Excerpt: Slice of Heaven 24-Hour Pie Shop and Driving Range

THE PHILOSOPHER DETECTIVE

Little Peach stopped in at the Pie Shop the other day to show me some of the photos she took on our trip to Havana, and to reminisce a bit, especially about our dinner with The Philosopher Detective. I wish we had a good shot of the him to show you. I know you probably think we made him up, but really he was our companion for an afternoon and evening, and quite a remarkable one at that.

We met him on our bi-lingual bus tour, the one during which I gave away my pink hat, as you may recall. By the way, I did look at a possible pink-hat replacement when I was in Costa Rica, but it still was not the same; nor was the one that I found today at the local thrift shop with "Vail' embroidered on it. Perhaps next spring I'll buy a Red Sox one after all.

To continue, as we all toured the Morro Castle, the Philosopher Detective and I began to chat, and then we compared our purchases back on the bus. He'd bought rum and cigars for friends, and I'd bought a single dark-rum nip for myself. Until that point, he may well have been one of the people who thought I was a Cuban. (In my memory now, as you can imagine, most people did.) I told him I'd only bought the nip to drink on the bus since I couldn't take any of the lovely stuff home. "I'm an American," I said, and he replied "I suppose someone has to be. Might as well be you." He won me over immediately.

By the time we reached the walking tour part of our program, Little Peach knew much of his life history, including his long relationship with the marvelous Maggie, who was off on her own holiday with friends from way back when. By the time we all three decided to drop the tour and go off by ourselves for dinner, we were fast friends, at least for the one evening.

First, though, our tour guide did what tour guides tend to do: He led us into an establishment undoubtedly run by friends of his. We caught on to that when we noticed that the bartender already had an icy mojito waiting for our guide the minute that we walked in the door. The place -- a faux Irish pub complete with regulation mariachi band -- was touted as yet another Hemingway waterhole. I think it's safe to say that there was no drinking establishment in Havana where Hemingway did not knock back a pop or two.

We settled in upstairs, where we were pretty much a captive audience, for "a break" and shelled out a bit of cash for mojitos and beer, applauding on cue for the band. I could see that both the Philosopher Detective and Little Peach were getting a little antsy, but I wasn't sure why until we were out on the pavement again, and TPD burst out saying, "It was all I could do to keep from leaping over the table to free that poor bird from its cage."

Yes, a man of passion, and that's when he won Little Peach, too. Allow me to insert a little background note here: If you were to arrive at Little Peach's house with your car windshield smashed and cracked beyond belief, and perhaps even a shard or two of glass wedged into your forehead, she would help you mop up the blood, but she would first want you to go back and check on the health of the bird that you'd hit. (Yes, that's one of the many reason we love her, isn't it?)

TPD was cut of the same cloth, and we were delighted to discover that he knew of a charming rooftop restaurant where we would continue our conversation at leisure. The lower level of the place was a jazz bar, and the music was dead on perfect. We passed by the mahogany bar and beckoning chairs and entered the tiny grill-worked elevator that took us to the roof, where we were treated to a view of Morro Castle, the harbor, and the sea at dusk.

To our surprise, our waiter was reluctant to offer recommendations for dinner, but he explained that it was his first day on the job and he could not yet personally vouch for the quality of the food. I thought that was an interesting perspective, rather than telling us "It's all good."

Once we had ordered at our own risk, TPD told us about his career in London, conducting investigations and interrogations, and we learned that the most valuable weapon in his considerable arsenal was silence. "Yes," he said, "more often than not, you'll find out what you want to know if you can just out wait the poor fool you're questioning."

I've understood that myself, by intuition, but I've never been able to put it into practice. I always crack first and spit out another question. What about you? Let's try it sometime.

We also talked about humor and writing and learning to live a new life. I've done that as you know, as so has TPD, when his career as a working detective suddenly ended as his body collapsed and he found himself in a hospital bed, rather than at the scene of the next crime.

His dark world, in which he well knew the difference between the living, the just-dead, and the long-dead, rapidly shifted into one in which he knew he had to find a new better way to live and to cope and to communicate.

An introspective man, he shared his regrets and joys, with an self-questioning aspect that we enjoyed tremendously, as he played both the interrogator and subject in his own story. Part of the tale included a period in which he gained so much weight that he had become whale-like in proportion, but then took extreme measures to drop back down to "normal" size.

"What a pleasure it is," he said, "just to go into a shop and buy clothes ready made. What a joy, just to walk down the street next to my Maggie, not lagging behind so people would not know I was with her."

"I wondered about that," I surprised myself by saying, "because you walk like a fat man, but you really are not fat at all."

Yes, he did have that slow deliberate step, as if the ground might crumble beneath him, and he knew it. I know what it is like to lose 35 pounds, but he'd lost 140!

As the evening danced on, we listened to the rooftop band play traditional Cuban music, heard the canon at the Castle fire, watched the sunlight fade, and saw the full moon rise among the dark tumbling clouds.

We talked of families, lovers, friends, travel, books, The Wind in the Willows, and everything else that touched our hearts at that particular moment in time, and we topped it off with some ice cream that the waiter could not identify.

