English Bitter

He makes pies, fruit pies exclusively … mid 50’s very thin, grey receding hair cropped short.  Green rimmed reading glasses over which he peers when not reading – removing and placing on his face throughout the day is simply too much work. The glasses are donned in the wee hours of the dark morning and rest there until they slide from his nose as he dozes in his reading chair toward twilight.. Yes, he has a reading chair. Today he has on peach skinny jeans and a white t-shirt, no apron, covered in flour from careful crust-making.  The kitchen smells of pears and apples and he hums as he sniffs the air and wipes counters. A little hip hitch with the beat brings him to the sink and he rinses his cloth – smooth deep notes emanate from his overlarge nose, nostrils shiny and fascinatingly huge.

Wiry, hairless arms gracefully swoop and arc from one domestic swipe to another, always in rhythm, always with care… he’s a man who never knocks things over, never steps on literal toes and always knows exactly where all of the parts of his body are and should be.  Proprioception it’s called, but he doesn’t know that, he just knows that navigating the physical world has always been a slow motion swimming delight of choreography and beauty. 

He’s most often clean shaven but today is Sunday, the day of rest and baking and laundry and wondering how well fig and Parmesan would lay together …. He stops humming and cocks his head into the silence of the kitchen, broken only by the yowl of his neighbor’s cat in his garden, in heat again, begging for a lover.  As he listens for the instinct that will help him sort out cheese and figs he thinks ‘me too kitty, me too.’ and smiles at the absurdity of himself and the dark comedy of fig filled loneliness.

From the basement a groaning buzz interrupts and startles – ‘mother damn!’ he exclaims under his breath, dropping his rag to the floor.     ‘Not right this moment.’ he proclaims, picking up the cloth with a bend and snap.  He reaches for the Bluetooth speaker with one long fine finger and smiles at the charming ‘blublubloop’ as the lights flash to life.  “When the Levee Breaks” fills the kitchen as six figs slide from his hands to his cutting board, music and magic flood the room, morning sunshine light his way.  The howling from outside is silenced and his mind is full and fluid.  There is a moment, after the figs are chopped and resting in the glass bowl, in front of the refrigerator sniffing the air he flinches at the near miss.  ‘Blue cheese’ he hisses between his teeth and the fullness of the moment nourishes him. Honey and thyme, fig and the smell of lanolin – he’s won today. 

And yes, he is lonely, for a lover and a partner, for a beautiful passionate romance or even a tragic flawed obsession – he is lonely for the momentary fulfillment of a lust filled encounter, for someone to look at him as though he is as delicious as the pies he creates – he is lonely for understanding and the feel of another’s hand in his as they dance across his beautiful floors … and he feels those years of possibility have passed, he knows the probability of him finding such things dwindles with every day that he stays home making pies and dancing in his kitchen – and somehow he feels if he were to do differently he might be trading one kind of happiness for another – and how does one calculate those odds?

Could he still make pies all day on Sundays if there were a warm body sharing his kitchen, looking for coffee and wanting conversation?  Could he explore the delicate balance of a flavor with his eyes closed if there were a face that expected to be seen?  What of him would he have to give up in order to share the world? 

He is no gambler. 

‘Alexa, play ‘Sea of Love’ by the Honeydrippers.’  Robert Plant pours into the kitchen, demanding nothing. Our lithe and fragrant baker sways and smiles and smells his creations. Full if lonely. Beautiful if unseen.