Mr. Cheesesteak

I always made a good sandwich. I’m stuck with it. Some people get to play the piano, others explore the universe. I know somebody who has been studying synapses in monkey brains for 40 years, so I shouldn’t complain.

The first time I stood behind a grill for serious money, I was 14. And by serious I mean turning over 20 cheese steaks a minute. Because those people weren’t fucking around. They came to eat.

Don’t get me wrong. I dreamed a lot. I had myself all over the world, like James Bond without the danger. Just the girls. I was also making contributions to science, upending canons, and selling out Carnegie Hall. Who wasn’t? But I always stayed behind the grill, right through college and out into the world. I guess in some respects, I managed the James Bond thing, but with a spatula.

When you have a talent for something it’s like a trap, a disease. You just can’t help it. It’s a curse as much as a blessing. I could always walk into any town and get a job just like that. I could double business in a week, but I never stayed long. I used to break the owner’s heart. I got offered more partnerships than I can remember, but I always said no. I had bigger things in mind. What they were, I just couldn’t say. I was really offended once, when some guy referred to me as Mr. Cheesesteak. And I was making him a cheese steak.

If I had to tell you what makes a good sandwich, I would assume you don’t have taste buds. The first bite is the place where hypothesis gives way to formula. And everybody has a formula when it comes to sandwiches. My problem is that I have too many. I think it has something to do with the fact that I can also remember phone numbers. I must have a thousand in my head. I remember the phone numbers of dead people - lots of dead people, people I’d like to feed if I could, although I still make their favorite sandwiches. Call it a living memorial.

Unity, complexity, and intensity - I learned that in college, only it had to do with critical theory. Still, it goes for sandwiches. Depth, character, and economy make a masterpiece. You have to confront ideals, consider the opposite, entertain whimsy, and above all, experiment. But within limits. No sandwich should exceed the bread. Everything has a crust in Germany, where they like their sandwiches to bite back. It’s all happening on the outside. You have to chew one for quite a while before you find out what else you’re eating, unless it’s a hot dog, in which case there’s no bread at all, just the wiener.

Take a cheese steak hoagie with mayo. Where’s the unity in that? Or a grilled cheese, which is simplicity itself. Sometimes, chaos is simply complexity and simplicity, intensity. But in the end, like all great art, who gives a shit? If it’s good, it’s good. It’s only something to consider if you have to make the sandwich. Otherwise, just choose something from the menu and let me take care of it.

Charitable Deductions

I went to a gala last night, got out the old tux. Actually, I’ve only worn it about three times. I wasn’t happy. I sure didn’t need the suspenders. I needed a tailor. I feel like there’s a clock ticking on that thing, like an annual exam. It’s worse than a finger up your butt. It’s a Donna Karin.

My wife looked great. She’s much too thin lately, a nervous wreck over her son. But in a little black dress, you sure couldn’t tell there was anything wrong. Still, we were fighting. She was pissed that I was pissed over what happened at dinner the night before. Even though we were fuming, she kept asking me: How does this look? And what could I say? You know how she looks.

Normally, I would have gotten jealous once we arrived. There were guys on her like flies. But those are not the guys I’m worried about. I’m worried about the guys who stare at her and don’t make a move. Those are the guys that get me upset. Consequently, those are the guys that interest my wife, since she likes to make me jealous.

But last night I couldn’t give a shit, which is best. The guy on her left was an Italian pop star wannabe who got up to sing during the antipasto. This joker actually thought he had a chance. I felt sorry for him. You only have to hear my wife call someone pathetic once and it will put you on guard for life.

There were more speeches than I could handle from founders, chairmen, and Grand Knights. I even missed the main course because I couldn’t sit still. I was wandering around looking at the blind auction, though I couldn’t see what was blind about it. You had to write your name and phone number next to the last price you were willing to pay.

This year it looked like a yard sale for Italian swells, competing to pay more, not less. But that isn’t too bad when you have Frette and Portolano clearing out prime inventory. It was a benefit for my stepson’s school, which is where all the spoiled Italian kids go. And if my wife is serious about anything, it’s spoiling her kid and being Italian.

