Table of Contents, Credits, and Three Short Stories from Ken Waldman's, Men, Women, and Food
Men, Women, and Food—Contents
Night and Rain and Stars and Everything Else............………............................. 1
Decisions..............................…………............................................................. 3
Love, Sex, and Death................................…..........………................................ 7
Not an Aztec Sundae......................................………....................................... 26
Swampland.......................................................……...................................... 29
Black Hair, Purple Lips............................................………............................... 37
Five Spices Powder..........................................…………..........................…...... 41
Henry Speaks....................................................…........................................ 47
Names.........................................................…............................................. 54
Two Peas in a Pod..................................................…................................... 60
Holden's Nursery Rhyme ......................................….................................... 63
A Yen for the Sea................................................…....……............................. 70
The Writer............................................................…….................................. 74
Mushrooms.................................................….....…….................................... 87
The Legendary Nightclub.......................................………............................... 98
Oraño.........................................................................….............................. 104
Letters.................................................…..........…........................................ 115
Scientific Cuisine......................................…..........…….................................. 130
Hagedorn Brothers............................................……...................................... 151
My Grandfather's Story......................................……....................................... 170
Whitemarsh.....................................................……........................................ 185
Tongue Talk...................................................…….......................................... 104
Sleep, Dreams, and Snow......................................……................................... 221
More Decisions......................................................………................................ 233
The Ice Age...........................................................…….................................. 236
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following anthologies and journals in which some of these stories, or versions of these stories, first appeared:
Anthologies
"Movieworks: “Decisions”
Journals
Gargoyle: “Scientific Cuisine”
Heartland: “A Yen for the Sea”
Laurel Review: “Holden's Nursery Rhyme”
The MacGuffin: “Black Hair, Purple Lips” “My Grandfather's Story” “The Writer”
Octave: “Swampland”
Permafrost: “Not an Aztec Sundae” “Night and Rain and Stars and Everything Else”
Weber: The Contemporary West: “Mushrooms”
Wind: “Names”
Writer's Self: “Two Peas in a Pod”
“Black Hair, Purple Lips” was also published in its entirety in Ken Waldman's creative writing manual, The Writing Party
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Decisions
“Five letters,” the woman says as she stares at the crossword puzzle lying on her lap. “Starts with a D. Shepherd's flock.”
“Drove,” the man says as he rustles, then folds the movie page of the Sunday paper. “Like a drove of sheep or oxen. Like what we should have done a couple of minutes ago.”
She scribbles the letters and furrows her brow. “I ought to just let you do this,” she says.
The couple met almost a year ago at a party given by a mutual friend, a columnist for the weekly entertainment guide. At the time she was with another man, and he was with another woman. They talked briefly and found they worked within three blocks of each other: she as a technical writer, he as an assistant editor. That week they went to lunch. By Valentine's Day they had ended the old relationships and were sleeping together three or four times a week. In March they flew to Utah for a week of skiing. In May they found an apartment. The past month they have been talking about giving each other options. Last week he took an attractive writer to lunch, and she had an interview for an out-of-state job. This next week he is filling out applications to journalism school, and she is meeting one ex-lover for dinner on Monday and another ex-lover for drinks on Wednesday. For a second their eyes meet, and then she turns to the crossword puzzle.
“So,” says the man after he drains the rest of his coffee. “The comedy, the drama, or the weird one? Or do you want to sit here all day and not see a movie? After all, brunch and a movie was your idea.” He begins thumping the table with his knuckles.
“What time is it?” she asks, not looking up.
“Getting close to two,” he says. “We're going to have to get moving no matter which we go to.” He gives the tabletop one last thump before shifting his weight as if to get up. “So what'll it be? Honey?”
“Eight letters, third one's an R. Orange sphere.” She begins drumming the table edge with the eraser end of the pencil.
“Some kind of ball. Fireball,” he says. “Or else, I don't know, some kind of fruit. Now let's get going. Honey?”
“You're good at these, you know. It's got to be fireball.” She jots the letters. “Now what were those movies again?”
“You mean you weren't listening?”
She shakes her head.
“The comedy's about a bunch of talking animals. It sounds stupid, but all the reviews say 'ironic, witty,' and stuff like that. It opened Friday. I haven't heard anything else about it. I'm not sure I want to see a bunch of talking animals for two hours, but I'll go if you want to.”
