PASTA, WINE, AND A LAMBO - A Tribute to a Friend

• I wrote this in October of 2018, after an evening at Alan Londe's home. I had known Alan since U. City high school days. Last Sunday, April 24, on what would have been Alan's 87th birthday, I attended a Celebration of His Life, roughly one month after he had died. From COVID. Alan was one of a kind, an extremely gifted physician and generous human. He loved being with friends and acquaintances, of which this story is an example.
  

 

PASTA, WINE, AND A LAMBO          

A friend named Alan recently invited me to his home for an evening of “hanging out with the guys.” These were friends of his whose wives were enjoying a “Girls Night Out.” Sounded like a proper thing to do, even though “girls” seems like a risky term these days.
    “You don’t know these guys,” said Alan, “but you’ll fit right in. We’ll sit around the pool, have some wine, and some pasta dishes I made for dinner.” I accepted. I had nothing else going and I liked the idea of pool, wine and pasta. He asked everyone to bring a bottle of red. Alan's rather particular about having the right wine to go with one of his meals. It's an admirable trait, one that is foreign to me since I'm not into wines. Give me a Tito's vodka or a Knob Creek bourbon and I'm happy.
    That evening I was the last one there, having stopped at Total Wine for a bottle of medium-priced rose’, a good choice for summer drinking, so I’ve been told. Besides, red wine gives me a migraine. From the moment I pulled into his driveway in my 2013 Hyundai Elantra, I knew I had no business being there. It’s that “car thing,” a big deal with guys that closely ties the size of their net worth to their car. Mine is clearly reflected by my shiny red Hyundai.
    I parked behind a 2018 white Mercedes convertible. It’s the model that grabs my attention when it passes me on the road. The Mercedes was behind a sleek new Infiniti SUV. Which was behind a new Lexus sedan and a sporty BMW or an Audi - I confuse the two. Sitting by itself, away from everyone else so it wouldn’t get scratched, was a white Lamborghini. This is a show stopper. These beauties start at $200,000 and rapidly escalate from there.
    I could own at least twenty Elantra’s for the price of one Lamborghini. Why, I wondered, would someone pay that much for a car to drive in a state where the maximum speed limit is 70 mph? The answer, of course, is because they can.
    As we sat around the pool - actually, next to it, on a patio; no one went swimming - a big, entertaining guy named named Bob asked a perfectly sun-tanned guy with a full head of beautifully-styled white hair a question I’ve never heard before. “Steve, how do you like your Lambo?”
    Lambo! At first I wasn’t sure what a Lambo was. I started to laugh but realized it was a serious question. About what, I had no idea. “What’s not to like in a “Lambo?”, I almost said, always tempted to go for the cheap laugh. Steve casually said, “It’s a lot of fun.” Two or three hundred thousand dollars worth of fun on four wheels??? I don’t know what passes for fun in a Lambo but it sure isn’t going to Home Depot for a can of Rust-Oleum.
    And so the night progressed. The group was easy to be with. Lots of laughs, a relaxing banter, jokes both good and bad, golf stories. And I felt included - except for the golf. Never touch the stuff. After a delicious dinner of four different pastas prepared by Alan and a salad and a little more banter and wine, I was the first to say goodnight. I didn’t want them to see that pitiful little car I was driving. It didn’t work. They all decided it was time to leave. So there I was, trapped in the driveway while they climbed into their chariots and began to pull out.

    Look, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to spend a pile on a vehicle. If I had the money, I’d probably go for something that gets people to stare with envy and, as Mose Allison sings it, “makes little girls talk out of their heads.” The language of cars belongs to guys. I never heard women talk about their “Caddy” or a “Jag” or especially a Lambo. Of course that may change with the changing times. Along with “girls night out.”
One thing I regret - not asking Steve if he’d take me for a ride. Even to Home Depot. It’s probably as close to riding in a Lambo I’ll ever get.

(NOTE: After this article ran in the Fall 2018 issue of County Living Magazine, I received an email from Steve. He offered to take me for a ride. To Costco. Fine by me. I like Costco better than Home Depot anyway.)

(FINAL NOTE: Steve never followed up on this. I never got to ride in his Lambo. Doesn't matter, though. I had spent a delightful evening with my friend Alan, and his - at the time - lady friend, Sandy. They were married a couple of years later. This approximates a happy ending to the story.)