It was at Cipriani, which is quite a racket when it comes to dishing out food. They draw Bellini’s from a well, make cannelloni by the mile, and they can deep-fry a mule. And they have the same set-up all over the world. McDonald’s Platinum, baking cheese and frying bread for people who think they have an excuse. Last night they fried a school of branzino, which would be seven hundred fish delivered hot simultaneously at $1000 a plate. That’s franchising.

Our fight started a day earlier, when my wife’s cousin came over for dinner. I went out of my way to make something good, which was pasta con zucchini al minestre and rollatini di vitello with broiled asparagus. My wife’s cousin is a Professor of Philosophy and a very important guy who looks down his nose at my wife because he doesn’t approve of all her choices, including me. So we’re always a little on edge whenever he comes over. I work it out by cooking, since the guy is a big eater. My wife spends the whole time acting like we’re the perfect little family, and that her son is not picking his nose or pouring salt onto the tablecloth just to see how fast it comes out. I might be inclined to ignore it myself if the kid wasn’t staring at me the whole time, daring me to say something, which I’d rather not do, since my wife would immediately respond by telling her cousin that I had no patience, was very intolerant, and otherwise limited in my understanding of teenagers.

Knowing this, I managed to hold off until the moment when my stepson told us he was going out for cigarettes and demanded ten dollars. My wife said no, very embarrassed. My stepson started a 'you promised' argument, which my wife dismissed as absurd, as if to say to her cousin that she would never promise such a thing as cigarettes. She drew me in with a 'help me' look. So, I told my stepson to get lost and let us adults finish our dinner, at which point he started shouting at his mother in Italian, which is his way of telling me to mind my own business.

In the middle of all that, my wife suddenly told him to take ten dollars from her purse, leaving me twisted with a message so mixed we were all stymied. The little shit was smug, I was steamed, and her cousin was speechless. My wife acted like she asked for the time of day and was waiting for someone to look at their watch. I did promise him, she said.

For me, everything up until that point was just garden-variety, but her cousin raised the stakes. I want to appeal to this man, I said. The most basic precept of behavioral psychology has just been violated. Rewarding certain behavior encourages that behavior - or didn’t they teach you that in your school?

Here I went beyond the pale. My wife is very sensitive about the limits of her formal education, especially as regards her cousin, who has more formal education than anyone I ever met. In fact, whenever he comes to dinner, my wife directs the conversation into the upper reaches of refined thought.

In an attempt to regain ground, I referred to her cousin’s son, a fine young man my wife admires for his intelligence and temperament and to whom she would never compare her own son, as if that would be wishing for too much. At 24, he is already at work on his second masters degree – the first being philosophy, to please his father, and the second in economics, to please himself. His father, sitting with some veal on his fork, looked contemplative. I beat my son, he said. I beat the shit out of him for years.

Italians, especially Italians like my wife, have excellent table manners. She offered her cousin more asparagus. Maybe I was wrong, he said, but I did it anyway. So my wife offers him dessert and coffee.

I was sure that her cousin’s confession would somehow end up reflecting badly on me, and it wasn’t ten minutes after he left the house that she made an attempt. You think that it makes you right; it makes you want to beat my son, she said. I wouldn’t dare, I said, as it might involve the authorities, who would certainly be called for when I was finished.

Her son came back from buying cigarettes like he went down to Delaware, but I was asleep by then. The next time I saw him was at the gala. The whole senior class was there, in evening wear as they imagined it. Massimo the blackguard was glued to my stepson except when he came to say hello, bowing before me as bold as brass. As for my stepson, he was the one holding the pot, and he smelled like it from three feet away. I chastised him for this in the hallway and he promised to stash it, which he didn’t, since he stank of it all night, which was more or less why I didn’t hang around the seats for which I paid two grand. He was busy crashing our table and wolfing down his mother’s dinner like a dog reeking of skunk. Not only was I embarrassed, but I wanted the guys who had been eyeing my wife to get a good look before they did any bidding.

Enmity

I know a guy who won’t eat my food. It hurts me, because I like this guy. I see myself in this guy, except this guy was an orphan. He grew up on pastina, with some polenta thrown in. While I was sporting 12 inch hoagies, he had potato sandwiches. But I didn’t know him then, so I never did anything to make it worse. But he acts like it’s somehow my fault. He always seems pissed at me, like I was Lord Fauntleroy and a wiseguy to boot.