“What else?”
“The drama stars Jack Nicholson as a psychopathic businessman. Sally and Clark said it was really bloody. The ads say 'surefire Academy award nominee,' 'a mature thriller,' 'Nicholson's superb—the performance of a lifetime.' It's called Moneybones. It's probably pretty good.”
“Where's it playing?”
“Oh yeah, it's downtown. I don't want to drive downtown, but you like Jack Nicholson, right?”
“Did you say that was the weird one?”
“No, the weird one's low budget, all unknowns, a bunch of episodes three to twenty minutes long. It's playing by the university. Supposedly it's about getting into some character's head.”
“Whose head?”
He shrugs. “I don't know. Some writer. Some unknown actor.”
“What are the reviews like?”
“'Original, fascinating, worth seeing.' 'A strange, comic intelligence.' 'Unusual.'”
“Sounds weird, but interesting.”
“That's what I was saying. The reviews aren't bad.”
“You talk to anybody who's seen it?”
He shakes his head.
“What's it called?”
“Men, Women, and Food.”
“Well, I don't know,” she says, looking down at the crossword puzzle. “They all sound the same to me. You choose.”
“Me choose? You want me to choose? Last time I chose you hated the movie so much you said you'd never let me choose again.”
“That was a while ago.”
“That was three weeks ago.
She shrugs. “You know what your problem is? You're always so literal.”
“We need to get going. What do you want to see? The comedy, the drama, or the weird one?”
“You choose,” she says.
“You choose,” he says.
“I need a ten-letter word,” she says. “Gardener's midnight journey. Last three letters are A, P, E.”
“Okay,” he says as he goes to his wallet and removes a five-dollar bill. “We'll see the animal one. I got the tip. We've already paid the check. Put on your sweater and let's go.”
“What about the weird one? I'm in that kind of mood.”
“Okay,” he says, “the weird one. Put on your sweater so we can go. I hate walking into movies late.” He looks at the table. “Should I bring the paper with me?”
“Leave it,” she says.
“What about the puzzle?”
“Leave it,” she says. “Unless you want to bring it with you.”
“Maybe I'll bring it,” he says. “I can look at it while we drive there.”
“I thought you'd drive,” she says as they head for the door. “You always drive.”
“I don't always drive,” he says. Then he goes back, grabs the newspaper, and runs to catch up with her.
“Why don't you drive,” she says when he returns.
“I'll drive to the theater if you drive home,” he says.
“Let me think about that,” she says, and pushing open the door, they have to shield their eyes from the autumn sun's glare.
“Killer sun,” he says, squinting at her. “Should've brought some shades.”
“You can say that again,” she says, slipping her hand in his, her fingers squeezing.
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Black Hair, Purple Lips
“Sylvia, a light?”
“Why thank you, my pet,” Sylvia could have said, but instead she gave Alfred a look. Not a look actually, just the slightest curl of a mouth and the briefest flutter of a right eyelid. It said that she not only expected Alfred to light the cigarette, but that he better do it with flair.
Sylvia blew a smoke ring. Then another. The smoke rings had a frail grace to them. They floated across the table, breaking up into Alfred's eyes. Sylvia watched Alfred's eyes water. Silly man, thought Sylvia, as she watched him smile weakly at her. I'm not looking at your eyes. I'm looking at your eyes water.
The mirror directly behind Alfred more than doubled Sylvia's pleasure. Not only could she watch Alfred's eyes water, but she could watch herself blow smoke into Alfred's eyes. The scene was perfect.
Sylvia blew another smoke ring, shifted her eyes from the mirror, and watched the ring float and float, and then fade at just the right spot. Then she looked back into the mirror. Her black hair rose up in a wonderfully complex pile of activity on top of her head. She admired, too, how her cigarette fit in her mouth as she smoked. The lips did it, and it was an experiment, this lipstick. The color was the same as her shoes, a pair of expensive grape-colored high heels Alfred had bought for her last month. She smiled at her black dress with its provocative low cut. Her bracelets were fine, but now she felt her earrings and necklace needed more flash, more something.
