|
|
|
barbecue at Jessika's
Friday, May 24 2002
setting: five miles south of Staunton, VirginiaI had my mother's computer working reasonably well by the time I had her drop me off at the Staunton train station this afternoon. The Memorial Day weekend was beginning and I had plans of spending it in Charlottesville.
Since the public transportation infrastructure in this country is in a bad state of decay, there is no actual train station in Staunton. There's a building where the train station used to be, and it looks like a train station, and the train even stops there when it stops in Staunton. But there's no ticket window or information desk like there used to be back in the 70s. The building serves instead as the host for several restaurants which, though themed in a railroad motif, do nothing to further the cause of the Amtrak passenger. Well, this isn't entirely true, since their bathrooms do indeed come in handy when the train is late and the wait is long.
Today the train was running about forty minutes late, which didn't particularly aggravate me given my recent experiences with Greyhound. The weather was pleasant and I was content to sit on a bench watching a peculiar Mennonite family playing with what seemed like a novel gadget to them: a videocamera.
Since there is no ticket window in Staunton and since my decision to ride the train was of the last-minute variety, I was forced to call in my reservation to 1-800-AMTRAK. In return I received a reservation number which I wrote down on a scrap of paper.
When the train came, the conductor had all of us holding scraps of paper (there were three or four of us waiting at the Staunton "station") get on last, and then he shepherded us to the dining car where he gradually dealt with our ticket needs. We were nearly in Waynesboro by the time he'd collected my money. One cranky old man waiting to be processed wasn't content with watching the scenery and started bitching to whomever looked like an Amtrak employee, repeatedly asking when he could go to his seat and sarcastically thanking them for keeping him informed. The employees, meanwhile, were amazingly levelheaded and professional, assuring him everything would be taken care of in just a few minutes. Compared to the Greyhound employees I've seen in action, the Amtrak guys operated with Olympian speed and agility cloaked in Clintonian diplomacy.
Not far from the entrance to the abandoned Rockfish Gap Tunnel the train entered a different tunnel beneath the Blue Ridge, managing to depart the Shenandoah Valley only slightly higher than valley-bottom level. Passing through the mountain so near its base meant the tunnel was long. The train seemed to be inside it for about ten minutes, and during this time the view through the windows was blacker than night; the tunnel must not be illuminated.The very first purchase I made once I was on the streets in Charlottesville was a plastic 750 ml flask of Bowman's Virginia Vodka at the Main Street ABC store. I don't know what exactly ABC employees have crammed up their asses, but they never seem particularly happy to sell me alcohol. They always examine my IDs (they want to see two) with an air of skepticism even though I'm clearly well past the age of 21. My sideburns are going grey and I have crowsfeet wide enough to obstruct the paths of deer ticks, at least when I smile. But I'm never given much reason to smile at an ABC store, despite the shelves groaning appealing with blackout all around me.
As previously arranged, I found Jessika near the fountain in the very center of the Downtown Mall. Also as arranged, she was in the company of Peggy, who had come down from Philadelphia for the weekend to attend a wedding. Peggy's kid "Abu" was with her too. When I last saw Abu, he was a little unnamed baby with the working name "Baboose." Now he's a precocious, talkative blond four and a half year old, obsessed with Attack of the Clones and Spiderman like any promising future male heterosexual his age should be. When I arrived, Abu was in the process of getting his face painted in the Spiderman style by Rose the Instigator (she and I were once in a band together for three or four seconds), who had a table set up in hopes of selling color reproductions of her art. Nearby a couple guys were trying to sell a product called "bubble tea," a novel beverage one drinks through wide-bore straws. As one drinks, black gelatinous globules with the consistency of eyeballs go up the straw and into one's mouth. It's very odd but increasing popular (I got an opportunity to sample Shanti Durkee's bubble tea when I randomly ran across her later on the mall).
I was feeling weary for some reason, so I went to sit against a wall nearby. At about this time Thaddeus John Birch appeared from the general direction of Market Street. Unfortunately, I was a sitting duck for his social depredations and could neither skillfully hide nor casually avoid eye contact. I found myself having to catch him up on my life for the past four years, a difficult undertaking given his non-existent listening skills. What saved me from this particular level of Dante's Inferno was Jessika suggesting that I look at the art Rose was trying to sell. I did. It was dark, gnarly, and great if you like that sort of thing. Since my train had been running late, I'd very nearly missed my rendezvous with Jessika and Peggy. The delay provided an opportunity for another Charlottesville old-timer, Harmony, to join our entourage on our way to the next activity: a barbecue at Jessika's house. Nothing happens quickly in the easy-going low-stress world of Charlottesville, and first we stopped for icecream cones at Chaps. As I ate my single scoop of coffee-flavored something-or-other, I marveled at the ugly babies with apparent thyroid conditions being wheeled about on three-wheeled carriages. I also drew my companions' attention to a tree that had been inexplicably replaced with a five-foot-high stump, thereby ending debate about what to do once it outgrew its hole in the Wizard of Ozian Downtown Mall brickwork.
On the drive out to the 5th Street Food Lion for barbecue supplies, I rode in the back of the used Volvo that Peggy had just bought, right beside Abu and his collection of heterosexual action figures. Jessika kept trying to get Abu to ask me to do something that had been discussed earlier, but Abu couldn't remember what it was. I later learned it had something to do with the Munchkin Dance, one of several archetypal Gus-things that crosses Jessika's mind whenever the topic turns to me.
At the Food Lion we bought large trays of chicken thighs and drumsticks, a box of Wheat Thins (to remind us of Big Fun), and, to keep things compatible with Jessika's Hogwaller neighborhood, a twelve pack of Papst Blue Ribbon. Abu, who had been acting with unexpected maturity up until then, burst into tears when Peggy wouldn't buy him a toy, but she stuck to her guns (and in the process he learned an important lesson about the observance of financial restraint).
Back at Jessika's house, we were soon joined by Amy Br!ggs and her supporting cast of, in tonight's case, two young men. Amy Br!ggs is one of those rare women who can command the loyalty of a whole posse of admiring young men simultaneously. She tends to prefer the somewhat nerdy, reclusive tortured artist type (think Gary Numan, the retro-futurist who sang about the alienation of cars), though the gentlemen she was with tonight weren't really of this type. After one of them concluded a long discussion of alternative education in the Philadelphia suburbs (since that's where he'd come from), the other (a tee-totalling straight-edger) regaled us with various tales from his life as a professional medical guinea pig. His latest gig is a UVA sleeplessness study, something he's done before.
Meanwhile Abu was trying to interest various people, especially Jessika and me, in engaging him in swordplay using a number of fancy Baroque daggers borrowed from Jessika's boyfriend Daryl. When at one point I went to get a piece of chicken off the grill, Abu insisted that I use a dagger instead of the spatula.
Later Abu wanted someone to read him part of a comic book adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back, and for a variety of reasons I was the one he picked. So, despite Peggy's apologies and insistence that I didn't have to, I said what the hell, climbed in bed and read him a good thirty or so pages, doing my best to change my voice appropriately for the various characters, particularly Darth Vader. Abu was sleepy and had had enough by the time I'd quit and rejoined the adults.
A catbird confronting a small blacksnake outside my Shaque just before I left for Charlottesville today.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?020524 feedback
previous | next |
