finding the cozy and comforting—despite its annual Christmas tree—Marshall Field’s, he had come face to face with the conglomerate-spawned Macy’s, and further in which, being thus forced to suffer the grim truth that nothing was more sacred in corporate America than the almighty bottom line, he had dejectedly shuffled over to Carson Pirie Scott, where instead of that hometown favorite, he found only a boarded-up former department store, now ententacled in construction scaffolding at the bottom of which a gargantuan sign announced the coming of luxury condominiums, starting at “only” $750,000! Good God, who made that kind of money? Not anyone in the damn English Department.
Which was why, despite its come-hither delineation, he now decided to take a pass on the New York pepper steak and order the house specialty instead. That description was no slouch: “Two-inch thick prime Kobe beef, brushed with a light honey glaze, nestled in caramelized onions and knighted with cross-swords of asparagus.” Who wrote this stuff, anyway? Starving linguistics majors?
Unlike the Delmonico, this Kobe meat sat well with Les’s conscience. Kobe was Japanese beef, from Japanese cows that had been fed only the finest grains, never force-fed, never rushed to market. True, at a gazillion dollars a pound (this he knew from listening to National Public Radio, not from the menu, because, in fact, his had no prices listed, Angus having made self-aggrandizingly sure the waiter knew that he was host), the meat did seem a bit pricey, but didn’t we owe them that? Didn’t we racistly and cruelly intern Japanese-Americans at the start of World War II? Didn’t we murder, maim, and genetically deform thousands of their civilians—the elderly, women, children, handicapped—by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—vile, unnecessary, barbarous acts whose only true motive was a show of force that would ensure the supremacy of the American military-industrial complex? Not to mention that sickening newsreel footage of the mushroom cloud rising behind the Enola Gay, shown in every theater in the United States, reducing unspeakable and gratuitous human suffering to petty bourgeois entertainment? See melting flesh, pop a licorice. Not that anyone could ever make up for that savagery or the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent lives America had destroyed in its wars of military occupation, cultural hegemony, and economic imperialism, but didn’t the collectively and historically culpable have the responsibility to at least try? Wouldn’t ordering Japanese meat be the least Professor Leslie Fenwich could do? Not that Les himself, personally, was guilty, of course. Anyone who knew him would understand that he was thinking synecdochically—which he liked to do.
So he was all set to order the Kobe, his salivary glands once more in full shock and awe, his fingernails scraping the silk-lined menu in happy and (after his department-store running-around, shirt-buying ordeal) ravenous anticipation, his throat again as wide and wet as Tokyo Bay, when Diane furtively leaned over to him and whispered, “Don’t forget, strictly vegetarian.”
A blinding flash of light. Reflexively, he looked up from his menu to the other side of the table, but it was only Angus smiling fatuously at his soon-to-be bride, who was gulping her Dom P. with one hand and pointing at her dinner roll with the other, indicating to soon-to-be Mr. Karma to butter her a morsel.
“What?” Leslie whispered back.
“Don’t order any meat.” Diane nodded at their daughter. “We have to set a good example.”
And so, trembling with Kobe-anticipation-deficiency—a term he immediately coined and about which he might write a scholarly article for Verbatim: The Language Bi-Quarterly , either from his office or, if he failed to finish dinner without murdering all three of these horrible creatures, his prison cell—he wound up ordering the pasta Olivia with broccoli and pigeon peas with a side of potatoes au gratin, holding the cheese because cheese comes from cows, and it’s not enough not to eat the goddamn cows, no ma’am, you also can’t eat their goddamn cheese—like they even care. Like it’s not a tad too late for Democrat Mom to be setting a good example for Republican daughter—the same daughter who currently wouldn’t stop complaining, loudly enough for the entire restaurant to hear, about everything in sight, including but not limited to the awful service, the stink of the waiter, his unpolished fingernails, the anemic shrimp, wilted lettuce, dry tomatoes, tasteless carrots, unabsorbent napkin, cheap perfume of the “low-class bitch” sitting two tables over, inadequate leg room, inane Muzak, clanking dishes, streaked windows, dusty chandelier, tarnished silverware, thin salad dressing, hard rolls, tasteless tie on the “appliance salesman” sitting at the next table, improperly deflected air conditioning, and rancid breath of said daughter’s fiancé.
In the meantime, lovesick, puppy-eyed, obsequious Angus—butter-spreading-for-his-betrothed, humongous-blood-diamond-ring-giving, O’Reilly Factor-watching, Armani-tie-wearing, Polo-argyle-sock-wearing, Bruno-Magli-loafer-tapping, snort-laughing, chewing-with-mouth-open-eating, calling-in-trades-to-his-Hong-Kong-exchange-cell-phoning Angus—ordered a guess what? Correct. Flaccid-cheeked, Alfred E. Newman-eared Angus Culvertdale ordered the son-of-a-bitching Delmonico New York sirloin au poivre in cognac sauce—with a called-in-advance side order of macaroni and fucking cheese.
As Professor Leslie Fenwich—Popsie—sat nibbling his disgusting broccoli and trying to figure out how he might familiacide this threesome, in view of the fact that, even though he was philosophically opposed to capital punishment if for no other reason than that it included the word capital, if he himself had to go to the electric chair, it might be worth it, he watched his biological daughter eat so much of her future groom’s steak au poivre off his plate, mopping it in his cognac sauce (complaining about it the whole time), that Angus himself got very little of it down his own materialistic gullet and so ordered a second, this time Kobe (!) steak for himself and polished off the last of this follow-up cut while Popsie was sucking his final sprig of parsley.
On the outskirts of Havana, Cuba, on the rooftop of an eighteenth-century former mansion, Akhmed, his translator Hazeem, and the leaders of two other countries sat eating a splendid parador lunch of grilled sea bass, creole shrimp, olive oil-braised chicken, honeyed ham, spicy rice and beans, steaming potatoes, and mixed salad with pepper-mayonnaise dressing. The president of Venezuela washed down a mouthful of meat with a sip of Heineken from a straw and belched, accidentally launching a shard of ham onto the Iranian president’s forehead. The Venezuelan apologized to the Iranian’s translator. Interlingual babble was exchanged, Akhmed speaking with his mouth full. He flicked the meat off his face onto the concrete floor, where a scrawny blackbird pounced on it and hobbled away behind a vine-threaded trellis. Hazeem assured the South American leader that no harm had been done, either to feelings or international relations. Akhmed washed down his own mouthful of lunch with a swig of Tab, a supply of which he had brought from Tehran, turned and, again through Hazeem, complimented their host, the president of Cuba, on such a magnificent meal—considering that other products and services in his country were total shit. “Do I use the term correctly?” the Iranian president asked.
When they had first arranged this meeting, they had considered speaking English, which they all managed pretty well, but decided against it on principle. Hazeem used the word wonderful instead of shit.
“Pork makes you stupid,” said Akhmed, with an air of superiority. He plucked his napkin-bib from his shirt, crumpled it into a pile next to his plate, and, turning to the Cuban president, said, “Now, shall we discuss our business, El Maximo?”
But his host pretended not to hear.
“El Maximo?”
“Code names,” the Venezuelan whispered urgently, glancing around, focusing narrow-eyed on the blackbird. “American spies are everywhere.”
“Code names,” Hazeem repeated in Farsi.
Akhmed sighed forbearingly. He turned again to the Cuban president. “Okay. I mean…Lovey.”
El Presidente clapped his hands and giggled with joy.
In addition to having agreed not to speak English, they had also decided to always use their code names. This was the Cuban leader’s idea, as were the names themselves. The Venezuelan