Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
we're going to get hot and heavy, you and me. That's for sure. But we can get lunch, can't we?
Remember when we used to get lunch?
I cannot remember lunch with Betty Boop, ever. She often took a taxi to the house near
bedtime as a surprise and crawled in alongside just for fun. Or was it forty-five years ago?
Maybe she wanted to see who else she might find there, so she could yell at me, because we
weren't getting married, so it was then or never on rough love with a possible ménage. But
I digress. We had no lunch or frolic anytime other than dark. She was engaged with appear-
ances to maintain. She had me confused with somebody else. It happens.
Especially with Betty, she was so promiscuous. Then again, people tell stories of great
times among friends—of when we all laughed and had such fun, and I can't access a single
frame. They look at me like I'm nuts. Maybe I am, but those stories are nearly always pointless
and forgettable, so maybe I did forget. Good for me. But lunch with Betty? Never. It was late
night academia, period. The end.
You used to get so mad that a deli in the Midwest would have the chutzpa to sell cheese
blintzes that tasted like day-old dreck. That's what you said. You swore up and down that your
mother's were so much better. I got the cheese blintzes every time, just to get a rise out of
you—that wasn't too hard to do, if you know what I mean. I think you know what I mean. I
thought they were delish.
Betty Boop had great skills, chief among them a charm and fluid beauty classically framed
and leading post-haste to everyman's fantasy. She begged the question: is this actually happen-
ing to me? Well, of course it was, because life is full of extremes, good and bad. We know this
truth to be self-evident, but a young man still feels blessed, as it were.
I wanted to nestle and caress my private Boop while we waited recovery. It didn't take long
back then, but she made it weird with a little routine. On an exhale and a burp, like a gouty
patrician after a feast, she'd lick her chops and say
that was delish
. She made a serene moment
awkward with emphasis on her unusual tastes.
I never heard of a deli in the Midwest serving cheese blintzes. My mother made them once
and they were okay, if you like crepes with cheesy stuff inside and sour cream on top. I don't.
After four or five decades I can't imagine Betty bending to the task again—then again,
most people don't forget how. We'd curved a bit in the spine and were both a tad rounded
in the shoulders, so she wouldn't have as far to go. Everybody gives in to gravity and gains
weight. Everyone dries out—skin, hair, humor—but tender ministrations don't change, and
you can't see rheumy eyes in the dark.
Oh, Betty, you are the greatest . . .
Wait a minute. That didn't happen. I'm in a hospital room. It's near dawn, judging by the
slim light in the window that can't outshine the inflammation of this place. My nurse is at-
tractive in her way, though not like Betty Boop—black hair gone to charcoal with dark eyes,
