01

At six Tom calls me up. He asks me if I'd like to have dinner with him and his grampaw. I had been starting all day finishing nothing and was getting bored and hungry so I said why not. We met in a fancy little Italian place and had ourselves a fine two course meal. We drank red wine on and on into the cool night. The old man paid for it all. He was a joyful basterd who told stories all night long and they were damned fine ones too. He used to be a real jerk to his children, as Tom told me later that evening, but had now learned to enjoy himself and his family. Everytime one of the waitresses came over for another refill, he made some witty remark that made them giggle, whereas we just sat there sheepishly gazing at their beautiful curves. I started to like the guy. A few empty bottles he turned to me and spoke emphatically. "Maestro, you know you're a lazy fool, so why don't you stop your lying around and start painting your ass off. Not tomorrow, tonight. I have to go now and leave the night to you children." He left and Tom and I ordered whiskey and coffee and went out for a smoke enjoying the starlit freshness of a post-heat wave night. We babbled ourselves straight past midnight. Dominic the sous-chef, a rasp-voiced workaholic who we knew from old, joined our table and soon others did. There was Lynn, a tall pretty gal who used to pour us drinks through the night in the bar accross the square, Valentina one of the waitresses who was mad as hell, Guido the boss, an english speaking Italian who had lived most of his life in Germany, and to whom I took an instant dislike, and finally a friendly young African waiter, who left moments later to start working in some other bar. Tom had decided to befriend Guido in order to get a good price next time and was making crazy efforts to laugh at his jokes asking all kinds of questions. Not getting the reaction he was hoping for he started asking the other waitress, Galana, a beautiful young girl, out with us but received naught but silent smiles. Meanwhile I was sitting there all enigmatic, drinking one beer after another and slowly slipping into a slight nausea. Listening to the continuous ramblings beside me didn't help one bit. Everybody was all over Lynn, and she was constantly challenging us to do so, Guido, whose wife just three days earlier had given birth to their daughter Julia, included. The whole thing made me sick so I went into the restroom to freshen up. Coming back out, determined to go home, I saw the whole gang was getting up, ready to move on. I moved on with them, of course. We went to the bar where Lynn and Dominic used to work and sat on the stools closest to the kitchen. It was the same crew we used to drink here with all night during previous summer, and for a moment we all felt like that again. I started to enjoy myself and poured some more alcohol in me. Daniel, a new bartender and rockabilly stand up bass player, always filled me up with too much Glenlivet, and I expressed my sympathy for it. The Glenlivet is a fine, fine whiskey.