Eating Time
On a weekend morning, we’d find ourselves on the patio of this Greek restaurant under a tin and iron terrace lush with vines. Back then, Salt Lake City had just won the Olympic bid. Back then, a thriving underground scene was painting that town black and neon and studded. And we drove to Wyoming for kegs of cheap beer and went to gas stations, where we gave a greasy-haired attendant an egg or a Ring Pop in exchange for the location of the next pop-up rave. Or we were prepared to exchange poultry products or edible jewelry for info if somebody hadn’t always just somehow gotten the address from somewhere. I’m saying the city was hot. I’m saying maybe that was partly why we felt so au courant sat at that Grecian eatery.
By we, I mean a group of us who believed we were adults and this was what the adult world looked like and should look like and would always look like. And by this, I mean, waking, dewy and a little (or a lot) hungover, hours after earth had tilted so sun could sidle up to eastern sky; wandering into the front room, yearning, bellies empty; and somehow ending up with four or six or seven of us sat at a round table, dappled light falling on the menus we opened slowly and the jokes we told quickly and debating between mimosas or bloody Marys or juice, but not debating coffee, always, “yes please” (black for me), the first time the server came round.
And holy damn, the scramble with feta and olives. Taste it with me. The eggs, lousy with cream. The cheese, butter and grass and tangy sunshine. The meaty bursts of smoke and pucker, of zest and pepper, of wet salt. And us with our tastebuds so new they still had the tags on them.
Finally, we’d lean back in our chairs.
“What now?” someone would ask.
And some of us would end up at a coffee shop with black-and-white tile and “Satellite” pouring through the flush-mount ceiling speakers and Riot Grrrl stickers on the counter. Back then I was still ordering cappuccinos extra dry and waterfalling the contents of three blue Equal packets on top of the thick foam, where that white powder would sit for a second before trickling down, pulling the webby cloud with it. Can you fathom the orgasmic mix of sweet and bitter?
Or we’d go to the bookstore with a maze for a basement where one of us worked or a record shop or both. We’d put on bulky headphones attached by stretchy coils to listening bins and say, “Hey, check this out,” especially if Hey was someone whose body you wanted pressed against yours in the “booth.” We’d flip through print racks and imbibe hand-drawn zines.
Outside, the sun pinky-swearing forever, we’d scrutinize flyers on telephone poles to pick the next show or sprawl on benches at Liberty Park.
Talk about lousy with. We’d use time to roll joints we smoked half of before flicking them from our fingertips like yesterday’s vogue. We’d eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And, the doggie bags, on the off chance we asked for doggie bags? We’d leave them on the table. Time was our bottle service, our diamond-encrusted Swatches, our Air France Concorde.
I know what you’re thinking. But it wasn’t that we didn’t know loss yet. I cloaked mine, so fresh and deep it hollowed my bones, whether for flight or to float and fade I didn’t know or much care. We each nursed our own private grief. For me, the monster was in the closet and, sometimes, right under the bed. And that was fine too. So long as I could shut the door. Take someone under the covers on top of it. So long as I could keep these weekends endless.
I know what you’re thinking. And it was that we didn’t know the losses of others. We hadn’t looked at our boon. Or how that correlated with the lives of those without the windfalls of birthright. We swallowed the mainstream’s main course even as we told ourselves we were mainstreaming counterculture. We spat out fringe versions: Impeachment for sex? Can’t a girl suck a dick if she wants to? Sig block, girl power! Fuck NAFTA. Support local. When two kids not much younger than us terrorized their high school, we were shocked and saddened by the deaths. But they also felt distant, containable, isolated. And sometimes the Persian Gulf and the Balkans entered our minds, but only as signposts at which we glanced while passing. And, yeah, we hated that kids in Somalia were starving, but what could we do?
Look, we thought St. Elmo’s Fire was sophisticated and sexy. And we meant before Judd and crew had rescued each other from cocaine addiction and familial enmeshment and irresponsibility and hurt each other and forgiven each other and chosen a quiet cafe over their favorite bar. We thought we’d keep on topping those who came before us and make babies who did the same and forever more. The end.
I didn’t mean for this to devolve. We all have our own pathways to unlearning.
Do you know what I really want? I want to sit with you under the vines. We’ll settle in. The chairs are comfy. We’ll note the coolness of the breeze, the freshness of the air. “How’s it going?” I’ll say, and I’ll mean, Tell me everything. “You were so right,” you’ll say. “This place is lovely.” I’ll give you some of my lemon-herbed potatoes. You’ll try something I’ve never had because I always get the same thing, and you’ll share a bite. And later, much later, when we’re mostly replenished, I’ll lean in and we’ll hold each other’s sparkly gazes because you know what I’m going to say. “I’ve always wanted to try the portokalopita. Wanna share one?” And you’ll say, “Let’s get two.” And we’ll add on a kataifi and get a second cup of coffee, well, tea for me these days, just a touch of honey. And we’ll nibble the orangy yogurty custard between sighs. “What now?” one of us will say. But we won’t move. We’ll stay and tease out time like tasting shredded phyllo one angel hair at a time.
My younger years looked wholly different from yours, but your writing is so strong here, I almost feel like I was there.
This is glorious. (unironically) insanely nourishing for my writer's soul.