Soul Food

...so step up to the desk and check in/ hurry don't wait so that we can begin/ to treat you the way that you want and deserve....

I wake with joints swelled and creaky as wood left out overnight in the rain, and wonder if I will forever limp through mornings. Hot sticky air crawls across my skin like locusts.

I spend time in the company of my favorite blonde, my favorite Texan, and my favorite composer- who wear the same pair of pants- and fall in love with Jason Brown all over again.

It's a mini-reunion. The composer and writer are here, Nixon, Pat, the bass guitarist, the drummer, Mo Dean, Beautiful Girl #1, and the father of Gino #2. Love is in the room. JB plays what is now the opening number of the show, and sneaks in Drunk On Power, Just Plain Drunk, since the two people in the duet are standing together in close conversation. I request that he "play me out" with I Spy, You Spy, and drive off to meet one of the spies.

Ellen collars us, addressing herself to me, mainly, though it's The Animal who has the information she wants. Her crabcakes and shrimp salad have been ignored by the media. She is hurt. This will not do. I no longer eat crab or shrimp, but take it on faith that hers are better than Captain Larry's, whoever he is. I've seen the effort she expends on Thursdays to make her fishcakes. It is now my personal mission to get her seafood items in print. I'm not sure how, for, though I know foodies, I have no personal relationship with anyone who gets paid to eat.

Restaurant reviewers, assemble, descend, emerge from Cox's Tavern on Fort Avenue with high praise for Ellen's crabcakes and shrimp salad.

Shit. Now I'm hungry.


(Welcome to the Watergate; Pomeroy and Brown)