to the point of total incompetence—it hit me: The real danger of the novel is that it might make you want to write one yourself.
BOOK I
CHAPTER 1
THE BASTARD FELIX
That winter I was in the grip of abstract furies.
ELIO VITTORINI, CONVERSATIONS IN SICILY
I
It goes like this: Felix will call from a noisy bar and tell me he’s in town, or from a mutual friend’s apartment telling me to come over, or from his car while en route to a party telling me to be downstairs in five minutes; he’s picking me up. If I decline, he’ll tell me it’s going to be so much fun that I can’t afford to miss it, and if I come and hang out with him and his friends for a few hours, it will be so much fun, I couldn’t have afforded to miss it. And then the night will wind down, and everyone will take off to their respective apartments, and Felix will give me a lift back to mine and end up staying for the next three or four days.
“Wake and bake!” he sings, when I find him in the kitchen watching Soul Train , making breakfast, and smoking what’s left of a joint. “It’ll help with your hangover,” he says, passing it to me. I exhale in a chain of rueful coughs. He pours me a glass of water from the tap. The Bastard Felix—my shame, my solace.
Like a child born out of wedlock, Felix is a roommate born without a lease, a bastard roommate whose origins are illegitimate. Under a mess of broken crackers, he just appeared on my couch one morning. Swaddled in my throw blanket, there was Felix gently snoring, the ignominious offspring of another long night of terrible fun.
I don’t much mind having a bastard, and Felix for his part is quite happy with the arrangement. I have a pretty decent apartment, what he calls my dukedom. There are certain records of mine he likes to play, certain cheeses I keep in the fridge that he enjoys, and I’m okay with him leaving a few things, too. After he’s gone I’ll discover a pair of fresh socks he’s stuffed discreetly between the wall and the sofa; a T-shirt stuck in with my books, folded up small between The House of Mirth and Martin Eden ; or some very expensive volumizing hair conditioner that one of his girlfriends gave him hidden beneath the sink, behind the toilet-bowl cleanser. “She works for a cosmetics company,” he explained when I asked him about it. “She suggests I play up my curls.”
It’s not an uneven trade either, lest you think he’s taking advantage of me. We have a lot of fun together for one thing. And for another, if I get drunk and pass out somewhere, he’ll wake me up, help me home, and then in the morning take care of breakfast. Felix can make a meal out of anything—a lonely onion, a packet of mustard, salad croutons. . . . This is partially how he earns his keep. He’ll tell high-spirited jokes to ameliorate your hangover while finally putting to use that two-year-old can of olives you thought you’d never eat, that weird jar of pickled mushrooms that came with the apartment, and an unopened container of paprika.
Since the host wherever Felix is staying is usually too much crippled by the excruciating hangover that almost always results from a night out with Felix to prepare any food himself, Felix’s bizarre meals come as a sweet relief. Only very rarely are his dishes inedible. Once, for example, he made these deviled eggs using chocolate syrup, and another time he made tuna salad with cocktail olives and some other odd ingredients I wasn’t able to identify.
Inspired after one of his better breakfasts, Felix and I came up with an idea for a TV show. We’d call it, The Wandering Chef , and it would follow Felix as he wakes up on strangers’ couches and makes breakfast out of whatever they happen to have in their kitchen. The first segment would show him coming to in a room where a party was recently held:
Felix sits up, yawns, stretches and then, delighted to find a roach lying in a nearby ashtray, pulls a lighter from his pocket. Relighting
BOOK I
CHAPTER 1
THE BASTARD FELIX
That winter I was in the grip of abstract furies.
ELIO VITTORINI, CONVERSATIONS IN SICILY
I
It goes like this: Felix will call from a noisy bar and tell me he’s in town, or from a mutual friend’s apartment telling me to come over, or from his car while en route to a party telling me to be downstairs in five minutes; he’s picking me up. If I decline, he’ll tell me it’s going to be so much fun that I can’t afford to miss it, and if I come and hang out with him and his friends for a few hours, it will be so much fun, I couldn’t have afforded to miss it. And then the night will wind down, and everyone will take off to their respective apartments, and Felix will give me a lift back to mine and end up staying for the next three or four days.
“Wake and bake!” he sings, when I find him in the kitchen watching Soul Train , making breakfast, and smoking what’s left of a joint. “It’ll help with your hangover,” he says, passing it to me. I exhale in a chain of rueful coughs. He pours me a glass of water from the tap. The Bastard Felix—my shame, my solace.
Like a child born out of wedlock, Felix is a roommate born without a lease, a bastard roommate whose origins are illegitimate. Under a mess of broken crackers, he just appeared on my couch one morning. Swaddled in my throw blanket, there was Felix gently snoring, the ignominious offspring of another long night of terrible fun.
I don’t much mind having a bastard, and Felix for his part is quite happy with the arrangement. I have a pretty decent apartment, what he calls my dukedom. There are certain records of mine he likes to play, certain cheeses I keep in the fridge that he enjoys, and I’m okay with him leaving a few things, too. After he’s gone I’ll discover a pair of fresh socks he’s stuffed discreetly between the wall and the sofa; a T-shirt stuck in with my books, folded up small between The House of Mirth and Martin Eden ; or some very expensive volumizing hair conditioner that one of his girlfriends gave him hidden beneath the sink, behind the toilet-bowl cleanser. “She works for a cosmetics company,” he explained when I asked him about it. “She suggests I play up my curls.”
It’s not an uneven trade either, lest you think he’s taking advantage of me. We have a lot of fun together for one thing. And for another, if I get drunk and pass out somewhere, he’ll wake me up, help me home, and then in the morning take care of breakfast. Felix can make a meal out of anything—a lonely onion, a packet of mustard, salad croutons. . . . This is partially how he earns his keep. He’ll tell high-spirited jokes to ameliorate your hangover while finally putting to use that two-year-old can of olives you thought you’d never eat, that weird jar of pickled mushrooms that came with the apartment, and an unopened container of paprika.
Since the host wherever Felix is staying is usually too much crippled by the excruciating hangover that almost always results from a night out with Felix to prepare any food himself, Felix’s bizarre meals come as a sweet relief. Only very rarely are his dishes inedible. Once, for example, he made these deviled eggs using chocolate syrup, and another time he made tuna salad with cocktail olives and some other odd ingredients I wasn’t able to identify.
Inspired after one of his better breakfasts, Felix and I came up with an idea for a TV show. We’d call it, The Wandering Chef , and it would follow Felix as he wakes up on strangers’ couches and makes breakfast out of whatever they happen to have in their kitchen. The first segment would show him coming to in a room where a party was recently held:
Felix sits up, yawns, stretches and then, delighted to find a roach lying in a nearby ashtray, pulls a lighter from his pocket. Relighting
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