by John Irving
But Danny had overheard snippets of their conversation before the ladies' cackling got out of control. He'd heard Celeste say something about his dad putting honey in the pizza dough, and one of the old broads had joked about the cook's limp. Danny was sensitive about his father's limp; he'd heard enough jokes on that subject to last a lifetime, most of them from those West Dummer dolts at that piss-poor Paris Manufacturing Company School. And why did Celeste look so stricken suddenly? the writer was wondering.
"Weren't you ladies interested in the pie and the cobbler?" the waitress asked them.
"Wait a minute," May said again. "Are you sayin' your cook's got a limp?"
"He limps a little," Celeste hesitated to say, but in effect she'd already said it.
"Are you shittin' us?" Dot asked the waitress.
Celeste seemed offended, but she also looked afraid; she knew something was wrong, but she didn't know why or what it was. Neither did Danny, but to anyone seeing him, the writer appeared to be frightened, too.
"Look, our cook's got a limp, and he puts honey in his pizza dough--it's no big deal," Celeste said to them.
"Maybe it's a big deal to us," May told the waitress.
"Is he a little fella?" Dot asked.
"Yeah ... and what's his name?" May asked.
"I would say our cook is ... slightly built," Celeste answered carefully. "His name's Tony."
"Oh," Dot said, disappointed.
"Tony," May repeated, shaking her head.
"You can bring us one apple pie and one blueberry cobbler," Dot told the waitress.
"We'll share 'em," May said.
It might have ended there, if Danny hadn't spoken; it was his voice that made Dot and May look at him more closely. When they'd first seen him, they must have missed the writer's physical resemblance to his father as a young man, but it was how well-spoken Danny was that reminded both Dot and May of the cook. In a town like Twisted River, the cook's enunciation--and his perfect diction--had stood out.
"Might I inquire if you two ladies are from around here?" Danny asked those bad old broads.
"Sweet Jesus, May," Dot said to her friend. "Don't that voice kinda take you back?"
"Way back," May said, looking hard at Danny. "Don't he look just like Cookie, too?"
The Cookie word was enough to tell Danny where these old ladies were from, and why they might have been badgering Celeste about honey in pizza dough and a little fella of a cook--one who limped.
"Your name was Danny," Dot said to him. "Have you changed your name, too?"
"No," the writer told them too quickly.
"I gotta meet this here cook," May said.
"Why don'tcha tell your dad to come say hello to us, will ya?" Dot asked Danny. "It's been so long since we seen one another, we got some serious catchin' up to do."
Celeste came back with the ladies' desserts, which Danny knew would be only a temporary distraction.
"Celeste," Danny said. "Would you please tell Pop that there are two old friends who want to see him? Tell him they're from Twisted River," Danny told her.
"Our cook's name is Tony," Celeste said a little desperately to the bad old broads. She'd heard enough about Twisted River to make her hope she would never hear anything more about it. (The cook had told her it would be all over on the day Twisted River caught up to him.)
"Your cook's name is Cookie," Dot said to the waitress.
"Just tell him we're chokin'," May told Celeste. "That'll bring him runnin'."
"Limpin', you mean," Dot corrected her, but now their cackles were suppressed. If the writer had to guess, it seemed that these women had a score to settle with his father.
"You got the same superior-soundin' voice as your daddy," May said to Danny.
"Is the Injun around?" Dot asked him.
"No, Jane is ... long gone," Danny told them.
In the kitchen, Celeste was still dry-eyed when she walked past her daughter. "I could have used a little help with the party of eight, Mom," Loretta was saying to her, "and then those three couples came in, but you just kept talking away to those two old biddies."
"Those old biddies are from Twisted River," Celeste told the cook. "They said to tell you they were chokin' ... Cookie." Celeste had never seen such an expression on Tony Angel's face--none of them had--but of course she'd never called him "Cookie" before.
"Is there a problem, boss?" the sous chef asked.
"It was the honey in the pizza, wasn't it?" Celeste was saying. "The honey gave it away, I guess."
"Dot and May. It's finished, sweetheart," Tony Angel said to Celeste; she started to cry.
"Mom?" Loretta said.
