Dinner Party
“I think a good citrusy Chardonnay would pair nicely; something that won’t overpower the spicing,” states a woman looking through petite half-moon reading glasses.
Her fingers run over dust covered labels, pausing every so often to further investigate a bottle. The wine cellar is dimly lit as to not prematurely age the wines, and there’s a certain chill to the room. She clutches her knit cardigan tight against her chest. Her gold bracelets clink against each other and against the antique bottles; the hollow clink reverberates against the brick walls of the cellar. A streak of artificial light breaks the dark and dust swirls in the wake of an opened door.
“Are you still choosing a damn wine? The meal is almost on,” a man shouts down the stairs
.
She runs her hands over the bottles in the row before her and finally settles on a bottle with a clear label; a citrusy Chardonnay from Domaine Corsin Saint Veran. Her feet shuffle and her joints creak up the stairs. The dim lights are flicked off and the door is closed. A wide mahogany spiral staircase runs up the rest of the floors like the spine of the house. She grasps the handrail with one wrinkled hand and cradles the bottle of wine with the other. Her steps are slow and measured. The sound of voices echo down the long staircase and the smell of roasting meat and vegetables follow.
The woman takes the last step off of the spiral staircase and enters the dining room. A long heartwood-cut dining table is dwarfed by the size of the room. Each seat at the table is ornately carved out of matching heartwood and accented with inlaid gold. No unnatural lighting was needed, but there is an equally majestic crystal chandelier above the table. The hall seemed more fit to gather a few dozen people rather than the five bunched at the head of the table.
“About damn time,” the man from the cellar says.
“Oh shush there Mr. Condor,” says a middle-aged woman in a conservatively cut dark blue dress.
“What is it you chose? Oh, the Domaine, what a great choice,” she continues with a matronly comfort to the much older woman.
“Don’t patronize the woman Ms. Puma; she’s been here longer than us all,” adds Mr. Bear from across the table.
The lone tone of a sterling silver dinner knife striking a Swarovski Crystal wine glass interrupts all banter. All eyes turn towards the silent man sitting at the head of the table. He did not say anything more, just simply picked up his pure white napkin and placed it on his well-pressed right pant leg. Everyone sits up straight and slides their heartwood chair legs over the Persian rug as silently as possible.
Sullen men carrying covered large silver platters swoop in like a fleet of birds gathering on a carcass. They present the course and leave as silently as they arrived. Salads are the first course, some light greens with a light dressing. The guests drink a mineral water with lemon, and pick through the greenery that none of them really care for. They’re here for the main course. The men flock back in and present the next dish, and everyone gathers themselves for what they’ve been waiting for. Mr. Condor is visibly fidgeting and watching the head of the table’s every move. Waiting for him to take the lid off of his meal. The man begins, and everyone else follows suit.
Steam rises from the dishes like the warm last breath of a dying deer in the middle of winter. The meat is flanked by roasted red potatoes with a golden buttery glaze and flaked with herbs and spices. The green beans are still sizzling from the pan they had left, thinly sliced almonds top the beans, and the same butter sauce has been drizzled over them as well. The meat is choice cut. A deep brown crust covers the flesh from where the pan seared it. A light reduction covers the cut; made from the pan’s drippings with crushed garlic and wine. The meat is lightly seasoned and barely cooked to let the meat be the main flavor. A deep red pool forms with the first cut.
Eyes roll and mouths smack and churn without thoughts of manner or circumstance. Mr. Condor gulps his Chardonnay Domaine Corsin Saint Veran without the care that selecting it took. The older lady eats in contemplation; she closes her eyes and savors each bite, chewing completely before selecting the next morsel. Ms. Puma has already finished her serving and is tidying her make-up in a pocket mirror. The man at the head of the table is finished as well. Mr. Condor is picking at his teeth, and looking at the man across the table who is just now realizing there were sides to accompany his meat.
“I’d like to see the biography please,” says Mr. Condor, picking his teeth with a toothpick.
Ms. Puma looks disgusted at Mr. Condor as she smooths down the front of her dress. The man at the head of the table picks up a simple white card printed on heavy stock stationery paper and passes it to Mr. Condor.
“Brian Desmond grew up on a farm in Idaho. He spent most of his youth doing hard manual labor, and you can tell by the firmness in the muscle. Brian also played baseball and football throughout his middle and high school years, and lettered in both sports. His social standing there allowed him to enjoy the young party scene as well, and that shows in the divine ribboning in the flank steaks. His college life was typical mostly, and he underwent a rather harsh break up with his High School sweetheart which caused him to become sedentary for a year or two. This allowed the meat to properly marble and lace some of his hard working muscle with the fat needed to make it juicy. He graduated with a degree in Telecommunications and went to work in sales for a company specializing in selling window shutters; a desk job mostly, and there was a certain loss of fitness. He never married, and died of a heart attack in his kitchen while he prepared his dinner,” Mr. Condor reads.
