Did you know that stones can make an exotic seasoning? Yes indeed. Take one pound of Widmanstaetten asteroids. Grind to the size of cracked pepper; sprinkle on roasted fresh corn. (Butter, salt, pepper, &tc. should be forsworn.) There is a marriage with the sugar in the corn that produces a remarkable taste salmagundi which organic chemists are still trying to puzzle out. Curiously enough, it doesn’t work with ordinary refined sugar, which makes Kansas very happy. Cuba is also denouncing Staten Island.
The Freeport Restaurant is enormous, of course, and its exotic kitchen is larger than most conventional restaurants, but there is a smallish club room for the discerning gourmets which is more difficult to enter than the vaults of the Bank of England. Here Madame brought her guests and was disturbed to discover that her customary waiter was not in attendance. This one was a new and strange person. She did not deign to speak to him, but summoned the mâitre d’hôtel.
“Where is my Isaac?”
“I am so sorry, madame. Isaac is at another station tonight.”
“But where? I am accustomed to Isaac. A dinner could be only a meal without Isaac.”
“He is stationed out in the main dining salon this week, madame.”
“He is out with the mere! But why? Has he disgraced himself and earned punishment?”
“No, madame. He has lost a bet.”
“Lost? A bet? Explain yourself, sir.”
“With reluctance, madame. The waiters were playing vingt-et-un in the kitchen…”
“Gambling!”
“Oui, madame. Isaac lost everything to the new man. Then he bet you.”
“Me!”
“Oui, madame. For a week. And he lost again. So Isaac is outside, and the new man has you.”
“Outrageous!”
“But it is a compliment, madame.”
“Compliment? How?”
“Your gracious generosity is well known.”
“It will not be known to this new person.”
“Certainly, madame, as you wish. Nevertheless you will find him the quintessence of courtesy. Now, may I piquer your palate with a tour de force created only this day by our superb chef?”
“What is it?”
“Queue de Kangourou aux Olives Noires.”
“What?”
“Which is to say, stewed kangaroo tail with black olives. Olive oil. Brandy. White wine. Stock. Bouquet of bay leaves, thyme, parsley, orange peel, much crushed garlic and stoned black olives. It is flamed with the brandy to burn off excess fat and to strengthen the flavors. It is unique and magnificent.”
“Good heavens! We must try it.”
“You will not regret it, madame, and you will be the very first to be served. If you approve and consent, it will be honored with your name.”
The maître d’hôtel bowed, turned and snapped his fingers. The quintessence of courtesy appeared. He did have a most refined and elegant bearing, Madame thought.
“Clear for the Queue de Kangourou,” the maître d’hôtel ordered, pointing to the table centerpiece.
The new man who had won her bowed apologetically to Madame, stood close alongside her and cleared the center of the table with quick, graceful hands. He made just enough room for her body which he lifted, placed prone on the table and embarked on a refined and elegant retrorape the while he filled the stunned guests’ wine glasses with quintessential courtesy.
* * *
There was a vintage streetcar rallye at the Sheep Meadow racetrack and the pits were gaudy with trolleys, charabancs, trams, and even beautifully restored United Mine Workers’ coal and ore carts. The pits were also decorated with the hundreds of women attracted to racing and death. They were all of a type; dressed pour le sport and sporting a to-hell-with-everything-else look.
She sat on an empty drum between the Madison & Fourth Avenue and the Étoile Place Blanche Bastille pits, giving equal time and attention to the Guff and Parisian crews who passed her constantly as they borrowed gear and advice from each other. They were oddly alike in their soiled tutas and really only to be distinguished by a favorite tool carried in a back pocket; spanner, S-wrench, maul, pliers, a Stillson, a monkey. The pit foremen were above carrying tools. The drivers’ tutas were white and immaculate.
She was amused by the one with the pinch bar dragging down his back pocket. Pinch bar was either Paris or Guff—he spent so much time in both pits that she couldn’t decide—young enough to be smooth-faced, yet obviously fully matured in frame and muscle. She was amused because each time he passed he didn’t give her a “Très jolie,” or a “Bije babe, doll.” He banged the drum with his pinch bar. It emitted a resounding bass boom and sent tingles up her spine.
It was a Le Mans start. The streetcars were in position on the track. The drivers and seconds (now in traditional motormen and conductors’ uniforms) lined up opposite. The starting gun cracked. The motormen and conductors dashed to their trolleys, scrambled in and took off in a frenzy of clanging bells while the pit crews and the women cheered and screamed. Then came the bass boom and the tingle, and there he was, pinch bar in hand, smiling silently at her. She smiled back.
He dubbed her shoulder lightly with the bar and drew her to the backup Étoile Place Blanche Bastille car and took her inside. She was delighted until he revealed that he was a woman and proceeded to ravish her, using the pinch bar as a dildo. Her screams merged with the cheering and screaming and clangor of the race.
* * *
GoFer was the camera test-pattern for “Studio Twenty-Two-Twenty-Two” at WGA. She sat patiently on a stool while the cameras dollied in and out on her skin and adjusted their color correction to its glowing tones. She was a crow, but her red hair and skin were magnificent. When she wasn’t posing for the cameras, she ran errands for the Studio 2222 staff, so naturally she was called Miz GoFer. No one outside the WGA accounting department knew her real name.
She sat quietly on her stool waiting to go for coffee, food, props, costumes, anything. She was bored. She wasn’t particularly interested in any of the 2222 shows. WGA was owned and operated by the Glacial Army Revival Movement and its programming was devoutly Judgment Day. “Where You Beez Come God’s Big Freeze?” (Copyright 2169 by Scriabin Finkel Music Company, a division of Glacial Music Corporation.) All the Good Guys were trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. All the Bad Guys got shot down in flames by God, and died, bitterly regretting their rotten Guff behavior.
There was an animal trainer on the set. She assumed that because he had a King Charles spaniel cradled in his arm, and anyway Studio 2222 was heavy on animals, pets, and the pure love of a boy for his dog. Only this man looked like he should have had a tiger cradled in his arm. He was gigantic and powerful enough to give an orangutan second thoughts about tangling with him.
The powerhouse came over to her stool and gave her a deadpan nod. She nodded back. High as she was perched, her head barely came up to his chest. She could hear the slow roar of his breathing, and it sounded like surf. The King Charles spaniel yapped. From the controls the 2222 director screamed at the floor manager over the talk-back, “For Christshit’s sake will you cue the goddam fuckin’ nuns!”
Twelve pure and demure nuns were hustled onto the set by the floor manager where they formed a pure and reverent circle for God to shoot down the dirty, rotten Guff amorals. The powerhouse picked up the stool, with GoFer teetering on it. She was forced to throw her arms around his neck, and she giggled. Then he carried it to God’s mark in the center of the circle, put it down with GoFer still on it, spread her astonished knees, and proceeded to horrify GoFer, the studio, and the entire Glacial Army into a gasping silence with an enormity while the cameramen (no fools they) dollied in and out on the glowing skin tones. The only sound was the yapping of the King Charles spaniel and the director.