"It's tiramisu," I told him, after a taste or two or three. TPD and Little Peach nodded in agreement. Yes. Tiramisu ice cream for dessert, on a rooftop in Havana.

Before we pushed back our chaird and headed to the elevator, I asked TPD how many people he thought were sitting behind him. The terrace restaurant had been pretty much empty when we arrived.

"Six," he guessed.

"Turn around," I said. There were 18 people seated at one long table, just getting up to fill their plates at a buffet.

When I see people come into the Pie Shop and become so engrossed in conversation that they don't even see the other people in the room, I'm always a bit jealous. Tthen again, I feel that pleasant isolation so often myself when you and I have the chance to talk the way that we do, connecting on so many levels. Let's do it again real soon.

MAKE YOUR OWN UNIVERSE KIT

I know you are not surprised to see this heading here, after all, isn't making your own universe what life is all about, especially here at the Slice of Heaven 24-hour Pie Shop and Driving Range?

My own universe, as you may have noticed, seems to focus primarily on pie and golf, but maybe you have other ideas for your personal copyrighted piece of reality. I certainly hope so, and I'd love for you to tell me all about it, perhaps in private, at a later date over a nice piece of virtual-reality pie.

Anyway, I love the idea of a "make your own universe kit" and I hope you will remember this item as the holidays approach, now that my birthday is finally over, and National Novel Writing Month is starting to kick in.

Some of you, though, will immediately recognize this entry as just another foil that I am using to let Schrodinger's Cat of of the box, dead and alive. Get over it.

By the way, I included the comments section to this purloined New Science blog entry because they just cracked me up, which is not that hard, as you know. For even more examples of the fine art of commenting, take a look at the responses that poured in when Boing Boing ran its own blog entry on this item, too.

HALLOWEEN MUSIC

I'm feeling just a little bad that I was out of town and missed Halloween at The Swing Barn last night. I had a call from Sue Ten a little bit ago, but she was somewhat vague about exactly what had taken place over there. I'm guessing movies on the side of the wall, orange beer, and a lot of fake blood for Sparkle Junior to clean up yet. Possibly some real blood, too.
The Morning Guy left me a note to say he'll be gone for a couple of days, too, so I won't be able to get much information out of him, but what else is new? I understand that a few of the regulars -- including yours truly -- had a pool going, betting on whether or not he'd hang in here for the whole week. I won, but just barely.
I drove in at 6:35 last night, just in time to see the taillight of his motorcycle as he headed home.
All that aside, I do have one bit of fun to share with you. Take a look at www.hushie.com sometime when you're on the search for an elusive tune or performer, and try your luck.
I just typed in "halloween" and came up with this whole list, good to go and ready to play:
A few tunes for Halloween. http://www.hushie.com/searchqnewv2.php?detectflash=false&q=halloween&pag...