Sylvia blew one more smoke ring before setting the cigarette in the ashtray. She sipped from her glass of Chardonnay. She looked at Alfred, then the mirror. She saw herself, then beyond herself. She began to stare at what must have been a mistake. Behind her, one table away, a man wearing a golf visor was pulling out a chair and sitting down. His companion, a woman with waist-length blonde hair, wearing a tee-shirt and blue jeans, was pulling out the chair directly behind Sylvia. Looking in the mirror, Sylvia watched her chair get knocked by the woman.
“Sorry,” said the woman, who then sat down and maneuvered up to the table.
Sylvia turned in her seat, and gave the back of the woman's head an ugly look. When Sylvia saw that the man wearing the visor was staring at her, she smirked. The man wearing the visor looked at Sylvia's lips for a moment, shook his head, and then looked downward to where her left breast pushed against her black dress. Immediately, Sylvia turned to Alfred, picked up her cigarette, took a furious drag, and blew a thick, low-flying smoke ring that sailed across the table. Sylvia crushed the cigarette in the ashtray. Alfred fished around his vest pocket for a handkerchief, and when he found it, he gently dabbed the moisture from around his eyes.
“The nerve,” Sylvia said.
“Nerve?” said Alfred. “What?” He began folding his handkerchief, making sharp, exact creases.
“The nerve,” Sylvia repeated. “New money means no class as far as I'm concerned. Put a few dollars in their hands and every place is a pizzeria.”
Alfred put the handkerchief back in his vest and stared at his drink. Then he picked it up and sipped. “Sylvia,” he said as he swirled the drink in the glass. “Are you saying we should go out for pizza tonight? I thought you decided you wanted to come here for dinner.” He nodded to her and smiled thinly as he set down the drink.
Sylvia took out a cigarette and gestured for Alfred to light it. “New money means you come into a nice place like this dressed in the latest of picnic attire. Alfred, this is no picnic ground. A look at the menu and the decor will tell you that.” She leaned over and whispered to him. “Let me tell you something, Alfred doll. The man I used to see last summer took me on a picnic. In ninety degree weather we sweltered in a field drinking warm coca-cola and eating soggy tuna fish sandwiches. That's what he called food. And then he put his arm around my shoulder and said we would be each other's dessert. You can imagine how I felt. I was going to vomit and I told him so. And he thought his little picnic was so romantic. Well, I had my own secret treat after he took me home. And I'll tell you, it was no picnic.” As Sylvia giggled, she could almost overhear the conversation at the table behind her. She strained to listen, and thought she overhead the word “bitch.” She blew a smoke ring.
“What do you mean, no picnic?” asked Alfred, his eyes watering.
“You know, a picnic,” said Sylvia, raising her voice so the table behind her could hear. “That informal time for ants and dirt.” Sylvia looked into the mirror where she saw the man wearing the visor drinking from a bottle of beer. Sylvia sipped her wine. The man took another gulp of beer. Alfred flecked a particle of dirt off his dinner jacket.
“Yes, dirt,” Sylvia said, and as she spoke, she thought she overheard the man wearing the visor say, “whore.” She blew a smoke ring. “Going on picnics, drinking kegs of beer, frolicking men and their whores, dancing in mud, studying worms. By god, where does it end? You get dressed for a night out and you find yourself in a middle of a picnic. Alfred, doesn't that bother you?”
“Me?” he shook his head.
“Just look in front of you with your own two eyes.” Sylvia took a deep drag and blew. Then she looked into the mirror. There was nothing wrong with the way she looked, and for a second she smiled and saw herself smile. Then she looked farther to see what the man wearing the visor was doing. He was staring at her body, and nodding.
“Alfred, let's go,” said Sylvia. “I won't stand for it a minute longer.” She crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, rubbing the gray and blackened tobacco on every surface of the glass.
“Go?” asked Alfred.
“Go,” said Sylvia. “To dinner. We've had a drink. Take me somewhere nice for a change. Take me to The Club.”
“The Club? But Sylvia, I thought you didn't like the food there.”
“We'll try it again,” she said. “Maybe they've hired a new chef.” As she pushed back to get up from her chair, she thought she overheard the man in the visor say “poodle” and then “leash.” She turned to look at him. He was talking to his woman friend. But when he noticed Sylvia staring at him, he stopped talking. His eyes went from Sylvia's shoes, to her hair, to her lips, to her breasts.
His woman friend turned so she could look too.