Conversation with a Renegade Hen

 
The Backstory:
During the summer of 2010, a crisis hit egg lovers throughout the country. The epicenter of this hard-boiled tragedy was a group of farms in Wright County, Iowa, all owned by the same company. Many of the eggs from there caused salmonella outbreaks from coast to coast. This was nothing new for the company. It had happened several times before, causing an outbreak of sickness and death. More than 500 million eggs were recalled. Infected hens were thought to be the source. Thousands were targeted and “eliminated.”

This is my tale from late that summer.
 

                    Conversation with a Renegade Hen

The road runs from Hannibal, Missouri, to St. Louis. The passing scenery offers abundant beauty. Lush, green hills; stands of oak, elm and cedar; occasional glimpses of the Big Muddy, just as Tom and Huck might have seen it.
    I had spent the night in Hannibal at a quaint B&B (aren’t they all “quaint”?), attempting while there to conjure up the spirit of Sam Clemens. I had questions for him about how to write humor. He never showed. Probably tired of writers asking him that question.
The second “B” at the B&B was excellent: scrambled eggs (farm fresh, I was told) with cheddar cheese and onions, whole wheat toast, homemade strawberry preserves, and a thick slice of country ham. I knew about the diseased eggs and asked if my scrambled specimens were from Iowa. “No, sir,” said the landlady. “Those are from right here in Hannibal. I’ve been eating them all week and feel just fine.” I believed her.
     After breakfast I looked at a map in the living room. Keokuk, on the Iowa border, is just 65 miles from Hannibal. “Pretty close,” I thought. The enemy at the gate, if you will. Seeking a little exercise before driving back home to St. Louis, I took a long walk in the woods that border the B&B. My thoughts were not on Huck and Tom but on eggs. The ones that were being recalled. Tens of millions of them, all originating in Iowa, just a stone throw from Indian Joe’s Cave.
     I was little prepared for the encounter that awaited me on my walk.
     I left the main path, worked my way through elder bushes and low-hanging pines. (I’m not sure what an elder bush looks like, but it sounds good.), and stepped into a clearing, still in morning shadows.
And there she stood. Or, rather, huddled. A chicken. Actually, a hen. Brown and russet, rather thin, scraggly feathers, eyes wide with fear. She didn't move. I approached her, moving slowly, a smile on my face, thinking loving, positive thoughts.
     She looked me right in the eye.
     “Hello, my feathered friend,” I said. “What are you doing here?” I spoke as though to a child.
     I expected silence, maybe a slight squawk. Instead she said, ‘You’re not with them, are you?”
     “Excuse me?” I said. I’m not sure what surprised me more, the sound or the suspicion.
     “I asked if you’re with them.” She looked behind me, checking for others.
    “Who is ‘them’?”
    “The guards. The keepers. The gatherers.”
    I felt a chill. “I don’t under - “
    “Don't interrupt.” Her voice became more strident. “The crooks, the handlers, the egg Nazis.”
    Suddenly it made sense. “You must be from - “
    “Iowa. Wright County. The Factory.” She spit out the words, scratched the ground like a bull about to charge.
    I sat down on the ground next to her. She backed away. In my gentlest voice, I said, “No, I'm not one of them.” I introduced myself.         “I’m Gerry. With a ‘G.’”
    “Phrances, she said. "With a ‘Ph’".
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Did I make fun of your ‘G’?”
    “Well said.” I held out my hand.
    She gave me a weak high five. Actually a high four. She hadn’t eaten in days. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a slice of wheat toast, lightly buttered. She grabbed it and quickly tore it apart with her beak. “Thanks,” she said. “It’s not cracked corn, but it’ll do.” The toast disappeared in seconds.
    “So…Phrances…tell me about it,” I said.
    She sat in silence, gathering her thoughts. I waited as the sun edged into the shade. Finally she began her story.
    “It was a nightmare. Impossible demands. Despicable living conditions. A complete lack of sanitary considerations. And don’t get me started on the manure piled in there.” I shuddered at the thought. She continued. “No exercise, no socializing, no background music.” She stopped, stared at the ground. 

