5075 .HIRAM HARRY IN A BEST-LOVED MOMENT

HIRAM HARRY IN A 

BEST-LOVED MOMENT

Something's dead in this shark soup, I can tell but I

don't want to say. It stinks like starfish on a bender.'

Harry looked around, knowing he was right but realizing  -  

all the same  -  that this was a sea-food restaurant and he was

the owner's guest. Keeping quiet is a fiendish option, always.

-

The fork was made of wax and the spoons they shone like

silver but they weren't. Everything was kitschy, like Samuel

Barber or Tommie James. I sat down in a kitchen chair so

deep I was never found again. Hiram Harry was still there:

-

'This shark soup, I daresay, something's dead within it, like

some starfish on a bender or a flathead in decay. I don't wish

to sound the alarm, yet I must refuse the seconds you'll be

proffering. I really am quite full anyway.'

-

Rantell Billy, the black chef from Ronedlay, the chili-dog place 
at the corner, he'd just returned from sabbatical, having visited
 Aruba but left out Chile  -  which everyone thought would have 
helped  him  -  he spoke up. 'Why only the freshest ingredients 
come into this kitchen, though I can't say what goes out, but if 
something's bad it's really still freshly bad. No harm in that. 
We pride ourselves on freshness anyway, or don't you 
read reviews? Well, don't you read reviews?''