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Names
Faith considered herself a doubter and a questioner, but when Richard scratched her scalp and jokingly dubbed her Faith/No Faith a quarter hour after meeting her, she neither doubted nor questioned: she allowed him to seduce her later that night. In their intimacy he shortened the name to No. “No,” Richard said in bed the following morning, his fingers making corkscrews of her hair. “You better watch out. I might fall in love with you, and if I do, something's going to happen.” No soon discovered Richard often talked like that in the mornings. But instead of letting him continue, No would put an index finger to his lips to let Richard kiss it, lick it, suck it, bite it.
The table was by a screened window. As No looked outside past the patio, the herb garden, the oak tree, Richard watched the waiter set down their Bloody Marys, their basket of bread and crackers, their plate of pâté, cheese, and raw vegetables, and then walk toward the other table in the room to check whether the couple there needed anything.
“No,” Richard said. “Drinks.”
For a few seconds she acted as if she hadn't heard him. Then her fingers crept along the table until they found the glass, and without looking she picked it up, brought it to her lips, drank from it, and set it down. Richard cut a slab of pâté, spread it thickly onto a slice of bread, and set the knife on the plate. Hearing silverware touch china, No turned from the window and watched him eat. Then she watched him pick up his drink and sip it. She watched him watch her break a thin stalk of celery into two, put the larger piece back on the plate, break the smaller piece into two, put the larger piece back on the plate, and begin nibbling.
“Ophelia,” she said after she chewed the celery down and swallowed.
“Ophelia?”
“Ophelia,” she nodded. “Or Odetta. Or Nola even. Especially Nola even.” She repeated it a third time. “NO—la.”
“NO—la,” he said, the long, round O sound making his lips pucker into a small, round o which he held until his tongue dropped and rolled, his mouth loosening and widening. He pronounced the name once more, leaning over to kiss her as he did. After the kiss, he leaned back. They sipped their drinks. They ate hors d'oeuvres. She looked at him closely for a moment, her right hand closing around her glass. He answered her look. Then she looked outside past the patio, the plants, the big tree, the twilighting sky.
“Lola's a good one,” she said, her nose pressed against the screen. “Or Lois. Or maybe Antonia or Toni.” No turned to Richard, slyly picked an olive from the plate, and reached over. “Open,” she said. “O-livia,” she said, and she let him tickle and caress her fingers with his tongue and teeth as she gently let the olive go on the tip of his tongue. Then Richard picked up an olive, pushed her fingers out of his mouth with his tongue, and said, “O-livia,” so he could do the same for her and she could do the same for him. But No trapped Richard's thumb and index finger with her teeth, and slowly bit down. Richard surrendered the olive and returned to his drink. The ice cubes were melting and he swallowed them. No swallowed her olive and took a sip from her drink.
“Mona?” Richard asked hopefully as she put her glass down.
“Mona? Mona's a good one. And so is Hope in a way.”
“And No Hope is better, and Hope/No Hope is even better, right?” Richard made a nervous sound like a giggle, and when No made the same sound back, he understood that she understood that he probably understood about half of what was going on. Richard then spread most of the remaining pâté on a cracker, and with a mouth full of food said “What about Sophie? Sophia?”
“Yes.”
“Or Josephine or just plain Jo. You know, like Mary Jo or Becky Jo or Bobbie Jo or Jo Jo. Or Koko,” he added after pausing to drink the rest of his Bloody Mary.
“Naomi,” No said.
“Rosalie. Or Rose anything. Rosemarie. Rosetta. You know that song, Rosetta? I . . .”
No put a finger to Richard's lips. “Clove,” she said.
“Clove,” Richard nodded in agreement, and closed his eyes. Yes, Clove is a good one. Let me think for a second. Let me think. Okay. No, you ready? You ready for this one?” Richard opened his eyes and waited for No to nod her head. “Thelonia.”
No picked up the larger piece of celery and threw it at him. Though Richard turned his head fast and ducked in his chair, the celery hit him just below the ear. “I got an even better one,” he said. “What do you think of Bo-linda?”
No just shook her head back and forth, back and forth, and said he was too silly for words.
A minute later the waiter came, removed the drink glasses and the appetizer plate, set a candle on the table, lit it, and presented the wine. After opening the bottle, he placed the cork by Richard's spoon and poured a small amount of the wine first into Richard's glass, then into No's. Richard tasted the wine, and when he nodded that it would do, the waiter poured more so that their glasses were a little more than half full.