I thought that was the end of her story. There was more.
    “I’m a good layer. I know I don’t look like much now. That’s what six days on the run will do to you. But I dropped a lot of eggs, Gerry. Even got a Happy Egger award last month. But you think they care?? Not one wit. You drop three today, they want four tomorrow.”
    “My lord,” I said, unable to help myself. I reached over and scratched her head.
    “You can’t imagine the conditions there. Nobody writes about ‘em. I saw rats. They ran along the walls, scurried between the cages. I still have nightmares where I see their beady red eyes and wet twitching noses, probing between the bars.” She shuddered at the memory. “And the rain. There were holes in the roof. Besides the lightning and thunder, water dripped on us. Not on me. I was caged in a dry spot. But so many of the others…” She stopped, engulfed by memories of lost friends, most likely.
    “You don’t have to go on,” I said.
    “Do you have anything to drink?”
    I pulled the half-full Evian bottle from my pocked. “There. As much as you want.” I tilted the bottle so the water dropped into her open mouth. She smacked her beak. “You don’t have any coffee by chance, do you?”
    “Coffee?” She had to be kidding.
    “They gave us coffee. Black. Strong. To keep us awake, increased production. I’m kind of addicted to it now. I get these headaches…”
    I laughed. “I’ll take you to Starbuck’s.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Never mind. Go on with your story, Phrances. Please.”
    She took a deep breath and ruffled her frayed feathers. “We had one guard, a sadistic sonofabitch. Skinny, pock marks, tiny black eyes like a weasel. He’d walk up and down the aisle, bang on our cages with a baseball bat. Shout ‘Drop ‘em, ladies, drop ‘em’ in a high-pitched voice. He got off on scaring us, hearing all the racket we’d make. You can imagine what thousands of hens sound like when they’re frightened.”
    “Thousands!!! How big - ?”
    “Tens of thousands, mon ami. This camp was huge. Thousands and thousands of us, squashed side by side, as far as the eye could see.”
    The day had grown cold inside of me. The story became clear as she talked. Over a half billion eggs from the Iowa farm recalled. More than a thousand cases of salmonella poisoning across the country. An egg operation involving as many as half a million hens. Each cage holding four or five birds in an area no larger than an 8x10 sheet of paper. But the cruelest deception had yet to be spoken.
    “You know, the name of this place I was at is the Wright County Egg Company. It’s run by a ruthless profiteer named Mortenson. He’s had run-ins with health officials before, but he keeps on doing business. And here’s the ball buster, Gerry.” She stopped and looked around. I could tell our time together was growing short. “Listen to this. You know how they sold their eggs? Not as Wright County. Oh, no, that’s too corporate. They packaged their eggs under names like Mountain Dairy. Hallandale. Shoreline. Sunshine. And, my personal favorite, Dutch Farms. Seriously, if eggs or any kind of food comes from Dutch Farms, you just know it’s gotta be healthy. Right? Talk about massive deception.”
    “I never knew,” I said.
    “Who knew? You go into a Ralph’s or Albertson or Kroger, you expect an honest egg. If they had been honest, the cartons would’ve been named Alcatraz Eggs, Sing Sing, Attica. Even Abu Ghraib. You like that? ‘Mr. Grocer, could I have a dozen Alcatraz eggs?’ Not in your lifetime, that’s for sure.”
    “Look, is there anything I can do for you?”
    She drew herself up, shook off the dust, trying her best to regain her former beauty, a hint of dignity. “Yes Gerry with a G, yes, there is. Tell people what went on. Let them know what we hens have been through, just how evil those people are. Above all else, don’t let us be forgotten.”
    I felt a tear form in the corner of my eye, a lump in my throat. I reached out and stroked her lovingly under her beak. “I promise.” I held my hand there. "But what about you?”
    “I’ll be fine, she said. “I have relatives in central Missouri. They live on a farm. Nobody cares how many eggs they lay, as long as the owners have their beer. And they don’t like fried chicken either.” She let out a loud cackle, possibly a laugh, and began to walk towards the woods. “It’s paradise, Gerry. Just remember your promise to me.”
    “Safe travel, Phrances,” I shouted as she disappeared into the undergrowth of elder bush. “I’ll keep my promise.”
    And she was gone.

