Chapter Thirty-Three
“Times change, tastes do,
too. It’s not what you dread,
but what you do…”
“Surgery?”
“Yep, my scars tell the story—ACL, MCL, tore a meniscus, cracked the cap in two places…”
“Whoa, sucker reads like a road map, bud. Should be awarded a Purple Knee…”
“Sore knee? Son, that’s like feeling sorry for a fancy-shmancy ski injury. Wait’ll you get to be my way…”
From what we could gather, the Lucas preview was of a new animated short in H-D 3-D, fresh from his digital factories in Marin and just up the street. Tentatively titled, ‘Chewser the Loner’, word was the film put a happy, humane face on a charming little hammerhead shark—a challenge indeed given they were presumed to eat their young, and anything else in their wide-eyed sights. Yet this was a flick designed to blow Pixar and Dreamworks out of the water, techno-wise.
Up and down the ropeline, local cinemaniacs, and various pro placeholders, speculated that ‘Chewser’ was destined for full-length rollout. Presidio Theater ushers were handing out souvenir 3-D glasses in the lobby, reminiscent of King George’s central valley youth. Toward the end of that queue were these two aging jock types in baggy-striped black Puma shorts trading road war stories, and the arthritic, bottom-heavy elderly man rolling his walker slowly by—leaving them to ponder their fate as they waited on line. No less mortally circumspect were Reese Paulen and myself, particularly regarding funny bones.
“Red light, Amy, red light!!!” A beset young multi-mother shouted at her ‘terrible twos’ toddler, who was darting toward a bounding yellow balloon, tethered tenuously to a curbside parking meter post. She raced past us all in full panic mode, pushing a new load of baby blues, stroller as guided weaponry. “We always stop at red light. Thank you, precious… come, please—licorice twists for you…now!”
“Sense of humor? And you gather, gather what,” I asked Paulen heatedly, feeding off the woman’s fury, stifled though it was like an aborted sneeze. Unsettling all the more was the pistol popping of that balloon, the pink-rompered ankle biter who’d smacked it shrieking in fright. “OK, now you’ve got me stoked…” Really, this was supposed to be about him, not about me…
Quickly breaking that little Chestnut flare-up, however, was a beef between Janis Joplin’s avenger and one of the Beanery’s meandering, over-caffeinated stiffs—a micro turf spat, bum’s brush, mutual psychotic breaks at the Marina’s margins, before a police squadrol screeched in here to cart off the grizzled aggressor.
Otherwise, ocean breezes had picked up some from the south-southwest, a bit more fog thus frothing in over the Presidio treeline. Swirling our way was the saucy redolence of a southern Italian wine ristorante across the street. Over here, past Verchelli’s, Chestnut zoned more residential to the Divisadero corner, a sprawling Spanish-style apartment complex fronted by its row of Genied garage doors. Parked directly outside the nearest stall was this gunbarrel Hummer H2 with Nevada vanity plates, muddy from Sierra Tahoe. Its bumper pressed solidly against door number one, rear spare tire mount all but extending out into traffic—largely an issue of neighborhood scale, or the rude, callous disregard thereof.
“Oh, nevermind. It isn’t that germane,” Paulen said, moving away from an L.L. Bean-Edition Subaru chap swearing at the blinking red dot on that parking meter, jiggering with his coinage as the new high-tech gizmo pinged incessantly away. “We simply hear what we want to hear, my friend.”
“Hear ya, Doc,” I sidled closer again, with a scratch of my lower back. “But you could say the same thing about your Middle East camps.”
“Another unfortunate choice of words, Herbert. Nevertheless, I can see that you object to how negotiations such as the Oslo/TABA/Dayton peace accords have proceeded.”
“More like that we’re still talking about frickin’ Oslo at all,” I spouted, feeling for the Subaru Outback guy, as I couldn’t negotiate those computerized meters if my DPT rap sheet depended on it. “Or any of the Mideast stuff, for that matter.”
“Head in the sand, Herbert, stop burying your head in the sand,” he pressed, checking for a sliver of an opening in bumper-to-bumper traffic both ways. “This isn’t going away anytime soon—and may very well affect our day-to-days before long.”
