The Food Season III: A Short Story 'The Night Out'

We walk down a street.  We do not talk, both stare down at feet or way ahead.  Constant, heavy traffic whips by, the sound from the rain slicked street is incessant.  The spray does not reach us but we are both soaked.  The umbrella is almost useless.  The rain slants with the wind.  Raindrops big as grapes pepper us.

It is a fight, an argument.  One said something and the other got angry.  And now we are not talking, steaming.  And now it is raining.  Hard.  We are both hungry.  Neither of us wants to be with the other.  It is dark, cold.  We are wet, hungry, unhappy.  It is depressing, oppressive.  Each of us, secretly, want simply to turn away and go off alone, leave the other, disappear.  But we don’t.  Some times this can last days, some days hours.  It is a street we've walked many times.

“Are you hungry,” I ask, knowing the answer will be a shrug.  She shrugs, which means 'yes, but I am so pissed I would rather die than admit I want to eat.'  We keep walking, slogging.  She is almost crying.  I am a knot.  I want to throw up I am so mad upset pissed off.  We just walk.

We pass a few okay restaurants but do not even slow down.  We know each other.  We may be frustrated, angry, hungry, wet, depressed.  But.  We like our food.  A bad meal or a bad place would be worse than the misery on the street. 

Finally, across the street, past the flying cars kicking up clouds of mist, there is a busy room behind a picture window.  The glass is steamed but through the window comes a light.  It is warm, not bright.  Through the fogged-glass we see a man hard at work playing a piano, occasionally pulling on a cigarette.  Tall waitresses in black pants, white blouses and long white aprons race through the room, around the crowded tables, with trays stacked high.  A man near the window pulls on his beer.  She nudges me.  I nod.

We jog across the street and push into the room.  Welcomed warmly.  No reservation but not a problem.  ‘Why don’t you wait at the bar,’ we are asked.  Fine with us.  We sit at the long bar and have a drink, don’t talk but are done with the fight.  The hostess brings us a kitchen towel I watch my wife wipe her hair with the towel, which makes me laugh.  She smiles.  Familiar.  I am smart enough not to ask her to say she is sorry.  I order two more drinks.

We fall into a deep conversation and before we know it we are asked if we’d mind, there is a table in the back by the kitchen doors, not usually used, but it’ll be a long wait if we don’t want this small table in the back.  They like us.  It's nice, being here.  We go look and the table is fine.  We don’t mind.  We sit down with our drinks.  We watch the servers fly in and out of the kitchen; when the double-hinged doors swing open it is like a portal to another world; we glance at the line, watching the chaos and the shouting in the heat of a bustling kitchen.

Our waitress comes up.  She is sweet and smart.  She smiles with her eyes and brings us warm bread and menus before we are settled.  We have our drinks from the bar and order mussels in a broth of wine and garlic and butter.  We dunk warm bread into the sauce.  We finish our drinks and order a bottle of red wine.  We can barely hear the piano over the talking and the occasional burst of talking and shouting which flows from the kitchen when the door swings open.  And the kitchen team is listening to something loud and fast; when the door swings shut the music swings back to gentle jazz of the piano in the bar.  Door opens to the kitchen and a wall of guitars rail.  It is funny.

We order our meal, the waitress answering questions and steering us to this or that. 

The room swallows us and we talk through roasted lamb, curried chicken, crisp roasted potatoes, perfectly sautéed spinach in lemon sauce, an asparagus and wild mushroom thing that tastes like melted gold.  Somewhere during the meal we order another bottle of a good red wine, dry and round and blood-red.  Not cheap but not not cheap.

We both eat – no picking at the edges of the plate.  We both tuck in.  When the plates go away they are shiny-white; we joke the chef could take the plates, reload them with a fresh meal and send them back into the room.  She says 'I am sorry.'  I smile and say 'me too.'  that's it.
Later, the waitress slides a slice of pie between us and says ‘it’s on me.  Welcome.’  We share.  We never share.  And then we order another desert, a warm apple crisp with vanilla ice cream, and two glasses of a liquor the waitress recommends to join the pie.  It is like a treacley drug, warming our throats and we feel it take off inside.  A good drunk.  We are hours in and no time has passed.  We laugh about the fight.  We are drunk, drunk, drunk and have no intention of leaving.  We talk and talk.  Finally, we drink oil dark coffee. 

We sit and hold hands across the table.  The waitress drops the check on the table and smiles.  Says as long as they don't lock the door not to worry.  When finally our table is cleared the room is quiet.  The rain has stopped. The staff are winding up now, talking.  When the doors swing open Reggae blares from the kitchen and the shouting now is in Spanish.

If we had not found this place the fight would have lasted two days, maybe longer, I can tell.  As it is, we found the place.  The fight is gone.  What can we say?  We like our food.  We love good places.  We know each other.

We make up the pie in the tip.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio