A briefing, with The Dancing Girl in tow, in lieu of a job not done by T.H. Cornish
I had the tickets for me and The Dancing Girl for the three-hour Fellini flick, “La Dolce Vita”, playing at 7 p.m. on Saturday, March 23 at the Kyiv Cinema off the Lva Tolstogo hub, as part of the Italian Film Week they were having there, and as it was still two hours to show time, I wanted to get something fast to eat so her stomach don’t grumble during the show; know what I mean?
But I’ll talk about “La Dolce Vita” in an official Manny Face journal installment for The Checkout, and I’ll do that pretty soon; know what I mean?
But I got to get this out of the way first, since the huge block of lard that calls itself The Hunched Cornish was sitting petrified inside New-York Bagel, which is like this tiny deli-like cafe right next to the city’s central synagogue, which is a Jewish house of worship, on Shota Rustaveli, which is the name of the street.
You look in through the window and its real small, and real, real narrow, with like one continuous cushioned bench along one mirrored wall with something like five tables lined along it in a row and a single chair behind each table facing the bench, in case you come with someone and maybe sit across from each other – if you want; know what I mean? Then goes like this narrow aisle, which basically makes up the place.
And then the opposite wall is also mirrored, which I found good, since I could see myself from most angles, and has I think two what do you call them, like elevated, like high-top tables with two high stools behind each one, and the place got like these two steps that go down, and I guess there may be a little more seating down there, and there’s like the food counter from I guess where the waitresses take the orders.
I heard The Hunched Cornish talking some line of shit about not being Himself, but only his Second Self, because the Original of him was stuck in this place, New-York Bagel, but when I saw that there he was, behind the last table before the counter starts, hunched over, with his elbows on the table and the second half of a lox and cream cheese bagel clinched in the forefingers and thumbs of both hands and his gruesome mouth open ready to bite it, I guess he wasn’t just blowing smoke up people’s ass.
Me and The Dancing Girl took the table right next to him, and it was real interesting to see the hard texture of the skin of his enormous head with the deep leather-like creases cutting it up in crisscross patterns between the eyes and jaw.
I punched that jaw and that head in general as hard as I could five or six times, being careful to brace my fist and use mostly the two large knuckles of my middle and forefinger and I was laughing like some kind of lunatic doing it, even though I hurt my hand, and The Dancing Girl, she starts this dramatic, pathetic, heartbreaking like, “Oh, stop it, stop it, you’re hurting him,” with trying to hold my arm back and crying, like he was some kind of big innocent elephant trapped by pygmies and being subjected to the cruelties of man, and I just said to her: “What ever made you go out with this thing, and I punched him, as hard as I could, one more time, laughing like a fucking banshee, and The Dancing Girl practically broke down right there, but then our bagels came and I told her to put hers in her mouth, or I’d do it for her, and she put a lid on it and ate her bagel.
So we got the same one – with prosciutto, a dry-cured ham, and there was some other stuff in there too, and especially the cream cheese, and there could have been another cheese spread in there too, a tasty tangy one, Manny Face doesn’t remember exactly or take particular note, because it’s not Manny Face’s job to do it, know what I mean, but I figured why the hell not do it for The Checkout if The Cornish thing got here over a year ago and still hasn’t been able to write the review. And the bagel itself, well, Manny Face don’t exactly remember it either, maybe it was a sesame seed one.
The whole thing, that is, this particular bagel-and-filling combination costs UAH 45. It was really good, and The Dancing Girl said so too.
There’s different types of bagels – I don’t know exactly what ones, maybe there’s cinnamon raisin, maybe they have just plain bagels, maybe they have bagels with just salt or pepper or poppy seed – maybe, I don’t know, but the point I’m trying to make, they’re all probably really good. The different bagels are listed in the menu with their prices, and then the different types of bagel sandwiches are also listed with their prices.
And then it looks like the place has got a pretty wide assortment of other menu entries at pretty reasonable prices, for such a small place. Other sandwiches, beside bagel ones, and maybe like breakfast-type dishes, and the expected assortment of coffees and teas, are also to be found. And desserts, too, with the Cheesecake, also heavily associated with New York, figuring prominently among them. The Dancing Girl had an eclair for UAH 12 with her UAH 20 cappuccino and she said it was good. I had a light Coffee Americano for 18, plus milk in it for UAH 2.
The place had pictures on the wall that were supposed to evoke New York – and they did, a little. It’s funny the name of the place got the hyphen between the New and the York – like this: New-York. Yeah, that’s pretty funny.
And then it was time to go, so I grabbed The Dancing Girl, who was trying to give The Hunched Cornish some kind of sympathetic look, and even almost touched him, and I threw her out into the street with its meter of early spring snow, which was still freshly fallen, and still sweeping in, and virginal white, kind of beautiful, really, because I wanted to make the movie on time, having gotten good seats in the fourth row.
So I’m looking at this thing I just wrote and I’m saying to myself, I shouldn’t have written it, it’s not my beat, it’s not my line, but I got good feelings for The Checkout and I figured it didn’t hurt I did it, even though I’m not going to count it toward my official journal; know what I mean?
Manny Face, March 24, 2013