“How d’ya figure that?” I followed closely as we slipped between detailed Acura and Infiniti SUVs. Remember the operative words, dodo—maintain composure…
Crossing over the yellow line, we were greeted by a touch of Basilicata and Veneto. Abruzzo occupied the ground floor of a compact Georgian building, red brickfront and climbing ivy in a sea of off-white and beige, already packed for an earlybird dining Saturday. Lovey couples lounged in the black captain’s bay window casings of the bistro’s foreroom wine bar, gazing out over beauteous flower boxes, sipping varietal Fattoria Parattico and Mastroberardino from Campania, sharing Selvagrossa and Stotti Montonico from Puglia and Sardegna—poured with nose-up devotion by staff sommeliers.
Daytime candles and shadows: Abruzzo fanciers picked delicately at gender-specific menus: were already savoring house-cured Ciccioli and Lonza; Tonnarelli soffritto, entrees like Crespelle and ricotta-pecorino or Fiocchi d’amore. In anticipation of a dolce finale of Blu del Monviso and Baba alla Limoncella—all amid regina viarum paintings, landscapes along the Appian Way. A sotto voce feast in progress for consummate Gulf of Taranto epicureans at heart, lots of vino fino and actionable ambience: set to Bartoli-Roberta Gambarini music.
Tidy sidewall tables were still half filled with brunching laggards munching prune scones, almond croissants, apricot Danishes cocoa brioche, sipping gentrified espresso. Meanwhile, we could soak in fluorescent display cases full of fresh berry tarts, polka-dot sprinkled buttercream cupcakes, saffron quiche and custard cups, black currant mousses and sticky caramel crullers.
In Babykakes’ long, narrow side cases, however, the breadth of its cake specialties truly shone through: Hazelnut Mocha, Gianduja Crunch, Boysenberry Charlotte, Mango Cheesecake and Brandy-Citrus Sunset in fresh fruit glazes and dazzling frosted colors. Just the sugary, smiley-face ticket for casual-by-design neighborhood dinner parties, receptions, coming outs, goings on—the whole-grain, non-sectarian, tasteful bill of fare.
“Just bide your time, my friend,” Paulen glanced me up and down once more. “Tell me, when’s the last time you engaged in substantive discussion, anyway?”
“About what?” Tongue wagging, I spotted a down-heeled former condo broker known along gourmet row for his serial dine and dash.
“The social sciences, politics, religion—about anything…” Doc’s dismissive tone betrayed as how Abruzzo’s Italian flavor had tugged further at his paterfamilial roots.
We caught our breaths outside the leek green and terra cotta detailed building, fighting the urge to gorge when a spanking twentyish couple emerged through the bakery’s disable-enabled front door. The happily doting father, clad in black fleece, denim and Cal ballcap, guided a high-tech new tripod baby stroller into the sidewalk flow.
Closely following, a mother superior blonde in azure modal-lycra pregravid form shuffled her pink-orange Crocs out of Babykakes, sorting about a large, clear tote bag of raisin-walnut bread, oatbran muffins, banana loaves and garlic ciabatta. Futzing with a zucchini baguette, she looked up from under a black and gold CU Buffaloes sun visor to spot her mate. That’s when she locked on us, appearing to make Paulen as someone to scowl at and frown upon.
“You…professor…”
“Why hello, Cindy…” Doc reached out to her. “Fancy meeting…”
“No, please,” she pulled back. “Sorry…must go!” With that, she seemed to recoil and catch up with the stroller. They blurred away down Chestnut, as she pointed back sharply, whispering her husband’s way, then spinning off like I…we weren’t even there.
“Whoa, what was that little drama?” I asked, relieved to shift focus some, although that beaming CU visor, the couple’s initial openness and easy smiling manner, triggered pesky thoughts on my part of what might have been down that…other path. Still, business was business now. I reached into my vest pocket once again for reassurance—recalling a little trick I had first learned way back when.
“Who knows, she is just a former student,” Paulen shrugged, though seeming rather more shaken than stirred. “CU’s a big campus, but Boulder’s still a small town…everybody runs into everybody there, for better or for worse.”
Our contact glucose high was quickly doused by another breeze-blown whiff of sushi. Black and sea blue fronted with a ported ship’s cabin door, Koyoko served up a gill net full of familiar raw fish variations at pillow-cushioned wall tables and a stainless steel back bar, pink kimono-wrapped waitresses busily bone-ringing chopsticks and white cloth napkins.