When he first moved in, I said hello to him in the street, stopped him cold and shook his hand, walked with him. I made him laugh. Better, he made me laugh. We went past the church and neither one of us made the sign of the cross. I asked where he went to school and he told me about being an orphan. He studied hard and became a pharmacist, worked like a dog. Now he was set up.

I sent over a couple of stromboli, like you do when somebody moves in. He sent them back. Said he was a vegetarian. I was shocked. At least he could have passed them on. But I always gave him my prescriptions, what few I had, and I always said hello when I saw him on the street. Until he started acting like he didn’t see me, which wasn’t very nice. Still, I sent over my prescriptions, which started to feel like I was sending insults, which I admit, I enjoyed. But never once did he order anything from me. I even saw him get through an entire community board meeting without touching the food I sent. And everybody was crazy for the food.

I thought it was something I did, but my wife said it wasn’t my problem; it was his problem, poor thing, which didn’t make me feel much better. I don’t like problems, especially if it’s a problem that involves me. And if it’s something I did, I’d like to undo it. I reminded my wife that you don’t want to be on the wrong side of your pharmacist. Her response was to see that my prescriptions were sent elsewhere.

I saw him once at The Bellevue, in the bar. I said hello, and I was all set to ask him what was the problem, when he completely shut me up by being the nicest guy in the world. He asked me about my family, told me how good I looked, mentioned my mother, and thought that the Bellevue never looked better. He ran down the mayor, made another joke about the dentist on Chadwick St, and then blew me off when he saw his appointment, another hail-fellow well met. I never got a word in, even though my mouth was open the whole time.

I understood that he was having none of me, and I understood why everybody was sending over their prescriptions. They loved the guy. I just couldn’t figure why he was cutting me out. I was never anything but nice. But some guys are like that. They refuse to give you any satisfaction, and it’s a point of pride. They need an enemy and they pick you. Just like that. You’re like a voodoo doll, an empty well, a can to kick. And they hate everything about you, once they get going.

My wife says he feels threatened by me. I say I’m the one who feels threatened. I feel like a prisoner falsely accused. I’m being forced to hate a guy I’d like to like, and I can’t figure out how to get on his right side. I can’t re-write the script because I’m trapped inside the play. My son says it’s because the guy is short, not so handsome, and is in love with my wife. Maybe so, but I wish the asshole would just taste my eggplant.

Looking Forward

I just booked two sets of tickets. I’ll be spending Palm Sunday in Italy and Easter in Miami. A few days in Rome will do me good, then it’s down to Naples with the in-laws. The thing with Rome is, I love it. But my stepson will be there on a class trip. I can imagine him wandering the Spanish Steps whispering: dove si compra fumo?

Hopefully, two things will happen. He won’t whisper it to a policeman and I won’t run into him on the street. It’s not much, but Rome is a small city and I love to walk around. If you walk around Rome enough, you’ll run into everybody you ever knew. There’s a conference on air-dried dried meat with venues all over town. I won’t shit for a week, but I’ll get some exercise.

The fact that we’ll all be in Rome together is pure coincidence. The fact that my wife agreed to come along with me is another story. She sees it as a good chance to keep close watch on the kid, which means she’ll be on the phone with him all day, breaking balls until we all meet up in Naples, where the ball breaking gets more operatic.

Miami is something else. I think Easter is best spent among the Jews. My wife thinks it’s a good chance to spend time together as a family, recapture the past. She talked my son into the idea that he and my stepson share a room, and we’ll all enjoy a little fun in the sun, like the old days. That would be two men, 21 and 17, with differing tastes in women (my son has a girlfriend to whom he is completely faithful while my stepson cannot be trusted alone in a room with a pound of boiled ham), drugs, and what’s good on TV, adjoining a room with me my wife. My mother called it a crucifixion.

I call it cheap. I got a deal in South Beach at a very nice hotel for no money, which is not to say free. Call it barter. I know the owner, and he’s happy to have me in his debt to the tune of several thousand. Knowing him, he may take it out in catering, but I doubt it. More than likely I’ll have to make a phone call, which I’m happy to do. Between my cousin and me we know a lot of people, who know a lot of other people. Call it people power. And all those people love the idea of having all the other people in their debt, because maybe it’s the only credit they’re likely to get. And everybody owes somebody, which is how it should be.