Read Online Last Notes from Home by Frederick Exley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Frederick Exley
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pitiable.
“Look, Ms. Glenn,” I said, “you go take care of the rest of your passengers, ni explain to Jimmy here what it is.”
My effrontery in interrupting O’Twoomey was almost more than he could endure. Turning to me with a look of angry perplexity bordering on outrage, he instantly thrust his right arm and index finger violently outward, directed squarely at Ms. Glenn’s striking cleavage.
“Stay, if you please, madame.”
Now to his toothy mouth he lifted the second of his vodkas and quinine, which unbidden I’d already mixed (such was the extent of my own intimidation), and drank this down in one slurping draught, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. With great ceremony he folded his arms across his chest, leaned back in his seat, looked straight ahead, and allowed his crossed arms to slide down to rest upon his chocolate-brown and white-undershirted belly where, I’d already detected, the bottom two buttons did indeed appear to have been popped. He lifted his chinless chin up in the regal way he affected, his lips formed a kind of Robert Morleyish fish mouth, and his words took on a tone implying that there lurked in his lineage baronets, dukedoms, and princedoms.
“Well, Frederick, me lurve, just suppose you tell me what manicotti is.”
Jimmy sat there presidentially, rather petulantly Johnson-like, awaiting my arguments for pulling our troops from Vietnam. O’Twoomey was of course mad as a hatter. Insanity always instills in those of us who imagine we’re still functioning a kind of eerie and queasy deference.
“Well,” I hemmed, giving the petrified Ms. Glenn (for on O’Twoomey’s harsh instructions to stay put she had literally frozen) a meek and helpless shrug. “One takes some long tubular—pipelike, you might say—noodles and stuffs them with a mixture of chopped chicken, veal, spinach, and onion fried up in butter and garlic. You then add some ricotta and Parmesan cheese to the mixture, stuff the ingredients into the cooked noodles, top the noodles with some thin slices of mozzarella cheese, and bake the whole business at a high heat, about 425 degrees, I think. This done, you smother the noodles in some hot Italian red sauce and serve. Quite delicious, really. But listen, Jimmy, I can’t guarantee any food you’ll get on an airline.”
O’Twoomey of course picked up on one word only. “Italian?” he demanded, pronouncing it Eye talian and wrinkling his Santa Claus nose with monumental disdain. He looked on the verge of vomiting. “You mean it’s a bleeding dago dish?”
“Yes,” Ms. Glenn and I answered almost in unison. Our joint timidity amounted to no more than a sotto voce echo of one another, peep peep.
“But,” O’Twoomey said, his arms still folded over his brown-shirted belly, his head thrown grandly back, his fish mouth forming his words with a suddenly introduced and painfully articulated Oxford accent, “I’ve already told you I do not eat bleeding wog food.”
Ms. Glenn and I remained in trancelike and stunned silence. Presently Ms. Glenn reluctantly offered what she obviously prayed was hopeful solution.
“But, sir, you have first class accommodations. You can have just about anything you want to eat.”
For the first time since Jimmy had withdrawn into himself, he turned to her. His great bleary blue eyes lighted up. He smiled with a childlike pleasurable warmth, exposing a mouthful of huge Irish teeth. With the palm of his left hand he joyously slammed his perversely pronounced forehead, causing his great mass of salt-and-pepper hair to fly abandonedly about.
“Is that so? Is that so? Ah, let me see—ah, yes, in that case Frederick and I shall have thump.”
“Thump?” Ms. Glenn said.
“Thump!”
“Thump?” I said.
“Colcannon, Frederick. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, lurve, “I’m beginning to believe you really are a bleeding Limey!”
“But, Mr. O’Twoomey…”
Ms. Glenn started to explain, I imagine, that “just about
“Look, Ms. Glenn,” I said, “you go take care of the rest of your passengers, ni explain to Jimmy here what it is.”
My effrontery in interrupting O’Twoomey was almost more than he could endure. Turning to me with a look of angry perplexity bordering on outrage, he instantly thrust his right arm and index finger violently outward, directed squarely at Ms. Glenn’s striking cleavage.
“Stay, if you please, madame.”
Now to his toothy mouth he lifted the second of his vodkas and quinine, which unbidden I’d already mixed (such was the extent of my own intimidation), and drank this down in one slurping draught, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. With great ceremony he folded his arms across his chest, leaned back in his seat, looked straight ahead, and allowed his crossed arms to slide down to rest upon his chocolate-brown and white-undershirted belly where, I’d already detected, the bottom two buttons did indeed appear to have been popped. He lifted his chinless chin up in the regal way he affected, his lips formed a kind of Robert Morleyish fish mouth, and his words took on a tone implying that there lurked in his lineage baronets, dukedoms, and princedoms.
“Well, Frederick, me lurve, just suppose you tell me what manicotti is.”
Jimmy sat there presidentially, rather petulantly Johnson-like, awaiting my arguments for pulling our troops from Vietnam. O’Twoomey was of course mad as a hatter. Insanity always instills in those of us who imagine we’re still functioning a kind of eerie and queasy deference.
“Well,” I hemmed, giving the petrified Ms. Glenn (for on O’Twoomey’s harsh instructions to stay put she had literally frozen) a meek and helpless shrug. “One takes some long tubular—pipelike, you might say—noodles and stuffs them with a mixture of chopped chicken, veal, spinach, and onion fried up in butter and garlic. You then add some ricotta and Parmesan cheese to the mixture, stuff the ingredients into the cooked noodles, top the noodles with some thin slices of mozzarella cheese, and bake the whole business at a high heat, about 425 degrees, I think. This done, you smother the noodles in some hot Italian red sauce and serve. Quite delicious, really. But listen, Jimmy, I can’t guarantee any food you’ll get on an airline.”
O’Twoomey of course picked up on one word only. “Italian?” he demanded, pronouncing it Eye talian and wrinkling his Santa Claus nose with monumental disdain. He looked on the verge of vomiting. “You mean it’s a bleeding dago dish?”
“Yes,” Ms. Glenn and I answered almost in unison. Our joint timidity amounted to no more than a sotto voce echo of one another, peep peep.
“But,” O’Twoomey said, his arms still folded over his brown-shirted belly, his head thrown grandly back, his fish mouth forming his words with a suddenly introduced and painfully articulated Oxford accent, “I’ve already told you I do not eat bleeding wog food.”
Ms. Glenn and I remained in trancelike and stunned silence. Presently Ms. Glenn reluctantly offered what she obviously prayed was hopeful solution.
“But, sir, you have first class accommodations. You can have just about anything you want to eat.”
For the first time since Jimmy had withdrawn into himself, he turned to her. His great bleary blue eyes lighted up. He smiled with a childlike pleasurable warmth, exposing a mouthful of huge Irish teeth. With the palm of his left hand he joyously slammed his perversely pronounced forehead, causing his great mass of salt-and-pepper hair to fly abandonedly about.
“Is that so? Is that so? Ah, let me see—ah, yes, in that case Frederick and I shall have thump.”
“Thump?” Ms. Glenn said.
“Thump!”
“Thump?” I said.
“Colcannon, Frederick. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, lurve, “I’m beginning to believe you really are a bleeding Limey!”
“But, Mr. O’Twoomey…”
Ms. Glenn started to explain, I imagine, that “just about
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