"You don't know me," the cook told them all. "You won't ever know where I go from here." He took off his apron and let it fall on the floor. "You're in charge, Greg," he said to the sous chef.
"They don't know your last name, not unless Danny tells them," Celeste managed to say; Loretta was holding her while she sobbed.
The cook walked out into the dining room. Danny was standing between him and the two tough broads. "They don't know the Angel name, Pop," his son whispered to him.
"Well, that's something to be thankful for," his dad said.
"I wouldn't call that a little limp--would you, May?" Dot asked her old friend.
"Hello, ladies," the cook said to them, but he didn't come any closer.
"The limp's gotten worse, if you ask me," May replied to Dot.
"Are you just traveling through?" the cook asked them.
"How come you changed your name, Cookie?" Dot asked him.
"Tony was easier to say than Dominic," he answered them, "and it still sounds Italian."
"You look awful, Cookie--you're as white as flour!" May told him.
"I don't get a lot of sunshine in the kitchen," the cook said.
"You look like you been hidin' under a rock," Dot said to him.
"How come you and Danny are so spooked to see us?" May asked him.
"They were always superior to us," Dot reminded her friend. "Even as a kid, you were a superior little snot," she said to Danny.
"Where are you living nowadays?" the cook asked them. He was hoping they lived close by--somewhere in Vermont, or in New York State--but he could tell by their accents, and by just looking at them, that they were still living in Coos County.
"Milan," May answered. "We see your pal Ketchum, from time to time."
"Not that Ketchum would say hello to us, or nothin'," Dot said. "You was all so superior--the three of you and the Injun!"
"Well ..." the cook began; his voice trailed away. "I have a lot to do, in the kitchen."
"First you was gonna put honey in the dough, and the next minute you wasn't. Then you changed your mind about it again, I guess," May said to him.
"That's right," the cook said.
"I'm havin' a look in the kitchen," Dot suddenly said. "I don't believe a fuckin' word these two are tellin' us. I'm gonna see for myself if Jane's still with him!" Neither Danny nor his dad did anything to stop her. May just waited with them while Dot went into the kitchen.
"There's the two waitresses, both of 'em cryin', and a young cook, and what looks like a busboy, and some kid doin' the dishes--no Injun," Dot announced, when she came back.
"Boy, do you look like you're puttin' your pecker somewhere you shouldn't, Cookie!" May told him. "You, too," she said to Danny. "You got a wife and kids, or anythin'?"
"No wife, no children," Danny told them--again, too quickly.
"Bullshit," Dot said. "I don't believe a fuckin' word!"
"And I suppose you're not bangin' anybody, either?" May asked the cook. He didn't answer her; he just kept looking at his son, Daniel. Their minds were racing far ahead of this moment in Avellino. How soon could they leave? Where would they go this time? How long before these bad old broads crossed paths with Carl, and what would they tell the cowboy when they ran into him? (Carl lived in Berlin; Ketchum lived in Errol. Milan was between them.)
"If you ask me, Cookie's humpin' our waitress--that older one," Dot said to May. "She's the one doin' most of the cryin'."
The cook just turned and walked back into the kitchen. "Tell them their dinners are on me, Daniel--free pizzas, free desserts," he said as he was leaving.
"You don't need to tell us--we heard him," May said to Danny.
"You coulda just been nice to us--glad to see us, or somethin'!" Dot called after the cook, but he was gone. "You don't hafta buy us supper, Cookie!" Dot hollered into the kitchen, but she didn't go after him.
May was putting money on Danny's table--too much money for their dinners, but Danny wouldn't try to stop her. "And we didn't even eat our pie and cobbler!" she said to the writer. May pointed to his notebook on the table. "What are you, the friggin' bookkeeper or somethin'? You keepin' the accounts, huh?"
"That's right," he told her.
"Fuck you and your dad," Dot told him.
"Cookie was always holier-than-thou, and you were always a holier-than-thou kid!" May said to him.
"Sorry," Danny said. He just wanted them to leave so that he could concentrate on all that he and his dad had to do, and how much or little time they had to do it--beginning with telling Ketchum.