Everyone relaxes and drift into thoughts of their own life. What they had done to where they were. They didn’t share this with their dinner party; they were just Mr. and Ms. Generic Predator here, and that’s the way they all wanted it to be.
“I always love the ones that died alone,” says Mr. Condor now chewing his toothpick.
“I just care if they were active at all,” says Mr. Bear patting his protruding gut.
He and Mr. Condor laugh.
“Don’t be so callous,” says the man at the head of the table.
Everyone sits upright again, except for the older lady who is finishing her last bits of Brian Desmond.
“We mustn’t forget our humanity,” he continues. He stands, and politely excuses himself.
As soon as he’s comfortably out of earshot, Mr. Condor stands and paces at the head of the table.
“Why’s he always the big guy around here. This is my house, for christ's sake. He brought in his own staff, used his own china and cutlery, and then dictates everything to us like we’re nothing,” he says, looking at all of his companions for something to build upon.
“He started the club,” says Ms. Puma.
Mr. Bear looks away, because he knows that without him there would be no dinner parties. Mr. Condor sees that there is no head of steam building, no desire for a revolt brewing, and sits down. The older lady finishes the last of her meal and looks over the biography that Mr. Condor left on the table. She doesn’t get far into it before the man returns and brings his fleet of servers. Dessert was served. The older woman and the man at the head of the table were the only ones to finish.
“I’ll be in touch,” says the man, and leaves once again.
Mr. Condor looks at Mr. Bear and rolls his eyes. Mr. Bear doesn’t respond. They all get up and leave without a word. Ms. Puma and the older lady neatly fold their napkins and place them on the table next to their dessert plates. Mr. Bear leaves his crumpled on his chair and pulls at the back of his slacks. They each have an individual private car that will take them to the airport, from which they will depart to different cities and live separate lives until they receive that crimson red envelope once again.
Mr. Bear is red in the face with a construction helmet squeezed so tightly on his bulbous head that it looks like it’ll be popped off like a champagne cork at any moment. He’s yelling at the contractors about the paving to be installed around his latest Honey Hickory Barbeque and Biscuits restaurant. It must be accessible by motorized scooter. It’d be discriminatory if it wasn’t. The contractor is remaining calm and outlining the changes he will have to make to accompany the wider handicap-accessible ramp. Mr. Bear regains his composure and apologizes. Maybe his blood sugar is low, he claims, and excuses himself to his truck.
His truck’s suspension groans when he enters and he’s breathing deeply by the time he’s settled in the driver’s seat. He fishes out a greasy brown paper bag. It sports the name of some local fast food joint, and he rips at it without thought. He eats, but he’s miles away. The flesh of cow and pig is just a tease, a hint of what he could be eating. This cow was raised and processed in a yard with a hundred other cows just like it. He finishes it with glazed eyes, and turns the key in the ignition.
His truck rolls into his driveway at his suburban home. It takes equal effort to remove himself from the undersized cab. He unconsciously kicks balls and toys off the pathway as he makes his way to the door. He announces his arrival and hears the pitter patter of human and dog feet alike. He walks to the kitchen with a child on each leg and a dog following in tow. He greets his wife, and cuts off mid-sentence when he sees the red envelope on the counter.
Ms. Puma rises from a bed that’s not her own, and is glad to see that the other occupant is long gone. Her corporate attire is still neatly folded on the dresser from the night before. She quickly dresses, checks her appearance in the mirror and heads out the door. It’s light out and people don’t give a second glance to the well-dressed middle-aged woman walking out of one of the city’s nicer apartment complexes. She turns on her heel and heads in a direction. She doesn’t know where she’s going. She looks straight ahead. She knows the telltale markers of a tourist, and she refuses to fall into those pitfalls. She is a stranger here, but that doesn’t mean she must look it. She lets her designer handbag casually swing from the crook of her arm. She calls the nearest taxi and hops into it. She states her destination in a calm voice without unnecessary courtesy.
The airport is rather dead today, and she sits and watches as planes land. She sits as close as she can to the terminals watching people being reunited with their families and loved ones. She shuffles through her wallet to find her frequent flyer card. Upon finding it she makes her way to the desk to schedule a flight, rolls down the departures board, finds the one closest to take-off and picks it. Her phone rings. Someone has sent her a red envelope. She cancels her flight.
Mr. Condor sits back in his leather office chair while one of the interns bobs her head between his naked thighs. Looking bored, he shuffles through his Blackberry and reads the latest stock exchange news in between rounds of Brickbreaker. Seeing that it’s going nowhere, he pats her on the head and tells her to leave. He stands, pulling up his custom tailored trousers and walks back to his desk. He shuffles through whatever papers one of his secretaries or underlings had left for him to review or sign or whatever. Nothing catches his eye, just white sheets of paper.
