“I have never been able to demonstrate love except when I have been drunk, and the love I have shown then has been trumped up out of the bottle.” ~ Jean Stafford
Ensconced twenty floors above 42nd Street, with the sun bouncing off the buildings on a late afternoon in fall, I am waiting for Suzie to arrive. At the hotel bar – is there anything grander than a hotel bar? – a tourist with an Irish accent orders a vodka with a Guiness chaser. I think of how easy it is to talk to strangers when you’ve had a drink. It’s the universal ice-breaker. The gentleman slides into a chair in the lounge and begins his descent. He thumbs through his American money before downing the vodka. I ponder the drink menu.
An article in the ‘New York Times’ recently heralded the Negroni as a quintessential Fall drink. It’s on the menu, so I order one now. Rich with the redness of Campari and jazzed up with an orange peel, it goes down quickly – the rush of fall gliding along my throat like so many autumnal-hued leaves in scarlet, persimmon, and amber.
One of the best things about having a drink while waiting for friends is that I don’t care whether or not they’re late. This bodes well for all involved parties.
{‘FireWater’ is a project from 2009 that has gone unposted until now.}
[See also Scene 1: Bourbon Street, New Orleans
Scene 2: College Ave, Ithaca, NY
Scene 3: Union Square, San Francisco
Scene 4: Boston & Provincetown
and Scene 5: Braddock Park, Boston, MA.]
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