Meanwhile, there was an unserved party of eight and another table with three astonished-looking couples. Everyone had been paying close attention to the confrontation, but it was over now. Dot and May were leaving. The women both gave Danny the finger as they went out the door. For a bewildering moment--it was almost as if the sawmill workers' wives weren't real, or they had never found their way to Avellino--the old ladies didn't appear to know which way to turn on Main Street. Then they must have remembered that they'd parked downhill, past the Latchis Theatre.
When the bad old broads were gone, Danny spoke to the restaurant's uneasy, unattended patrons. "Someone will be right with you," he told them, not knowing if this was even remotely true; he knew it wouldn't be true if both Loretta and Celeste were still in tears.
Back in the kitchen, it was worse than Danny had expected. Even the kid doing dishes and the busboy were crying. Celeste had slumped to the floor, where Loretta was kneeling beside her. "Stop shouting at me!" the cook yelled into the telephone. "I should never have called you--then I wouldn't have to listen to you!" (His father must have called Ketchum, Danny realized.)
"Tell me what to say, Greg, and I'll say it," Danny said to the sous chef. "You've got a table of eight and a table of six out there. What do I tell them?"
Greg was weeping into the rosemary and red-wine reduction. "Your dad said Avellino is finished," Greg told him. "He said this is his last night. He's putting the place up for sale, but we can run the restaurant ourselves until it sells--if we can manage, somehow."
"Greg, just how the fuck do we manage?" Celeste cried out.
"I didn't say we could," Greg blubbered.
"Get rid of the Red Sox, for starters," Danny said, changing the radio station. "If you're going to be hysterical, you ought to play some music back here--everyone in the restaurant can hear you."
"Yes, I know you were always of the opinion that Vermont was too fucking close to New Hampshire, Ketchum!" the cook was shouting into the phone. "Why don't you tell me something useful?"
"Tell me what to say to the customers, Greg," Danny said to the blubbering sous chef.
"Tell them they better keep their orders simple," Greg told him.
"Tell them to go home, for Christ's sake!" Loretta said.
"No, goddamn it--tell them to stay!" the sous chef said angrily. "We can manage."
"Don't be an asshole, Greg," Celeste told him; she was still sobbing.
Danny went back into the dining room, where the party of eight was already arguing with one another--about whether to stay or leave, no doubt. The three couples at the table for six seemed more resigned to their fate, or at least more willing to wait. "Listen," Danny said to them all, "there's a crisis in the kitchen--I'm not kidding. I would advise you either to leave now or to order something basic. The pizzas, maybe, or a pasta dish. By the way, the beef satay is excellent. So is the calamari."
He went to the wine rack and picked out a couple of good reds; Danny Angel may have stopped drinking sixteen years ago, when he was still Daniel Baciagalupo, but the writer knew the names of the better bottles. "The wine is on me," he told them, bringing them glasses, too. He had to go back to the kitchen to get a corkscrew from either Loretta or Celeste, and one of the party of eight asked him timidly for a beer. "Sure," Danny said. "A beer's no problem. You should try a Moretti."
At least Celeste was standing, though Loretta looked in better shape. "One Moretti for the party of eight. I gave wine to everyone else--on me," Danny said to Loretta. "Can you pull the corks?"
"Yeah, I guess I'm okay," Loretta told him.
"I can work," Celeste said unconvincingly.
"You better get your dad off the phone before he has a heart attack," Greg said to Danny.
"I'm not changing my name again!" the cook was screaming into the phone. "I'm not leaving my country, Ketchum! Why do I have to leave the entire country?"
"Let me speak to him, Pop," Danny said; he kissed his father on the forehead, taking the telephone from him. "It's me, Ketchum," the writer began.
"Dot and May!" Ketchum hollered. "For Christ's sake, Danny--those two would talk their heads off to a pinch of coon shit! The first time those bitches run into Carl, the cowboy's going to know where to find you!"
"How long do we have, Ketchum?" Danny asked. "Just give me an educated guess."
"You should have left yesterday," Ketchum told him. "You have to leave the country as soon as possible!"
"The country?" Danny asked.
"You're a famous writer! What do you have to live in this asshole country for?" Ketchum asked him. "You can write anywhere, can't you? And how long before Cookie retires? For that matter, he can cook anywhere--can't he? Just don't let it be an Italian place! That's what the cowboy will be looking for. And Cookie needs a new name."