                                                #

  

A Literary Event of Sorts: My New Book

A few select words to introduce you to "Selected Writings"

 The first short story I ever wrote featured a roach trying to climb up steep, white porcelain walls. Except you didn’t know it was a roach because I wrote it from the roach’s point-of-view. He was in a bathroom sink and I was in junior high school at the time, loved science-fiction, found my mind exploring strange and wonderful worlds. I might be another Ray Bradbury, I thought, a Poet of the Possible. I also liked “funny,” as in Max Schulman, S. J. Perelman, Art Buchwald and Mad comic books. This was another genre that appealed to me. Although at the time, I didn’t even know what a “genre” was.

Now, many words, many stories, many years later, I have a respectable collection  of writings. All kinds. They are in my book which has just been published. “GERRY MANDEL SELECTED WRITINGS.”  I wanted them to be permanently accessible in a real book printed on paper. Much of what I have written are in digital files, which will disappear someday when the electromagnetic storm engulfs Earth and wipes out all files. Or the technology will change, making the stories inaccessible. Plus I just like the idea of being able to hold a book in my hands, feel its weight, its texture, and say, “Yep. This is my book.”

Looking back over this collection, I realize just how many of them almost wrote themselves, how they were just lying in wait to be released from somewhere in my imagination. Occasionally I’ll read one of my old stories and have no memory of having written it. Like being in the zone. It’s a little scary, but also very exciting and revealing about how the creative mind works.

Writing is something most writers are compelled to do. “Not writing” is not an option. I’ve occasionally gone days without writing, and grow increasingly irritable. Something is missing. Until I sit down at my computer - used to be “at my typewriter” - or with a pen and pad, the mood hangs in there. It’s been said that being a writer is a blessing and a curse. True.

A writer/friend who has read my book, asked me if I had a favorite story. I can honestly say I like them all, some a little more than others, but believe I did what I set out to do - tell an interesting story that finds its audience and pleases them. Two are high on my list of favorites. One is an essay about my mother, called “Piano Sonata in Four Movements: L’Adieu.” The other is a humor piece, fictional, called “Renegade Chicken.” Highly recommended.

The book also holds the first five chapters of my novel, “Shadow and Substance: My Time with Charlie Chaplin.” Also a novelette which, until now, resided only on Amazon Kindle. It’s “The Negro in the Basement.” I am still moved by the memory of how this came to be, a story of values, attitudes, guilt, and changing times.

“Selected Writings” is not a finale. My writing continues weekly if not daily. A new novel about Chaplin making “The Great Dictator,” how he faced incredible pressure and risk during a tumultuous time in America. Also, the true story of a man who has lived with ALS for nine years. He says he has been “time stamped.” And, of course, my Random Musings column in County Living Magazine. Publisher Todd Abrams has been extremely supportive of my efforts here. Like many writers, I need deadlines. Todd gives me those deadlines, along with the freedom to pick the subjects. Thanks, Todd.

Here comes the commercial.  To order my book, send me an email, to 503spidermandel@gmail.com. I’ll mail you a copy, signed if you insist.
Or mail a check to 503 Taylor Young Drive, Kirkwood MO 63122.
Cost is $22, plus $4 mailing. A bargain for such literary enjoyment.

Some comments from astute readers:
 

“Gerry Mandel writes with a wit, charm, and irony that walks with us through the outer layers of our sensibilities before it opens the door to the spirit of the human heart. An authentic voice.”
                  - Dennis Fleming, author, “The Girl Who Had No Enemies

   …a compelling collection of prose, dynamic fiction, non-fiction, humorous tales, and diverse topics. Mandel notes the power in words, music, and song to heal, strengthen, and awaken…impressive writing that leaves the reader with a sense of satisfaction.”
            - Linda O’Connell, writer, author, teacher

“Gerry Mandel approaches life with close observation, a wry smile and a sense of wonder and discovery. He has that acute sense of knowing how to make a story important.”
            - Dwight Bitikofer,  poet, community newspaper publisher

“If you want a peek inside one of the most critical and humorous minds in this age and time, this is a treasure. Gerry Mandel sees the ordinary stuff we see but then rattles it around in that exquisite brain of his until it comes our as a polished gem of observation and wit. Trust me, you’ll like what you see.”
            - Harry Weber, internationally known sculptor, artist