Juniper and Freedom

Juniper and freedom were the rhythms in the discussion; the effervescent glow of youth everlasting corrupted by the intoxicants that only the aged imbue. He drank gin and tonic with fermented cabbage, the clarity of the ice and liquor contrasting with the warped green and yellow leaves that could never be separated enough. The woman across from him, tattered and dark, spoke of the rain and how the drops were grey rather than blue and that they came at the earth slanted, like daggers slipped between ribs. She provided more details—of how little blood would drip, Christ like from slits down the abdomen, and into the threads of dusty trousers. His mind wandered, picking up the glass, sipping, using the sharp knife to cut another piece of cabbage, letting the two dance around as his mind turned. And then, as if by script, the waiter, dressed in black and white, came behind the women and dragged a blade across her neck, the red moisture of whatever she had left, spurting onto the tablecloth, onto her meal, into her wine, as if it were from a technicolor cartoon from his youth. He watched her, like the roadrunner, or Bugs Bunny, and smiled as he sipped again from his gin and tonic and thought about the chromatic glow of youth everlasting.

Days before, with stones beneath his feat, he was dreading meeting her again. The last time, in Rivisondoli, had not gone well. The winter snows had begun to fall and the valley was not yet hard from frozen stones. There was still chance that he could convince her. Yet, her faith was more cultural than intellectual, and he had no culture at all. He was American and while one could easily sneer at such cultural comeuppance it wasn’t that America lacked culture. It was that America had too many cultures, all tossed together in a stew whose base was consumerism. America did not have the Catholic patina that patterned Italians so consistently. He had grown up with a mother that picked and chose, from the Jews, from the Muslims, from the Catholics, a Mezuzah and a cross pinned to the entrance of a house that had fugu and gaebul but no rice crispies.

Dorian LaGuardia

December 2017. Part of a piece about food and life in Abruzzo. Write me for more.