9369. EATING AT DARDENELLES

EATING AT DARDENELLES

I knew the waitress. She was cool

We slept together once, in '74,

when hesitation was at its wit's 

end and little else mattered. How

can that be, so long ago? Well,

I'm dreaming, and her name was

Mary Kay. She kept a sex chart

on the wall above her bed. It was

a calorie-burn chart of the various

sorts of sex one could do and 

how many calories thereby burn.

Going to weight-loss school

turned out pretty cool.

-

She drove a Datsun B-210. 

Yes, that's what they were called

before they went to 'Nissan' back 

whenever. It was an everyman's 

car, the streets were filled with 

millions of them, like VW used 

to be before that. This one was

a really lame light green. All she 

ever played was Elton John. This 

was in Elmira and Corning New 

York. In the days of 'Tumbleweed 

Connection,' his LP back then. 

Everytime I was coming over 

she'd put on 'Burn Down the

Mission,' saying it reminded

her of me.

-

Some years later, about 1988, she

drove cross-country in a van from

Arizona, where she still lives, and 

called to say she was coming and if 

she could stay. This was Metuchen,

NJ. She arrived on clear, Fall day,

just like she'd always been around.

We fixed up  a cot for her, and, even

as I worried a little, it went easy.

Turned out, by this time, she only 

liked women. Whew! My wive's 

problem now, not mine. I looked

for a chart, but didn't have one.