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Entry 2
By Steven Paul Lansky
"Stone Soup"
It was a rainy day in Clifton where I live without my dog or my cat. I have houseplants and they run rampant, their fronds frizzing, their stems turning, the soil in their pots seemed never dry. There had been a long drought this spring here in the Midwest where I live without my dog and not a cat on the street. Maybe because it was raining, I don’t know these things, but I walked, with my blue umbrella, wooden cane handle, with light brown tips on the frame that held the cloth taut to Ludlow Avenue. Ludlow Avenue is where the beautification project originated, but if I tell that story, I first have to take me to lunch. Which, is where I was walking in the rain, but a little disorganized, not sleeping well, worried about the world, Reagan’s Alzheimer’s disease, Donna’s problem with the mayor, and the riots in downtown Cincinnati. I read a little poem about ass screwing, ha, self-censorship here, wouldn’t you like to know what they cut out of films these days? But as I say, I’ll never get to why I decided to go to lunch at Tink’s. For lunch. A man’s got to eat, I say, and a lunch, for reconnaissance at the most expensive restaurant in Clifton, might in fact be an excusable adventure. Not far from home, funded out of my graduate stipend and loan. Might I add that my mom, who is retired, and has funds, had offered to take me to Tink’s on Telford , with its leaded glass windows, awnings, hardwood floors. I’d only seen it from the outside. I’m afraid to go in, because it’s a proper establishment, but, Mom’s not been able enough, not that this is a sad tale. But I wanted a bowl of hot soup on a rainy day. Even if I couldn’t afford to go to New York City for the New Yorker Festival. I would have been glad to present if they had promised to take my poem, Gogol’s Ear, and paid for my train ticket and given me enough to book a hotel for two nights. I’d have sat on any panel, danced on any stage. I’d have even brought a harmonica, and pretended I could blow for a dollar a day. That’s more than I could make in Cincinnati. I mean that, ask any musician what it takes to get a dollar a day in Clifton, but no one invited me, no one asked, what’s little Stevie Lansky doing this May? Why don’t he come to New York for our little festival? So, with this song of lamentation blowin’ through my bad own self, I pulled on the door handle of the loneliest restaurant in all of Clifton. The newest, richest, most exclusivest, nicest, fanciest, expensivest, poshest, bestest, most best, and it was easy to get in, but getting out, only a window of opportunity . . . that’s all I asked. I had been on the phone all day trying to secure some university support to travel through the South on the New River train, into Washington, DC where the Federal Government seems to be located, where I’d change trains. So, no calls came back that day, nor the next. Was I to abandon the adventure? Give up the dream of seeing Tracy Chapman? I had never seen poetry in Bryant Park. Hey, I called a professor and begged him to accompany me. I asked a friend. I called another friend and left a message with his daughter. But, lunch, I could afford. I’d have lunch at Tink’s and regret I’d ever laid eyes on The New Yorker Magazine. I’d wish that my mother would never again say did you see the article in the Times about? And, me, stupid me, I read The New York Times, and in it I read a big article about The New Yorker Festival. Man, is this a story about temptation or what? It’s not like I was reading the advertising. I’m a poet. Not a good one, but nonetheless, I’ve been rated, discussed, envied, hated, reviewed, even praised once or twice, not only by younger persons, but indeed even by a generation advanced in literacy which would call Bob Dylan a disrespectful Yank, and Yank Rachell a respectable Negro. I went into Tink’s with a bit of ambivalence, as I could easily have gone somewhere where I knew what to expect. And, I suppose, when I eventually did arrive in New York City I got a lot of what I expected, and some of what I didn’t. But, at a New York style restaurant in Clifton, where was I supposed to sit? All the elderly women were two or three to a table? I wasn’t even ready to go to a table until I spoke to the manager, though, didn’t want to appear eager, didn’t want to be where I don’t belong. I’ve lived in Clifton all my life but fourteen years. I’m almost forty-four. All my life but sixteen years, maybe twenty, but still, I could count this out a thousand ways, and without hesitation, I could insist, that this is the neighborhood where I have resided for over half of my entire life and nearly half of my adult life. I knew the man the restaurant was named for.
Now, the story is going to pick up speed, like a lazy old train pulling slack, car after car, until it rounds that weird bend. I had a little conversation about ingredients in the spinach wrap, compared it to the Cuban wrap up the street where I eat regular (and they discount students 15%) with the pasty faced chubby blond woman at the counter. She told me that she didn’t know the place up the street. She said I could order at the counter, have a seat, and she’d bring my food. I asked her who did the art work? Which were two oil paintings, too yellow for my taste, I didn’t tell her my taste. She didn’t answer, another woman, at the register, told me the chef was the artist. I ordered the cheapest item on the menu, a bowl of white navy bean chili, and a glass of water.
I took a seat, with my back to them, and leaned my blue umbrella against the square edge of the table. It was a tricky lean. I tried three or four times before it caught, curve against line, and balance an elusive force this day. When the food came I savored it. Thick enough to eat with a fork, and it did have a big round pebble in it which I bit on hard enough to tickle enamel, not scratch. I spit out the stone, into the flat of my hand, without wiping it clean, and put it on the table. I finished my chili, called over the lady and told her what I’d found. She said there was no charge for the chili, and to this day I’m thankful that I chew gently when I eat hot beans. I talked to an attorney (my friend and tenant Pete, who was also one of my teachers at Miami University) and my first thought was that the chef should be fired and his or her whole lineage be deported to a foreign land. Then that if I’d swallowed it I might have cut a vein in my anus when it passed. Then I realized that I was lucky as hell and might as well go to New York whether I was funded or not, and take my chances.
A final note: I was mistaken about the source of Tink’s’ name. I knew a man who lived next door to the restaurant, a notable Cincinnati artist, whose father was nicknamed Tink. Word around the neighborhood had me confused. When I told my friend about the pebble, he said, “I don’t have a dog in that fight.” The remark struck me as typical of this man’s humor, but even then I didn’t fully understand. You see, the man’s father had that nickname, but the owner of the restaurant had no connection to the man “Tink” but to the owner’s pet dog, also named Tink, pictured on the awning next to a highball glass.
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