“Feels nice getting waited on for a change,” Richard said half to himself after the waiter left the table. He picked up the cork, put his nose to it, sniffed, and then offered it to No. She took it, put it to her nose, and breathed in. “Oak,” she said. She smelled it again. “Oak,” she said.
“Well, take a taste then. It tastes oaky too.”
No kept twirling the cork around in her fingers. She sniffed it one more time as Richard kept talking about the wine was a good buy for the price, how it would go well with the seafood they'd ordered, how maybe they'd order a second bottle if they felt like it.
“Richard,” she said. “Okay if I tell you something?” She moved the bottle of wine and the candle to the right, the basket of bread and crackers to the left, and rested her elbows on the table so her hands and forearms fell to where the wine, the candle, and the basket had been before she moved them. “Here,” she said. Richard put his elbows on the table, took her hands, and looked at her.
“You see that tree out there, the oak?” No said.
Richard turned his head and nodded. In the dusk it had darkened into a silhouette. Richard nodded again so No would explain.
“Where I grew up we had a front porch, and a tree just like that one off to the side. Other trees too, but the big old oak tree off to the side was the biggest.” No squeezed Richard's hands, and let Richard squeeze hers back.
“Anyway, one summer my dad and little brother got on the roof, and from there they got on the tree, and they had ropes, and they climbed down a couple branches to the thickest branch. I remember my mom had the camera out and was taking pictures.
“Anyway, they made knots and tied the two ropes tight. Then they were back on the roof. When they came down to the yard they cut the ropes right and fastened the boards to the dangling ends so we had a swing. My dad tried it first, then mom, then me, then my brother. We all took a long turn, and being new, and homemade, and with that branch real high, even higher actually because the ground sloped downward near the tree, it was really fun. You could really get going sometimes. Sort of like this.” No began swinging Richard's hands in ever-widening, ever-higher arcs, threatening to topple the basket of food on the one side, and the bottle of wine and the candle on the other. Richard guided their four swinging hands back onto the table, letting No understand that he understood how swings worked, and to continue the story.
“That whole summer almost the swing was so much fun. Friends would come over, and we'd get going medium-high and jump and roll downhill, or else we'd just swing, one pushing the other. My brother used to get almost as high as the second floor windows. Sometimes all we liked to do was sit and drag our toes in the dirt, hardly even moving.
“One night after dinner, the fireflies were out now, god, I'm really remembering, and my dad was pushing me on the swing, and he could really push if he wanted to, and I just went higher and higher, kicking to go even higher, and I was shouting like I sometimes did on the swing, when suddenly I really meant it. I mean I meant I was scared and I wanted to stop, and I kept shouting, and my dad thought I was kidding or joking, and he kept pushing me harder, and then I started to howl. What a mess. My mom ran outside and yelled at my dad, and he yelled back, and my brother rode his bike from down the block up to the driveway to see what the yelling was about because he heard it all the way down the street. And all the time I was up in the air screaming and crying. Even when I stopped swinging, I couldn't stop.”
No began staring at the wine bottle. “Richard,” she said, “I don't know why I'm telling you all this. Let's name names or something.”
But Richard just held her hands tighter, rubbed the backs of them firmly with his thumbs, and then lifted them a bit to kiss the knuckles. Then he went back to holding her hands as before, knowing she knew he was letting her continue her story. But since she didn't continue, they sat in silence, the evening darkening, the candle flickering, the two of them holding hands. When the waiter approached a few minutes later to see if everything was fine and whether they were ready for their main course, they both nodded and said it was and they were.
Then No let go of Richard's hands, picked up the cork, smelled it, and put it down. Then she raised the wine glass, swirled the wine, and tasted. “You're right, Richard, it's a lot like oak. Oak,” she repeated, emphasizing the O sound. Then she took another sip, put the wine glass down, and put her hands back in Richard's.
“Willow?” asked Richard.
“No,” she said. “Try Daisy May, or Sadie, or Grace Baby.” Then she laughed as she pulled her hands out of Richard's, lifted her wine glass, and drank.
Observing her curiously, Richard also raised his wine glass and drank.
The waiter entered the room carrying a tray of food.