He yells out a name and a rather flustered looking woman in a tight skirt hurries in. He asks about a red envelope. He had monitored the other dinner guests’ mail and they had each received one. She explains that she had not yet checked his personal mail. There had been massive company-wide downsizing, and she has survived wave after wave of pink slips. Mr. Condor turns to her and looks completely through her. He fires her. She cries. He tells her to get out of his office. He calls his house and yells at his butler to check the mail. He has a red envelope.
The older lady was never given an animal name, because she had never wanted one. She would have gladly given her real name if anyone had asked. She led her dogs to the front porch and instructed them to sit while she worked off her dirty gardening shoes. She patted each one on the head and smiled. They wagged their tails and waited for the door to be opened. She kept them sitting while she took a handkerchief out of her back pocket and wiped down each paw. The door opened slowly and the dogs waited patiently for her to go through before bounding in.
She doesn’t mind the pile of mail that had gathered on her welcome mat. She steps over it while humming a nameless tune. She goes to the kitchen and boils a pot of tea. She looks on her counter and ponders what to eat. A light salad with a light dressing. She eats no meat in this world, and calls herself “vegetarian” to others. The sound of the wind through the high canopy of the forest that surrounds her house is her background music. She starts a fire in her fireplace, changes out of her dirty gardening clothes, lays down to sleep, and dies.
The head of the table also never took an animal name. Some had called him Mr. Lion, or those with deeper senses of humor Mr. Human, but he had never adhered to them. His keys jangle in the small bowl he’s designated for them, and the single coat hook on his wall now sports his black trench coat. He walks into the section of his one room apartment which he has decided to be the kitchen and fills a glass with water. There is no refrigerator, and there is no seating. He sits on the floor and stares off into the distance. His figure is thin but not malnourished. His eyes still have the youthful optimism of a child. He has the eyes of someone who has seen no true evil in this world. He has never killed anyone in his life. The gray walls are bare, and there is no furnishing. He is surrounded by red envelopes, dozens upon dozens of red envelopes. They explode out from him like a supernova, and pool in the corners of his apartment like blood.
“I’d like to see the biography card,” says Mr. Condor, finishing up his last bite
.
“I’d like to read it this time,” says the man at the head of the table.
“Julia Linsby grew up in upstate New York, and her parents were professors: one of Physics and one of the Fine Arts. She was an introverted child, spending much of it indoors behind a book or at the piano. The lack of physical activity in the formative years has allowed her flesh to become almost veal-like in tenderness. In grade school she quietly skipped several grades and moved onto college at the age of sixteen. She studied Environmental Science and Ecology and graduated in three years. The lack of any party scene beyond the local wine-tasting club can be seen in the lean cuts and pure flavor in the meat. She went to graduate school in Maine and spent most of her time there with her soon-to-be husband. They amassed riches in their creation of an indoor hanging garden and donated their vast fortune to charity. Her late years in the mountains allowed her to trek up and down giving the flesh some of the gamey lean flavor profiles of bison or buffalo. She was a vegetarian by most accounts, and you can seem to taste the lack of mixing. Her husband died last year, leaving her alone in their Maine house with her dogs. She died of a stroke in her sleep.”
Mr. Bear, Ms. Puma, and Mr. Condor all look at the empty seat and put down their forks. The guests don’t even feign caring about dessert. The man at the head of the table eats it in its entirety. They sit in stunned silence, fiddling with their napkins and sterling silverware before the man finally excuses himself and they get are allowed to get up and leave.
Three years pass before a new red envelope comes to each of their residences. Mr. Bear nearly broke down in tears. Ms. Puma was touring Europe alone and booked a flight back to the States the day she got the word. Mr. Condor had fired twelve assistants in the three years, and had an ulcer the size of a nickel that constantly harassed him, and got the letter the day he stood on the edge of his high rise office balcony.
“I’m glad to see you’ve lost weight,” says Mr. Condor patting Mr. Bear on the back.
“Har har,” Mr. Bear responds, the fake laugh resounding in his still very prominent gut.
“Boys, I can’t say you’ve all worn your years well,” says Ms. Puma.
A knock on the door shocks them into silence. The man at the head of the table moves to open it. A middle-aged man stands at the door with a bottle of wine held nervously in his hands. He moves to awkwardly shake the man’s hand almost losing the bottle in the process.
“Here, I uh, didn’t know what paired well with uhh...” the newcomer pauses and counts the seams on his shoes.
“Human flesh,” the man finishes.
“Yeah, human flesh,” the newcomer echos.
He left her, but it didn’t, so now she’s trying to kick her habit and save enough to go back to school.
