I had an hour to kill, so I stopped in to grab an appetizer. It was a quiet neighborhood restaurant, dimly but elegantly lit, with particularly nice tiny blue sparkling lights on the ceiling. I’d not been in before, but it offered tapas and Italian food; it was bound to be a fine way to pass the time.
I was the only customer. There was a man in a coat, ostensibly on his way out, talking intently with the staff: the hostess, the cook and the waitress. I was promptly seated, and then was privy to a series of conversations better held anywhere other than here.
The man who was leaving has a son with a heroin addiction. This was clear first from the chef:
“You can’t enable him. You have to let him hit bottom. The sooner he hits bottom, the better. He’s got to hit bottom. You gotta let him.”
The man whose son has a heroin addiction is himself an alcoholic.
“Just like when I was drinking. You – you can have a glass. You – you can have one, two, three glasses. Me, no. I don’t stop. I must not have any, or I will have it all.” This all said with a mild Italian accent.
Primed by the topic of alcoholism, the hostess chimed in to ask if they had heard about the bar owner from up the street.
“Dead. At 57. The alcohol.”
There ensued a bit of a conflict as each participant chimed in on how long it had been since they’d seen the now-deceased bar owner. The hostess said he hadn’t come in for two years. The gentleman with his own alcohol problems and a heroin-addicted child thought he’d been in much more recently than that.
The chef walked back to the kitchen, and emitted a deep, phlegmy cough. We’re in a record-breaking flu season.
My server, who had not audibly participated in the conversation other than to nod and murmur, brought some bread and dipping oil. I placed my order. Thus I missed the conversation thread that resulted in my hearing the chef say, “You know that movie, about the Butcher.”
“No, no, not that one. What about The Butcher of _____________ (couldn’t hear). It’s about the Nazi’s . . .”
I coughed conspicuously, while simultaneously moving my chair an inch backward, then brought it back to the table. I was there to enjoy homemade ravioli (to be filled with hummus and pine nuts and arrive in a spicy cream sauce) and a taste of the house Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. I wasn’t there to hear about heroin, alcoholism, dead alcoholic bar owners, substance abuse advice, nor the plot line of a Nazi movie with “butcher” in the title.
I must not have been too subtle, as the message did the trick.
The conversation turned to the topics it ought to – where the server was in school and the degree she was working toward, the traffic, the weather.
“Oh, the lights here are so romantic,” said the man whose life has been brushed by alcohol and heroin. He was a trim senior in faded gray jeans, a brown leather bomber jacket, and snappy hat. If I’d met him anywhere else, I’d never have known the way in which life blew him sideways.
We’re all blown sideways, of course, right off the track of where we hope to go and where we dare to dream. We end up older, emotionally and often physically bruised, not sure how any of us got to the places we did manage to get to.
The chef coughed for real another few times. I sipped the inexpensive and predictable red, made my way through the pillowy and intriguing hummus-filled ravioli, and wrested the experience back from sideways. With only minor anxiety of the potential impact of the chef’s cough on my food.
There’s so much sideways we risk getting lost in it. So much sideways that we forget we must pull ourselves upright, re-awaken to moments that are ordinary, take in the romance that is still available, no matter where we are. So much sideways that we need light chatter about school and the weather, blue twinkly lights on the ceiling, impossibly soft ravioli, the warmth of a friendly red wine, white linen napkins folded into flowers, then shaken out and draped lightly on our laps.