3AM, January 24, 1978. My 30th birthday was on the 23rd. Carla and I had
been married for 8 days.
Brother Kenny invited us out to celebrate both events with a lobster dinner at Abdallas in downtown Chauncy. Downtown meaning anything on the single block where there were still a few stores that hadn’t closed their doors and gone out of business.
Abdallas was a bar & steakhouse in that long dead coal town of depressed and depressing Appalachian holdouts. Strip steaks, live lobster, big salads & draft beer. Looming imposingly over the bar, a huge 1930’s painting of Abdalla herself, all breasts and hips, reclining voluptuously on a red velvet couch.
The real life Abdalla was in one corner. Skeletal, animated, her nicotine stained fingertips and teeth the color of black tea. Holding court for the ghosts of gentlemen callers, she puffed and pontificated to the empty chairs around her like Alice’s caterpillar smoking his hookah, marinating in an acrid cloud of decay.
On the other side of a large wood framed arch was the main dining room. In the wall to the left, a beaded curtain lead into a private room with a long table that could seat 16. That was our spot. All the ganja cowboys held court there.
I loved everything about that place.
But we never made it.
Our meet time of 7pm came and went as Carla flitted from one thing to another, never really making any progress toward going out. 8pm, nada. By 9pm I was learning that my new wife was simply incapable of going anywhere even remotely on time.
By 10pm I was pissed, drunk, and sleep kidnapped.
I’ve since learned that Carla time is just that, so I don’t plan accordingly. You know the saying that “God laughs as people make plans”? Well it turns out that Carla does that too.
That night she woke me up at 3am, proud as hell of the birthday cake she had made for me. No small feat considering that our propane stove was circa 1920 and the fact that we had no running water in the cabin.
I remember the sides of that white gift were very cake-like while the middle was more like some kind of dessert soup.
It was 3am delicious.
These days, I’ve learned to give any plans we have a wide range of interpretation and latitude.
And I’m still quite partial to Carla’s cake.
Brother Kenny invited us out to celebrate both events with a lobster dinner at Abdallas in downtown Chauncy. Downtown meaning anything on the single block where there were still a few stores that hadn’t closed their doors and gone out of business.
Abdallas was a bar & steakhouse in that long dead coal town of depressed and depressing Appalachian holdouts. Strip steaks, live lobster, big salads & draft beer. Looming imposingly over the bar, a huge 1930’s painting of Abdalla herself, all breasts and hips, reclining voluptuously on a red velvet couch.
The real life Abdalla was in one corner. Skeletal, animated, her nicotine stained fingertips and teeth the color of black tea. Holding court for the ghosts of gentlemen callers, she puffed and pontificated to the empty chairs around her like Alice’s caterpillar smoking his hookah, marinating in an acrid cloud of decay.
On the other side of a large wood framed arch was the main dining room. In the wall to the left, a beaded curtain lead into a private room with a long table that could seat 16. That was our spot. All the ganja cowboys held court there.
I loved everything about that place.
But we never made it.
Our meet time of 7pm came and went as Carla flitted from one thing to another, never really making any progress toward going out. 8pm, nada. By 9pm I was learning that my new wife was simply incapable of going anywhere even remotely on time.
By 10pm I was pissed, drunk, and sleep kidnapped.
I’ve since learned that Carla time is just that, so I don’t plan accordingly. You know the saying that “God laughs as people make plans”? Well it turns out that Carla does that too.
That night she woke me up at 3am, proud as hell of the birthday cake she had made for me. No small feat considering that our propane stove was circa 1920 and the fact that we had no running water in the cabin.
I remember the sides of that white gift were very cake-like while the middle was more like some kind of dessert soup.
It was 3am delicious.
These days, I’ve learned to give any plans we have a wide range of interpretation and latitude.
And I’m still quite partial to Carla’s cake.
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