CONTRIBUTED BY PR GRIFFIS (Austin, TX)
Ryan’s Steakhouse, Sandusky, OH
Upon Entering
After he fills his flask in the car, then pulls his pockets inside out at the register and asks the vaguely terrified sixteen-year-old cashier if she’d like to see an elephant (which I take as a sign that I am to pay for us both) we set our plates and beverages at a table near the dessert bar.
“That’s where the most truly righteous and down-for-a-balling ladies congregate,” he tells me.
He says this loudly enough that the well-fed and honest-faced family of four behind us stops – forks in midair – and doesn’t begin masticating again until we pick up our plates and head to the salad bar.
Round One
Rather, I take my plate to the salad bar and fill it with leafy greens while he berates me.
“Fairies eat salad,” he tells me around a mouthful of Bourbon Street Chicken, scooped directly from the steam tray into his mouth. With his hand.
The muscular, well dressed, possibly gay couple (In Ohio? At a Ryan’s? On second thought, maybe so.) stops and watches him the way you might a homeless Vietnam veteran chasing pigeons in the park. While screaming. Which, come to think of it…
Round Two
“The Jews own all these places,” he says while ladling starches onto his plate – potato salad and mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese and five (five!) of those puffy rolls. You know the ones.
“It may say Ryan’s on the door, but don’t believe it,” he adds, glancing left and right before stuffing two of the rolls down the front of his pants, winking conspiratorially at me as he does.
“They should call it Shlomo’s. Shlomo’s Steakhouse,” he says. “It’s honest, and it sounds better, too.”
I put my first edition of On The Road back into my jacket pocket. I’d hoped for so much. Too much, I see now. This is the delusion of youth being mashed. Like a puffy roll in a too-small pair of stained slacks.
Round Three
After returning from the bathroom and patting his stomach – “Had to make a little room,” he says – he pulls his flask out and empties most of its contents into his iced tea, then returns it to the waistband of his pants, nestled between the two rolls, which are now leaving grease stains on his shirt.
He tries to get me to bet him that he can’t drink the whole glass in a single go. Which, had he not already stuck me with dinner (and, I’m guessing, tip), I might have been willing to do. Now, no way. He shrugs and drinks most of it down, then upchucks a little. Into the glass.
“No harm, no foul,” he says, and drains it.
Round Four
His head is on the table. He groans, lets one rip. It sounds wet. I go to the dessert bar, looking over the possibilities. There really aren’t any.
“I loved him, you know,” he says. “It would’ve been a lot easier if me and Neal just coulda balled each other. Would’ve saved a whole lot of people a whole lot of misery.”
I nod, clap him on the shoulder, begin walking towards the door. This much honesty doesn’t bode well.
“I love America,” he shouts at the beefy patrons, none too steady, a chicken leg in his hand, his napkin now around his head. “I am a Catholic and a Patriot. I wasn’t ever a pinko beatnik, ever, and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.”
I pause at the door, try to embrace The Myth in my mind, try not to notice The Man pocketing the tip money from the table before throwing up down his front and collapsing to the floor, where he lays for a surprising amount of time.