Still, Paulen paused, peeking back at the CU alumna. But he quickly averted to window photos of Teri Don, Ton Katsu and Udon Yaki Soba; a posted menu of Hotate Gai nigiri, Maguro and Mirugai, Tobiko and thin-rolled Te or Hoso Maki—with saki and Mochi ice cream to sop the palate.
Culinary culture clash: I in turn nudged us past the blue-bag bandbox launderesse next door toward Pirgos, a cramped Greek grill, Aegean grotto-style, with blue and yellow décor. Corfu watercolor seascapes and Pindus panoramas adorned the walls, Sporades weaves and Cyclades ceramic urns garnished counters and shelves. Snug main deck and mini-balcony tables were flower vase readied for saucers of dolmathes and baskets of bite-sized bookies, dishes of piping Spetzofai or Arnisia Paidakia, heaped platters of Pikilia Thalassinon and Lahanikon, with Spanakopita, and souvlaki as sweeteners. All told, it prompted the metabolic question: How could so many of the Marina’s trendier foodies live within sniffing distance of Chestnut’s pan-cuisinal row, yet remain so slim and trim? Could have been the mantra here: burn, baby, burn.
“Grade dispute?”
“Something like that, but more evaluative. In any case, the town has a way of sticking with you, and to you, on a personal and interpersonal level,” Paulen said, with a nervous chuckle. “Can’t seem to get away. Even back out here.”
Another fitting answer may have been gliding our way—a statistical cluster stream of young women dutifully filing into the adjoining storefront. Predominantly lithe and limber, devout as Vedanta Templers or cloistered sisters of the cloth, they ignored us entirely as they entered Hasta Yoga. Yellowing in one of the Marina’s dust-streaked shop windows was a large commercial ‘For Lease’ sign—rent too high, a sight too low. Papering over the other display glass were promo and scheduling fliers for Hasta’s studio, a pop-up spiritualized sublet keeping vandals and other rodents away from the property on a 30-day, month-to-month basis. Filing in through its brown, kick-battered door were this session’s yogamatons—color-matched, foam rolled mats slung like quivers over their shoulders, folded towels and water bottles in hand, these dedicated legions made their mission statement in a transcendent sort of way.
The softer core among them wore seaweed coordinates and MBT wobbly shoes, with a full campaign of plastic wristbands. The gung holistic came forth in black vinyasa tights, brown chakra or santasha crops, living on organic couscous and buckwheat groats. More chary subjects wrapped themselves in teal tadesana and mauve elation jackets against any après-Bikram chill; bolder yoginis simply draped a shanti hoodie or she-bop vest over breaker bras, and cinched up their charcoal dharma shorts and brown boogie pants, pinned back pony tails and hair claws in the event of a deep breathing fall from grace.
We could see little over water stained half-curtains, the fliers and makeshift signage, but Hafta’s schedule did spell out something of a timeless hybrid of mixed-level yoga styles, which were already taking shape on the store’s cupping and creaking old hardwood floor. Yogis still wet behind their Oms drilled pre-paid subjects through 26 Asana poses and postures—balancing stick, full locust, upward facing dog—until Paulen stood riveted like a construction fanboy through a downtown peephole, and I could flaccidly fake it or take it no more.
“Sticky, kinda like BabyKakes, huh,” I probed, seeking instead to ferret out that CU alumna’s alarm. I could just imagine what went on with them back there. Yep, now we were getting somewhere. “Nice, toasty buns…” As much as I wanted to turn from Hasta’s window, I could scarcely find the will or way to slip away. Those asanas, the flowing poses: I was thereupon delivered back unto Syd’s upliftingly sunny bedroom, to that throbbing, heartstopping nooner that has but lasted priaprismally to this day. Religiously enlightened postures that morphed heatedly into inconceivable positions; if Doc here only knew, could only hope to hypothesize, double-blind control factor for, or methodically deconstruct.
“Shush, I’m centering,” he noted yet another flier hyping Sunday classes in swing and samba dance, Mondays being reserved for negligent and pole dancing geared to homebody vegan strippers in training. “Relax, Herbert—only jesting…humor, remember?”
“Yeah, you’re a regular Lenny Bruce alright,” I had pried myself from Hasta Yoga entirely, ambivalent over certain overstimulating asanas from an earlier time—wholesome, healthful discipline put to purely prurient use; transcendent, metaphysical means in the service of carnal ends?
