Buddy's, Part I "This is Going to Take a While"

So, here I am again, sitting in Buddy’s, waiting for somebody to show up. Seems like I’ve spent a sizable chunk of my life sitting in Buddy’s, waiting. They ought to put up a little plaque over this table--The Jackie Lish Commemorative Waiting Corner--or at the very least, they ought to name a barstool after me. That end one, there, by the jukebox. I’ve probably twirled back and forth on that stool enough to wear out the gizmo that makes it swivel a half dozen times. I know I’ve fed quarters into that damned jukebox and punched up “Jackie Blue” by Ozark Mountain Daredevils enough times to cause that record to go platinum by myself.

     Buddy’s hasn’t changed a whole lot in all these years. Well, they keep adding to the collection of stuff that hangs from the ceiling. All kinds of things, as long as they’re red.  Somebody in Buddy’s likes red. They’ve got a little red Radio Flyer wagon, Coca Cola boxes, clusters of wooden apples, a kid’s sandbox shovel and bucket, decorative tins, a shiny red tricycle. Stuff like that. A few years ago, during the chili pepper craze, they strung red chili pepper lights all over the place. Half those lights are burned out now, and the dust on the chili peppers makes them glow sorta greenish instead of red, but it doesn’t seem to occur to anybody to take them down. 

The food hasn’t changed much, either, which is good, because I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t come here and get my garlic fix when I need it. The Chick’s Special with meatballs and a Buddy’s salad--that’s my order, and it never changes. Rose used to say that there’s a dark, needy place inside the people who come to Buddy’s, and it must be fed, and the only food it wants is garlic salad. They bring you that salad, and it’s drenched in olive oil and so big that it falls off the bowl and stains the tablecloth, and the aroma of garlic stings your nose like ammonia. You take a bite and hit one of those big chunks of bleu cheese, and your eyes screw up tight in your head and you make a little growling noise deep in your throat.

     Where’s that goddamn waiter?

     I don’t know who this bozo is who wants to interview me. Some kinda journalist. Said it’s for a “three-part series on Idaho’s African-American citizens.” Educational channel program or something like that. I told him I didn’t know what I could tell him that he couldn’t find in the newspapers. Surely they’ve got all that over at the library. “Psychological angle,” he said. Explained that he’s got a degree in “cognitive reassemblage” as well as journalism, and he’s working on a thesis that "illustrates his technique.” Whatever. 

     Anyway, he said he wants to know about Portland Rose.  Which makes me laugh, because nobody called her Portland Rose.  She’d let you call her that one time, but then she’d give you one of her concentrating looks and say, “Knock off the Portland. It’s just Rose,” and if you forgot again, she’d act like you weren’t talking to her.
     This must be him. Looks like a “three-part series” guy: vegetarian thin, wire-rimmed glasses, turtleneck, suit jacket, and too-clean, ironed levis. Monogrammed breast-pocket handkerchief. HSM. The S in the center of the monogram is much larger than the H or M. Day Planner, also embossed with an S supported on each side by H and M. Notebook. Gold fountain pen--nice touch. 

     “Ms. Lish?”

     “Call me Jackie.”

     “I’m Henry S. Milford.” He sure is proud of that S. He bobs his head a couple of times and gives me a firm, job-interview type of handshake. “We spoke on the telephone this afternoon.”

     “Yeah, I remember,” I say. But I didn’t have to write it in my Day Planner. “Wanta eat while we talk?"

     “No, thank you. Do they have bottled water here?”

     “Well, you can ask. Try the salad if you’re hungry.” Henry S. Milford beckons a waiter and enters into a fussy dialogue about Aqua Vit and Crystal Geyser. When the beverage problem has been solved, Henry S uncaps his fountain pen, opens his notebook, and prints the date at the top of a blank page. 

     I take another bite of salad. “So, you want the ‘psychological angle’ on Rose?” I say around a mouthful of garlicky leaves.

     “Well, from your personal point of view,” he says.

     What other point of view could I have? I think.  “What, exactly, d’you want to know?”

     “I have a list of questions for you.” Henry S bobs his head again, a gesture that doesn’t seem to be in response to anything in particular. I can tell that it’s going to get on my nerves. He takes a printed sheet from a pocket in his notebook. “These are questions designed to elicit memory responses.”

     “Memory responses.”

     “Yes.” Bob-bob goes his head. “By uttering key words, memories of specific events are stimulated, and the subject begins to retrieve additional information which can then be coded.”

     What a piece of work Henry S is. I just stare at him for a few seconds, so he goes on. “For instance, the first question is: Who introduced you the first time you and the subject, Portland Rose, that is, met?”

     “Who introduced us? Nobody, I guess. At least, I mean, Rose introduced herself. I was sitting--”

     “Subject introduced self,” says Henry S, bobbing and making a check mark on his sheet in a little box next to the word, “Self.”  He prints a numeral one on the first page of his notebook and writes, “Subject introduced self,” in tiny carefully-formed letters.

     I can see that this is going to take a while.