Food Hose to a Parallel Universe

Yesterday, some friends and I went out for dim sum—ordinarily a non-event hardly worth reporting. Millions of people routinely enjoy dim sum on Sunday mornings in the Bay Area. What catapulted our trip beyond the ordinary was that we went to Alameda; not San Francisco and not Oakland both of which have vigorous, lively Chinatowns larger than the entire commercial district of the little spot on the prairie where I grew up white as rice on a wedding day I never had. Alameda is not known as a culinary center of any kind unless you are willing to include donut shops and Kwik Marts in that category. Not only was the place absolutely ringing with multi-generational Chinese families--90 year-old grandmothers all the way to newborns were crowded around spinning lazy Susans--but there was a line to get into the parking lot and a line at the door to endure. From this waiting vantage it was obvious we were the only white people in a vast interior dedicated to eating long and hard. To be fair, that could be because all the white people of Alameda were at the Fourth of July parade streaming that very minute through the heart of this small town. I was with immigrants from Poland and our only patriotic concern was what we would wear to and eat at the rooftop fireworks party later because we are all queer and refuse to wave the flag until we have equal protection under the law and the full rights of citizenship. In other words, we long ago stopped paying attention to Yankee Doodle and instead are concentrating on Yangzi Noodle.
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This place has the serving of food honed to a production line that would startle Henry Ford. We were still settling in our chairs when the first of a convoy of carts rolled up to offer the latest from the kitchen—crab stuffed peppers, shrimp rolled in bacon and deep fried with a dipping sauce of mayonnaise (mayonnaise!), sticky rice cooked in mango leaves, fried tofu, shrimp dumplings, mushroom dumplings, bean curd dumplings, pork ribs coated in a screaming red sauce, noodles in a slippery and peppery sauce heavy on the garlic, broccoli leaves sautéed in oil, pork buns, and shrimp balls wrapped in noodles then deep fried. We took it ALL. There were four of us and we quickly found our table was too small for the burden of our appetites. The woman who was our server gave us the once over and radioed instructions of some kind back to HQ.
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There are perhaps 12 cart women on the floor, each wearing a headset connecting them to the kitchen. They radio in what is selling and what is not so they have real time food production keeping the fare hot and fresh and irresistible. We are eating like people rescued from a boat adrift for days on the open sea, speaking only when the next cart rolls up with new plates and steam baskets. Eventually, we simply point with dripping chopsticks and grunt affirmatively as the cart woman reloads our table. I love dim sum even though it ruins me for days afterward as food I do not customarily eat (fried, salty, fat) makes its laborious way through my suffering alimentary canal.
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We all use both hands to push back from the table when we are done. Apparently, we are not alone in this custom as the tables are all bolted to the floor and good thing, too, as it is impossible to rise unassisted after this experience. In the harsh glare of the parking lot, we adjust our sunglasses and wonder if Farine’s is open on the holiday as we would now like to buy cake. We get in the car and count ourselves lucky that the tires hold. In a rare moment of judiciousness, we decide to skip Farine’s and go home to nap before the big party. Ubi sunt? And all that.
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Later, wrapped in a bath sheet, I pace between my walk-in closet and sleigh bed laying out ensembles for the evening—planning for a Phoenician roof top experience requires at least three outfits because you will go through that many seasons in a six-hour period on a roof top facing the Pacific Ocean. I decide to go for surprise with my opening gambit and select a white linen A-line sleeveless shift. For accent, pearl earrings and necklace plus an ivory and nickel bracelet inset with a green stone matched by a silver ring and similarly green stone. I pull my hair up into a French twist, apply pink lipstick and spray Obsession over the entire construct. What has come over me? A pair of high black slides and I am out the door.
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No one has seen me like this since high school and the reaction is immediate and loud when I hit the roof. The collective gasp almost suffocates the nascent flame under the BBQ. Men are throwing their arms around me, kissing me; women are nodding their appreciation and remarking how good I look in white. My neighbor, a drink in each hand, pulls me aside to offer one of the G&Ts and tell me he and his girlfriend are about done. He asks when he can come over. Dude, I tell him, you are barking up the wrong tree and you know it. He persists. I use what I consider to be a definitive squelcher line: I am 59 years old and queer. All couples have problems, he coos, sliding his arm around my waist.