"Dot and May never heard the Angel name," Danny told the old logger.
"Carl could hear it--when he comes looking for you two, Danny. No matter how long after you're gone, someone could say the Angel name to the cowboy."
"So I'm supposed to change my name, too? For God's sake, Ketchum--I'm a writer!"
"Keep it, then," Ketchum said morosely. "The cowboy's no reader, I'll grant you that. But Cookie can't keep the Tony Angel--he'd be better off being Dominic Baciagalupo again! Danny, don't you dare let him cook in any restaurant with an Italian name--not even if it's out of the country."
"I have a son, Ketchum--he's American, remember?" Danny said to the old woodsman.
"Joe is going to be in college in Colorado," Ketchum reminded him. This was a sore point with Danny: That Joe would be going to the University of Colorado, in Boulder, was something of a disappointment to his dad. In Danny's opinion, his son had gotten into better schools. Danny believed that Joe was going to Colorado for the skiing, not an education; the writer had also read that Boulder was a big party town. "Carl doesn't even know you have a child," Ketchum also reminded Danny. "If you're out of the country, I'll look after Joe."
"In Colorado?" Danny asked.
"First things first, Danny," Ketchum said. "Get the fuck out of Vermont--both you and your dad! I can look after your boy in the interim--before he goes off to Colorado, anyway."
"Maybe Pop and I could go to Colorado, too," Danny suggested. "It's a little like Vermont, I imagine--there are mountains, just bigger ones. Boulder is a university town, and we all liked Iowa City. Writers can fit in, in a university town. A cook could fit in, in Boulder--couldn't he? It wouldn't have to be Italian--"
Ketchum cut him off. "You must be as simple-minded as a pinch of coon shit, Danny! You guys ran the first time--now you have to keep running! Do you think Carl cares that you're a family? The cowboy doesn't have a family--he's a fucking killer, Danny, and he's on a mission!"
; "I'll let you know our plans, Ketchum," the writer told his father's old friend.
"Carl doesn't know shit about foreign countries," Ketchum said. "Hell, Boston wasn't foreign enough for him. You think Colorado would be too far away for the cowboy to find you? Colorado's a lot like New Hampshire, Danny--they have guns out there, don't they? You could be carrying a gun in Colorado, and no one would look at you twice--isn't that right?"
"I suppose so," Danny said. "I know you love us, Ketchum."
"I promised your mom I would look after you!" Ketchum shouted, his voice breaking.
"Well, I guess you're doing it," Danny told him, but Ketchum had hung up. The writer would remember the song that was playing on the radio; it was Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush," a song from the seventies. (When Danny had switched stations from the Red Sox game, he'd inadvertently found Greg's Oldie-But-Goldie music.)
I was thinking about what a
Friend had said.
I was hoping it was a lie.
Danny saw that his father was once more stirring his sauces; the cook then started rolling out the dough for what looked like three or four more pizzas. Greg was grilling something, but the sous chef paused to take a dish out of the oven. Neither waitress was in the kitchen, but the busboy was busy filling a couple of bread baskets.
The dishwasher was waiting for more dirty dishes; an earnest-looking boy, he was reading a paperback. Probably an assignment for school, Danny thought; nowadays, kids didn't read much on their own. Danny asked the boy what he was reading. The young dishwasher smiled shyly, showing the author a dog-eared mass-market edition of a Danny Angel novel. But that was such a tough night, when Dot and May made their disruptive appearance in Avellino, the writer would never remember which book the kid was reading.
And the bad night was far from over; for Danny, it was just beginning.
"YOU'LL FIND SOMEONE," Kurt Vonnegut had said to Danny when the young writer was leaving Iowa City the first time; Katie had only recently left him. But it hadn't happened--not yet. Danny supposed there was still time for him to find someone; he was only forty-one, and he never would have claimed that he'd sincerely been trying. Did he think Lady Sky was going to drop into his life again, just because he couldn't forget her?
As for what Vonnegut also said to the then-unpublished writer--the part about "maybe capitalism will be kind to you"--well, Danny was wondering (as he drove home to Putney from Brattleboro) how Kurt had known.
