Quiet Irving Place

The Zen Palate was closed I saw when I crossed Union Square. Closed for good, with rental signs in the window. I'd thought that's where we were meeting. I smoked a cigarette and thought things over. I felt in my pocket for my phone which wasn't there. I'd left it. I was out of sorts.

I walked east. I had no way of knowing the time. I looked around me for some sort of public clock. There were none. It was getting dark is all I knew. I came upon Irving Place and happened to take a right. Ahead of me was Trader Joe's. Useless. Then on my left I saw a group of models standing outside a restaurant not smoking. I knew I'd arrived at Pure Food and Wine.

Three hostesses tried to talk me into a table. I blew past them muttering something about a friend in the back. As I stepped out into the courtyard I was hit with the overwhelming scent of Egyptian Musk. It lay like a fog over the crowd. Thick, sweet vaporized oil coating the inside of my nose. Dried nuts? Something else came when I breathed out, I couldn't put my finger on it. I went to the bar they have out there, the bartender gave me a list. There is no hard liquor served at Pure Food and Wine I wanted to drink. I should have known. "Is that Egyptian Musk?" I asked the bartender. She said she doesn't wear chemically-based scents. "Who does anymore?" I knew what I wanted to put my finger on. Sanctimony. That was what came at the back end of this scent. That's what the courtyard at Pure Food and Wine smells like.

My short, fat, gay, Indian companion joined me at the bar. "I tried to call you. I was dumping." I told him I'd left my phone. "They have nut cheese." I looked around. "Not like that. Pistachio." He said he'd been dumping a lot since he began his raw food diet and tried to tell me about them. I ordered a bottle of wine. "It's organic and bio-dynamic," the bartender said. "What, they let the chickens run through there?" "Whatever wants to run through there. No pesticides are used. It's so right on."

We drank the first of three bottles of organic, bio-dynamic Cava made in methode champenoise while my companion ate raw food. I thought about the paring down of a life. He was trying to lose weight so he rejected even the cooking of food, figuring it was more natural and basic. He ran for miles outside and wouldn't join a gym. I'd left my phone and had been lost all day. Ridiculous because the only person who calls was sitting next to me at the bar. I'd felt lighter, out of touch, but dazed. I wasn't ready to give up my own infrastructure. The night before there'd been a problem with the cable in my apartment and the channel guide had gone out. I couldn't see to choose a show to watch. My knees had been cut out from under me. I thought about the growing dependence we have on machines. It scares me, but I'll take it.

I poured out the last of the third bottle in our glasses. My companion came back from peeing and asked if I'd ever gone into a bathroom where someone had been dumping so hard it had made the room warmer. He was smiling, amazed at our bodies. I lit a cigarette and waited for the bartender to ask me to put it out.