“So what’s not to like about Lenny Bruce?” Paulen regained his focus and footing, following in stride, past another nail and facial rejuvenation salon, only hotter yet on the shrieking new neons, glitter gels and toxic greens, with shelf upon shelf of paraffin sealers, color blockers, lacquer removers and brazen multicolor polishes. Masked Vietnamese attendants pampered their low-chaired regulars, gagged over the byproducts, scratched the irritations: More nails, more sushi, more’s the pity. “Not to mention Jackie Mason.”
“Jackie Mason?”
“The ol’ Borscht Belter…google him…”
Before I could search for any trace of a rejoinder, we were squarely in front of this by-appointment-only interior design shop, cognoscente to the neighborhood czars. Tiny in scale, but outsized in style and influence, Marianna Grotelli dispensed custom furnishings and considerable aesthetic gravitas. Her narrow show windows flaunted refurbished period pieces—a renaissance inlaid Italianate settee, a tufted French Provincial fauteuil. More specifically, she catered to the sumptuous TICribs and mansions on upper Broadway. Window dressings, cloth swatches, color wheels and carpet squares cluttered both showcase displays under her subtle gray awning. A cherrywood secretary, chrome mantle mirror, china tea services, cloisonné and Wedgwood, bindled tapestries and a gold-framed neo-Degas landscape filled any nook and corner between the studio’s cheerful lemony Dutch door and rear consultation consoles.
“I’ll get right on it, soon as I dig up a laptop,” I finally muttered, tossing in another reductio ad absurdum, owing to impatience with the topical drift. “Your Mason’s not one of those gross-out comedians, is he,” I attempted to steer the conversation back on target—albeit against my friable judgment.
“Scarcely…but Jackie Mason is hard-matzoballs, ultimate in-your-face,” Paulen said, somewhat righteously. “He’s a take-no-prisoners tumler, a genius at getting under peoples’ skin with the unvarnished truth. “Only with a smirk and a yarmulke. Although I should think you’d have encountered such a renowned stand-up star in your…readings.”
“Yeah, well don’t read too much into that,” I recognized that this really could have been going better, all in all things being unequal… “Since I was actually more partial to Shelley Berman and his phone.”
“Ah, yes—wry, rapier-like was he, a true thespian and educator—not like Cosmo or the slapstick broadsides of SNL,” Paulen sighed, visibly testy and torn.
Fabrics and textures, delicious enough, but Marianna Grotelli seemed no match for the latest Marina institution—some twenty years, three local grocer generations in the breeding—that newly shared the street level of this brickface and bay windowed apartment building. Marina Meatery’s distinctive black and russet awning stretched well around its corner storefront, the aromatic venting through its open-arms doorway drew cultivated carnivors from Cow Hollow on down.
We paused long enough to sample some Andouille, pistachio liver pate and mint marinade from its friendly neighborhood son of a butcher. We peered in at his bright 49er blood red and gold décor, gleaming black-and-glass cases plump with prime, leanly marbled steaks, roasts and brisket, fat logs of salami and pimento loaf, coiled links of Italian sausage, bangers and wurst. A stuffed swordfish was trophy mounted over Meatery’s opposing poultry case. The day’s sea-catch ranged from salmon and lobster to cod-white trays of crab cakes and clams.
Ethnic folk guitar piped through the shop, further seasoning coolers of pastas and risotto, stacked produce baskets of pomme de terre, Beauregard yams, jumbo Bermuda onions and beefsteak tomatoes. Blocks for the carving, sauces for the tasting, numbers for the taking: Marina Meatery had everything but the sawdust floors. It basted me rather wistfully to Rosen’s corner Grocery and Meats way back in Willow Grove: How greatly mom appreciated the Rosen family for it, even though dad still rolls in his grave over the humiliating kindness and credit Harold showed our family in need.
But even such regressive thinking couldn’t shake me off this corn-fed, free-range protein contact high. Not when I’d inhaled gastronomy so varied and savorous here along Chestnut Street—even though I hadn’t actually eaten so well in ages. Nor when a little more patient probing might net me some medium rare Liverpool Lil’s…
VrrroOOMMM…scrreEEECHHH…thrrruUMMPPP…
“Aagghhhh!!!!”
Then again, that mowdown there could very well have done the trick…
Care for more?
Chapter Thirty-Four. Traffic imbroglio,
out-of-towners make their presence known.
Conflicting views make for a murkier picture,
forcing a point-counterpointed turn of the corner…