circle. Dead center, a hardwood fire which had burnt down to coals, discharged a plume of aromatic smoke.

  Tom parked the car in a grassy lot and removed the key from the ignition. “What I do at the bookstore pays my bills but it’s basically a dead-end job.” The man wasn’t apologizing, simply setting the record straight.

  An elderly Indian wearing a loincloth and buckskin britches hobbled by with the aid of a much younger man and an aluminum walker. The handicapped senior entered the circle and joined the revelers. “Why are you telling me this?”