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by D. Cashon Klein
The day after the night I woke up on the
kitchen floor, my friend David asked if I wanted to go to a
cookout. He said it was an invitation from a woman he'd met on the
internet. They were just friends and she thought it would be nice
if he brought me to a barbeque that she was having.
He said that she liked photography, so we
would go to the beach first to capture the sunset on her
Hasselblad. I decided that I was probably physically and
emotionally able to ride in a car, sit in a lounge chair and eat
steak, even though I felt like hell. There was plenty of time to
throw up, should the need arise, as well as cover the dark circles
under my eyes with some wood putty before the 4 o'clock party.
On the way I asked David to stop and get
her a beautiful autumn bouquet and a ring of cocktail shrimp. It is
polite to do these things. We arrived at her "compound," a
deed-restricted-gated-everything-community complete with a
guard.
David's friend, Beatrice, wanted us to
park by the pool which was approximately three blocks from her
door. I assumed she asked us to park there to accommodate the
guests that were coming to the cookout. It was not a walk I
particularly wanted to make. It was a 90 degree afternoon and I was
still not feeling too perky.
The door opened. She shoved her hand at me
and pumped my arm up and down as if she expected me to spew water
from my mouth. Then she turned her back on us and went about
arranging a floor-full of camera equipment. We stood in the
doorway, unable to maneuver around the artificial Christmas tree
and the stuff on the floor. We took it upon ourselves to weave our
way inside. I was beginning to wish bad things on David. There was
no evidence of an upcoming event in this place. We became part of
the furniture as she fussed with her equipment, talking to herself,
dashing in and out of rooms. It seemed like we stood awkwardly in
the middle of the living room for 45 minutes. We hadn't yet set
the shrimp, flowers or ourselves down. About this time she
remembered we were there and waved us to the couch.
She was a darling little British thing,
but I was not feeling terribly fond of her. I gave her the shrimp.
She asked what she was to do with them. I told her she was to EAT
them. She asked how they should be cooked. I told her they were
already cooked. She insisted they were raw because they were cold.
I told her that we could safely eat them as they were. She asked if
she should make some sort of sauce or cook them in the oven with
sausages. I explained that there was cocktail sauce with them.
Again I assured her that they did not need to be cooked.
She looked at me with skepticism. We'd
been there nearly an hour and I was severely dehydrated. I
suspected she was not going to offer us a drink. She didn't.
I asked if I could use her bathroom, half
expecting that she'd be horrified at the idea. She gestured in the
general direction. Once inside, I locked the door and turned the
water on in the sink where I could just fit my head under the
spigot to drink like a person who had just dragged herself across
Death Valley.
She had us schlep tripods, wooden boards
and camera bags all the way back to David's car. As we drove down
U.S. 19 I attempted to engage her in conversation. My daughter is a
road manager for punk bands and was currently driving from Leeds to
Glasgow. Her postcard was amusing as she explained how the sheep in
the mist appeared to be "tie-dyed" because their rumps were dyed
all different bright colors and it made her laugh every time she
saw them bounding across the hills. I shared this with Beatrice.
"Well, you can't (pronounced KONT) tie-dye a sheep. That's
absurd. They must have been (pronounced BEAN) marked after they
were tested for the hoof and mouth. Yes, I'm certain that must
have been why they were marked. Of course, this would render the
wool useless, so they must have been sheep for butchering."
We arrived at the beach just in time to
watch the sun crash into the gulf. Now I hated David and
Beatrice.
No one showed for the barbeque, which
basically was two pieces of sausage broiled until black and the
kitchen full of smoke. (She wasn't certain how to determine if
they were done. I assured her they were). She'd also arranged some
"lovely greens" topped with a chunk of leftover steak and unpeeled
orange wedges. She made coleslaw and potato salad, neither of which
she started until 8 o'clock. It was then that it occurred to her
to offer us a drink. David was asleep on the couch. She opened a
pack of Crystal Light and mixed up a batch. I practically drank the
whole pitcher.
She did finally try a shrimp, which she
referred to as a prawn, and liked it so much she ate the entire
ring while David and I hacked at our charcoal sausage and compost
salad. There were no steaks, no grill, no lounge chair and no other
guests. She couldn't understand why no one came, or called or
emailed.
We stopped for Chinese on the way
home.
Debbie Cashon Klein is a Safety Harbor
resident.
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