20 November 2010

Rustico

(Peter, at Halloween, before departing. Photo Socotra)

Willow was on the way to where I was going, and I had walked to work that day and it seemed to be a logical stop. I sat down in the usual place and talked with Old Jim, who was contemplating punching out a fat man behind him.

The fat man was part of an office group that had occupied the conversation nook and persisted in jostling Jim. He is sensitive about his private space, to a degree that drives him quite to distraction.

There was no familiar face behind the bar. “Where is Peter?” I asked.

“They fired him. Like they did Andre, and little Sara-with-no-H.”

“I’ll be goddamned,” I said. “I wonder if Tracy is hard to work for?”

Jim shrugged as he calculated the distance between his arm and the fat man’s jaw. I didn’t like the karmic vibes, and finished my happy hour white wine and decided to move on. Without Peter behind the bar, the hour was considerably less happy than it could have been.

I decided it was good that The Argonaut had called for a happy hour encounter at the new hot spot a few blocks away. The place is called Rustico, a cadet branch of an existing roaring place in Alexandria. Walking along in the crisp evening air, The Ballston neighborhood is booming, no recession here, and the crowds are boisterous.

The place was jammed wall-to-wall with twenty-and-thirty-somethings, all yammering at the top of their lungs to be heard. The furnishings were vaguely steam-punk, steel with big bolts, and so the sound echoed and it was difficult to think.

Rustico specializes in beer and pizza, forward leaning, of course, with four hundred brands f the former in the inventory and the latter topped with items that are frankly bewildering . Salmon was one I recognized vaguely, which looked fabulous, and spicy shrimp another, an there was something that Jake shouted at me was “Fig, PROSCIUTTO and gorgonzola cheese!”

“Fig?” I yelled back in wonder. “What the hell are figs doing on a pizza?”

“Donno,” said Jake. The crowd was two and three deep at the bar, and all the tables were filled. “Looks like they are printing money here.”

“Go figure,” I said. “Restaurants are like the publishing business. Two of a hundred make a tone of money, five or six do OK, and the rest go out of business.”

I did not feel like beer, or shouting, but it was a nice enough place. I had a couple glasses of wine, and eventually Jake and Celia decided to go on to Willow for dinner.

You can hear yourself think at Willow, which seemed like a good thing after the roar of Rustica. My heart wasn’t in it, though.

“Did you hear that they fired Peter?” I said.

Jake said that he hadn’t. The sudden silence after the deafening roar in side left me a little disoriented.
 
“I am frankly peeved with my favorite watering hole at the moment. I may not be able to go back until Monday.”

I waved goodnight. Not that I will stop going, but lopping off the bartending staff- like what happened to Sara-with-no-H left me feeling a little desolate, like I had lost some family members.

With no Peter, the world seemed a little smaller and a little less happy. I watched Jake and Celia walk back up Wilson and disappear into the crowd at the corner.

I realized I had no car. There is a dark pocket of the neighborhood between there and here that is less than optimal. Rather than take a chance of getting jumped in my business finery, I walked down the street to the Hilton and grabbed a cab from the stand out front.

Riding back up Pershing, past the run-down units of the old Buckingham neighborhood, I frowned. Damn.

I hate losing family.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
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