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My 15 minutes of fame are eclipsed by Danielle arriving in high summer drag. She is carrying a pitcher of her party starter: a blender concoction of several pints of strawberries, peach juice, rum and Canton, a highly successful mash up of ginger infused cognac from the Pearl River Delta of China's southern Guangdong province. It is now so popular BevMo has it on continual back order. I have the only bottle in the building. "I hope you don’t mind?" Danielle asks, jingling the key to my loft that I gave her so she could store huge bowls of her cucumber and cabbage salads in my otherwise empty refrigerator. I might mind but I love this nouvelle drink sometimes called a Phoenician and other times Hammer Blow. I down two immediately while it is still sunny and hot. The fog is piling up behind the hills of San Francisco and soon enough my little white dress will be history.
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You know you are among queens when a simple change of clothes elicits screams of “Outfit #2!” the minute you walk off the elevator. I have reappeared wearing designer jeans, a black turtleneck, and a porkpie hat. Where is this sartorial instinct rooted? I am again welcomed for my style as most people are now wrapped in blankets or fleece which is a problem because the serious eating of ribs slathered in sauce has begun. Our party has grown in my brief absence to include the brewer who owns Linden Street Brewery, one of our neighborhood establishments. Nick is often seen making morning deliveries on a special bicycle he has tricked out with a platform running parallel to the ground between the seat and front wheel. He can load about two dozen large growlers on this and is often seen at sunrise clanking through the Square like an ersatz milkman making his deliveries.
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Our newest Phoenicians, and my next door neighbors, have come up bringing with them a strange sort of fairy folk typical to the redwood glens of northern California. They wear tie dyed, flowing robes, crowns of stars and moons (in the hands of lesser beings these crowns would be used for holiday table decorations), and big crystal rings. They have walking sticks and speak of animate nature as might have Merlin had he gotten it together enough to make this party. Go figure. These queens prance around in a silver Jaguar when out and play Barbara Streisand albums all day and night when at home. Neither is bigger than a ten year-old despite being grown men. I like them. They are sweet and friendly. After I have had several more of Danielle’s fabulous red drink I wonder if maybe they are leprechauns and the fairy people have captured and enslaved them.
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Their white magic has, inevitably, drawn a black magic to balance the universe and I am suddenly drawn aside by a very short, dark haired ancient woman wearing smeared red lipstick and a long black coat a la Matrix. Her age is inestimable but she is old, old, old. She inquires what it is I do as though she is inquiring whether I know the secret code to her inner circle. I give my most benign reply: I raise money for medical research. That usually causes people to drift into some vague cooing and gets me quickly off the hook for deeper conversation with strangers when I am loaded as I am now. I knew it, she says earnestly grabbing my hand and looking deeply into my eyes—or as deeply as she can from her vantage a foot below my nose. She has my hand. I am trapped and off we go into a very long conversation concerning her amazing discovery (by way of Canada, I didn’t really understand this part) of the cure for cancer! How, I ask stupidly. Herbs. But not just any herbs and not just delivered in any dose by any fool. I must train in her method to be effective. I notice that one of her fat short male minions is standing on either side of me, not saying a word but pinning me to the conversation. I can, of course, leave at any time but I strive to be polite and am about ready to concede she is indeed a genius when Danielle, at six feet six (the five inch stiletto heels giving her a commanding boost although they do ruin the moisture seal on the roof) abruptly appears and takes my hand away from the woman, asking: Is this bitch bothering you? Flaming daggers of steel pass between the eyes of Danielle and the evil one but Danielle is the stronger force. The three slink away to some other corner. Danielle, I notice for the first time, has green eyes—the sign of a witch. Or so I was told by Katrina, my former house mate who also had green eyes and broke every goddamed thing she touched.
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Geez, maybe it was something in the several blunts that were passed around but I am relieved to be returned safely to the table that is, by now, a heap of plates and gnawed on ribs, pies, and cake. My companion at the table remarks that she has eaten some of everything here and is thrilled to report that no one copped out by making potato salad. This is apparently enough of an achievement for her to rate my building four stars. Who the fuck are these people and how did they get in? It doesn’t really matter. By 10 p.m. I am staggering around the roof bumping into chairs and knocking things off the table—not because I am drunk but because I am eating pie and shortcake covered with whipped cream and three kinds of berries. I am on a sugar high among a crowd of people similarly inflicted and we cannot seem to direct our legs under the avalanche of food we had steadily poured down our throats all day long. Music is now blaring from every room in the building and we dance looking like a promotional film for Lourdes— flinging our arms toward the sky while our legs shoot out in all directions like bird dogs revealing hidden pheasants in the bull rushes. Every few seconds, someone bolts up out of a chair, screams halleluiah, and dashes to the desert table. It is time to sign out from the land of the free, the home of the brave.