Driving Blind

Eat and run, no, eat and flee, was in our faces as we swayed in mid-lobby, at the last moment seized each other’s hands. Might we arm-wrestle? From somewhere crept false smiles and tepid laughter.

“Leonard Douglas,” he cried, “you old son of a bitch!”

He stopped, red-faced. Butchers, after all, do not swear at old customers!

“I mean,” he said, “come on!”

He shoved me into the elevator and babbled all the way up to the penthouse restaurant.

“What a coincidence. Middle of the street. Fine food here. Here’s our floor. Out!”

We sat to dine.

“Wine for me.” The butcher eyed the wine list, like an old friend. “Here’s a swell one. 1970, St. Emilion. Yes?”

“Thanks. A very dry vodka martini.!”

My butcher scowled.

“But,” I said, quickly, “I will have some wine, of course!”

I ordered salad to start. He scowled again.

“The salad and the martini will ruin your taste for the wine. Beg pardon.”

“Well then,” I said, hastily, “the salad, later.”

We ordered our steaks, his rare, mine well-done.

“Sorry,” said my butcher, “but you should treat your meat more kindly.”

“Not like St. Joan, eh?” I said, and laughed.

“That’s a good one. Not like St. Joan.”

At which moment the wine arrived to be uncorked. I offered my glass quickly and, glad that my martini had been delayed, or might never come, made the next minute easier by sniffing, whirling, and sipping the St. Emilion. My butcher watched, as a cat might watch a rather strange dog.

I swallowed the merest sip, eyes closed, and nodded.

The stranger across the table also sipped and nodded.

A tie.

We stared at the twilight horizon of Florence.

“Well …” I said, frantic for conversation “… what do you think of Florence’s art?”

“Paintings make me nervous,” he admitted. “What I really like is walking around. Italian women! I’d like to ice-pack and ship them home!”

“Er, yes …” I cleared my throat. “But Giotto …?”

“Giotto bores me. Sorry. He’s too soon in art history for me. Stick figures. Masaccio’s better. Raphael’s best. And Rubens! I have a butcher’s taste for flesh.”

“Rubens?”

“Rubens!” Harry Stadler forked some neat little salami slices, popped them in his mouth, and chewed opinions. “Rubens! All bosom and bum, big cumulus clouds of pink flesh, eh? You can feel the heart beating like a kettledrum in a ton of that stuff. Every woman a bed; throw yourself on them, sink from sight. To hell with the boy David, all that cold white marble and no fig leaf! No, no, I like color, life, and meat that covers the bone. You’re not eating!”

“Watch.” I ate my bloody salami and pink bologna and my dead white provolone, wondering if I should ask his opinion of the cold white colorless cheeses of the world.