The Times had an interesting article today on the new trend of non-alcoholic flights to accompany tasting menus for the teetotalers. I abstain myself, not because of moral objection but because more than two drinks sends my dinner back up the tubes. (Of course, you wouldn't think that was true considering all the posts I've had recently about champagne.)
But I'm not sure how I would feel about drinking root beer with foie gras, especially Boylan's which is a syrupy and inferior root beer as far as I'm concerned (though I must admit that I think nothing goes with Indian curries better than a crisp, icy glass of coke). But I do like the idea of intuitive teas, tisanes and juices to stimulate the palate -- lemongrass pineapple juice diluted with seltzer (like the stuff I had once at Tabla) with Thai food; rosemary tisane with lamb; thick, not too sweet grape juice to go with steak. I wish I were the kind of diner who could speak with authority about wine pairings with food, but I'm not about to put my body through 48 hour torture sessions for the privilege of getting soggy over dinner. In The Manticore, the second book of Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy which I am engrossed in, the protagonist says of a dinner he takes with his father's mistress and his future deflowerer:
"It was the most grown-up affair I had ever known. Wonderful food that Myrrha--she insisted I call her Myrrha, because all of her friends did--produced herself from under covers and off hot-trays, and splendid wines that were better than anything I had ever tasted. I knew they must be good because they had that real musty aftertaste, like dusty red ink instead of fresh red ink."
My first few years here were spent trying to keep up with the iron-stomached Joneses of NYC. I remember one particularly dark night when I met my friends Jim and Leigh for some after-work lubrication at a bar on the lower east side. Two Jack Daniels and cokes into the night and I was feeling quite sociable and charming. When we stepped out into the glaring lamps of gritty Orchard St., I started to realize that perhaps I wasn't sewn up as well as my two quickly departing companions. At the time I hadn't the sense (or the cash freedom) to just take a cab home. I rationalized that the 2nd Ave. stop was just steps away -- all I had to do was sit down and ride home.
Of course, it was magically past midnight, the hour when all subway trains turn into maddeningly infrequent pumpkins. I waited and waited in the supremely dirty station, smelling every piss stop every bum had ever made in its tucked corners and noticing every crawling rat in the mucky water which lined the track ditch. I was not doing very well. I felt sure that I might just slide down the steel column I was leaning against with all of my weight and sit on the dried up gum splotches just to give my spinning head some respite.
After twenty minutes and an ear-splitting garbage train had agonizingly gone by, the F train finally arrived in the station, with other night reveling Brooklynites in tow. I found the nearest seat and tried desperately to breathe and not burst. The train jostled and shook my churning stomach like James Bond's martini as we pulled into Delancey St., but I survived. Then the train lurched and screeched into East Broadway, the last stop in Manhattan. That's when the queasiness began to really hit me. My body was like a pile of sandbags and I realized that I might really be ill just as the doors closed and we pulled out of the station.
On this longest stretch underwater between East Broadway and York St. in Brooklyn, I felt doom teasing me, blowing in my ear. I felt my late lunch of rice and beans sloshing away like a red milkshake in my guts. I thought, if I can just make it to York St., I'll just get off there and be sick and wait for the next train and everything will be fine. I felt the inevitable creep in a little closer and put its hand on my knee. I thought, we must be close, we have to be close, we're nearly there, HANG ON! At a late point in our train's underwater travels, I felt my lunch knock on my esophagus's door once, twice, then bust in, up and out like Vesuvius. I stewed there in deepest mortification, staring at my lunch puddled in front of me. None of the other unfortunate souls in my car moved.
I sat there for what seemed like hours, but was probably really only 30 seconds more. I stumbled off the train and onto the unfamiliar York St. station platform. I tried to make myself vomit again, but I had spent my insides on the train. A minute passed and, miraculously for that time of night, another F train pulled up. I dragged my poor abused body onto that train and sat down, grateful to no longer have to hold myself up.
The train jerked into Jay St. I was oblivious. I was beyond mortified, so disgusted with myself, that I missed something the train conductor must have said, because after we left Jay St., the train had the gall to pull down the A train line and pull up at the Hoyt-Schemerhorn stop. As a newbie to the train system, I had never even heard of Hoyt-Schemerhorn -- as far as I was concerned, I had somehow been rerouted to Uzbekistan, cross-eyed and acrid-mouthed. I followed the crowd out of the train, then up and over to another F train which would take us back to Jay St. I couldn't believe my bad luck. We got back to Jay St. where we crossed up and over once more. I could have kissed the conductor when the F train going to my stop pulled into the station. I got on the train and blinked.
At least, it felt like I blinked. When I opened my eyes again, the doors opened on the Fort Hamilton Parkway stop, one stop past my 15th St. stop. I forced my sleep-laden Raggedy Ann body off the train. "That's it," I slurred in my head, "No more trains." My roommate had told me that our house was midway between the Fort Hamilton Parkway stop and the 15th St. stop. "Surely I can find my way home from here," I rationalized in my completely irrational state.
What the fuck was I thinking? Now why didn't I ask the MTA personnel in the booth for directions? Why did I think I could make sense of the large street map while shitfaced when I practically can't figure it out when I'm sober? Why didn't I just call a cab, or call my roommate for help? Well, by now it was about 2:30 in the morning and I felt I had imposed on far too many people already in my little adventure. Besides, I was close, I knew I was close, and with that blind self-assurance alcohol intoxicates a person with, I ventured out onto the quiet streets of south Windsor Terrace.
I stumbled one way, then I changed my mind and stumbled the other way. I came to the caged overpass over the Prospect Expressway, which I knew was somewhere near my house at some point. I climbed the fence enclosed ramp, past shadows cast by rustling trees. I felt like I was in my own personal Hitchcock film, exhausted and scared stupid. I crossed the overpass and walked and walked, trying to find something, anything that looked familiar.
Finally, I came to a main road and looked up at...Greenwood Cemetery. A fucking CEMETERY I come across. When you are the lone star of your own private horror film, the last omen you want to see are fifty headstones mocking you in the dark. I would have cried if I weren't so fucking freaked out. After about a minute of having no idea where I was or what to do, a bus came by and I decided to go on the bus and beg the driver for help. I sat down and rode the bus quite a ways until finally, like the dawn, I saw glorious Prospect Park West. I saw the weird karate/ballet/music school on the corner, and the shuttered Elora's restaurant on the other side. I saw the Catholic school on the corner where all the scary hormonal teenagers in my hood spent their weekdays. I saw the gorgeous 99 cent store with its 25 cent kiddie rides bolted to the floor. I got off the bus and power walked like Jane Fonda on steroids, amazed that I had made it this far, but still completely freaked out, worried that I had managed to thwart evil the entire way home and sure that something was going to happen now that I was so close that I could taste it. When I reached Windsor Place, my lovely perfect quiet street, I turned the corner and practically sprinted down the three avenue blocks, begging and praying to all of my gods to get me home safely. I made all those promises the desperate make in the most dire hours of their lives, to not do anything objectionable ever again if I could just get home and climb into bed. I prayed all the way up the stairs, turned the key in the door, and jumped into bed, mascara streaks and all. The word "crash" has never felt more appropriate than it did, at 3:30 in the morning, in my perfect loving bed in my safe, dry apartment.
And that, folks, is why I don't drink so much anymore. Though I must admit that it wasn't the last time my vomit made contact with MTA property. But that's a story for another day -- I think I've inundated you enough grossness for today.