HOLLYWOOD HALLOWEEN
I still need to scrape the glitter off my face after last night's Hollywood Halloween. Yes, I know that yesterday was really All Soul's Day, but we're talking Hollywood, and we had to take into account the writers' strike and other details that might conceivably caused a slight delay in our participation in festivities here at the Slice of Heaven 24-Hour Pie Shop and Driving Range. I'm pretty sure, too, that we weren't the only ones running a day late, or even a dollar short.
I'd thought that everyone would have been pretty much costumed out, especially after Sue Ten's usual high-tone event over at The Swing Barn on Friday night, but you know how it is once people get into too much sugar and dressing-up. They just want more, more, more.
We had the first arrivals walk in to The Pie Shop around 8:00 p.m., and we served up some of that nice Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake that the India Night girls are always craving. Just for fun, I wore a pink and white waitress costume, modeled on the one in the movie Waitress. I had also pulled on my blonde French-twist wig and applied the blue eye-shadow and glitter liberally. I wanted to chew gum, too, but I'm one of those people without the gum-chewing gene and it prevents me from doing anything else very well.
Joe Sparkle Junior dressed as The Morning Guy, which I thought was especially funny, and Sue Ten came in for a while in full geisha girl regalia. She didn't stay for long, since it turned out she was really on her way to a dress rehearsal for a local production of The Mikado. She did drop off one of her wonderful pumpkin and potato casseroles seasoned with ginger and allspice, though. Delicious.
As always, we offered our "all the golf balls you can hit" rate of $10, but gave free balls to everyone who brought in some reasonably edible food to share, and before long, we had quite a line-up out on the range, under the lights which were unmercifully bright as we watched the sliver of a moon come up in the sky. People wandered in and out, balancing their paper plates full of chocolate brains, spicy guacamole dip, buffalo wings, organic celery, and watermelon jell-o shots.
One of the girls came in a clown costume that was quite cheery and sweet at the beginning of the night, but grew increasingly frightening until by midnight the melting make-up made her look more and more like the Joker in the last Batman movie. Plus, after three or four margaritas that she'd smuggled over from The Swing Barn, she had developed the disconcerting habit of going up to people, just after they'd set up their shots, and she would smile at them and say, "Why so serious?" Then she'd launch into a chilling and maniacal laugh.
I had to ask her husband, Bob "He No Dead" Marley, to steer The Clown over the the picnic tables so people could work their drivers without a look of terror creeping over their faces. We soon discovered that feeding her chocolate-cinnamon mousse pie did nothing to calm her down, but deep-dish apple was a fairly reasonable antidote.
Earlier in the evening though, when The Clown was still pretty docile, I noticed that one of The Stepford Wives was blissfully welcoming her to the neighborhood and suggesting that she might want to join some of the other wives in their exercise and make-up classes.
"Really, my dear," said The Wife to The Clown, "you certainly do have a way with make-up and color, but you are in Stepford now, and you might want to tone down that look just a teeny little notch or two, and of course I am telling you this as a friend because I know we are going to be very, very good friends now, aren't we?"
The Clown continued to smile and nod, and The Wife continued to preach the virtues of living in Stepford, all the while smiling up at her handsome Stepford Husband as she repeatedly replaced the drink in his hand, the ball on his tee, and the cigarette in his mouth. Several of the regulars stood by and watched in amazement at this particular duo in their award-winning performance, which probably ended the minute they got into their SUV to drive home.
Another interesting couple was Joan Crawford and a Philadelphia Flyers hockey player. Joan was scolding him about using wire hangers, but he didn't seem to mind, and changed to topic to Philadelphia baseball, little knowing that Joan was a die-hard Red Sox fan.
"Once the Red Sox are out, who cares?" said Mommie Dearest.
"You're a Red Sox fan?" he asked suspiciously.
"Oh, yes," she said.
"I'm from New York," he said. "We are enemies." And he pivoted on his skates and stomped away. Thank god he was still in the pie shop and not out ruining my turf. Mommie Dearest just muttered "Spawn of Satan" and went on to wave her wire hanger at someone else.
Nearby, Wednesday from The Addams Family was giving some excellent golf tips to Nurse Mildred Rached from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but then Rached was called away to administer medication to a tottering Amy Winehouse. Neither Amy nor Rached got in a single golf shot, but at least Amy didn't hurt anyone too badly when she fell down, again and again and again.
By the end of her visit to the driving range, though, Nurse Rached had transformed into Nurse Crotchett, and her performance had become increasingly X-rated. We all stopped to smoke a cigarette once she passed out beside Amy and lay quietly in the grass for the next hour or so.
Meanwhile, Mommie Dearest pointed out to me that the comatose Amy's bra strap had slipped own over her tattoo, and the strap was decidedly orange, not unlike the color of my formerly favorite bra, the one that did not return from the BahamasAir luggage system.
This prompted Wednesday Addams to give us a sweet little soliloquy about her days working at Victoria's Secret, and told us she had always been "the nice one" and never interrupted couples who were having sex in the changing rooms. Note to self: Always look for the most innocent clerk in sight when planning assignations at V.S., even in my mind.
I also noticed a number of James Bond lookalikes passing though, covering five decades of spy movies; one Terminator; two Incredible Hulks; numerous U.S. Presidents and presidential candidates; a dozen or so golfers ranging from The Shark to Spiderman to Happy Gilmore; Jason Varitek; several of The Baldwin Brothers, although they did not seem to know each other; and Joe the Plumber, who confessed that he was not even registered to vote.
Back in The Pie Shop, the cast of Grease took over the sound system and began singing "You're the one that I want ooh ooh ooh" until I pulled the plug on them and sent them over to The Swing Barn where the acoustics are better, or so I told them. Sue Ten will probably be calling me about that later on. We did keep Sonny and Cher to ourselves, though, and set them up at a table where they could sign autographs and feed each other excessively gooey lemon-meringue pie. They were so cute, back in the early days. I'm sure you remember.
Around 10:00, we had a lull until a crew of Fem-Bot Pirates arrived, frighteningly sober, and in search of Georgia Peach Pie and coffee ice cream. When they'd had their fill of pie-booty and black coffee, they went out to the range and offered an astounding exhibition of synchronized golfing. Perhaps they were German pirates, I'm not sure. They were certainly efficient, and knew how to take the minimum amount of fabric to create the maximum amount of costume. Their ability to hit golf balls while wearing high-heeled boots was quite stunning, too.
This morning, as I said, we have a fair amount of clean-up to do, starting with my face. I may even break my no-caffeine rule and have a cup of Joe, the plain-Jane variety that I know you like so well. Remember, we do not serve lattes or mochachinos or frappacoffee or half-fat or low-fat or any other variation other than black or regular. You can put in your own sugar or Sweet N Low, and I really don't care how much or how little you use, as long as you remember to leave Sparkle a tip. He works hard at not spilling, and that should be rewarded. It's not as easy as it looks.
We hope you had a good weekend, too. Remember the time change, if you are somewhere where that happens. I'd forgotten, myself, but the clock in the kitchen has shifted, so I know The Morning Guy must have slipped in at some point in the night to make the fix. Now that I think of it, one of those James Bond boys did look strangely familiar.