Skip to primary content

Gus | Nov 16 2003

I’m standing outside Tom’s Restaurant waiting for Dervala who is staying just four blocks away and who told me she was going to walk out the door the moment we hung up, which was fifteen minutes ago, minimum, so where is she? The only reason I ask is because it’s cold and windy and because the jacket I’m wearing, which I picked because Tom’s is just two blocks from my apartment, is absurdly insufficient.

I would go inside and get a table, but Dervala doesn’t know Brooklyn or Tom’s, so it seems better that I stand outside and freeze my ass off waiting for her.

No, forget that, I go inside to warm up, and there I get into a conversation with Gus, the super-nice but pervy-seeming guy who runs the place.

Last year I brought an out-of-town friend to Tom’s and told her, straight-faced, that Gus is a known pedophile but that it’s cool with folks in the neighborhood because it’s all out in the open. Sometimes people even joke with him about it, I told her, especially cops for some reason. My friend thought I was serious, which I didn’t realize until the next day when I read about it on her website.

Today Gus says, “Waiting for another lady friend, are we?”

I quickly count in my head and realize he’s seen me with at least five different women, all of them attractive, and so he has concluded that I’m some kind of Tom’s-based ladies man.

“It’s not what you think.”

“You’re secret is safe with me.”

“That secret is an illusion.”

“You’re being modest. What do you tell them?”

“I don’t tell them anything. Women don’t like to be told things.”

“Too true.”

“Instead I suggest.”

At this he moves closer. “Excellent. Let the woman decide.”

“They do anyway.”

“You’re a philosopher. What do you suggest?”

“The banana walnut pancakes.”

Back outside, Dervala shows up from the wrong direction, wearing no jacket. She walked down East Parkway west instead of east, asked ten quasi-helpful people directions, ran for a time, doesn’t know how she got here, seems tremendously pleased with herself. Also (I’ve never met her before, so I didn’t know this in advance) she’s beautiful. I bring her inside and introduce her to Gus, who takes her hands in his super-nice but pervy-seeming way.

“May I suggest the banana walnut pancakes,” he says. “They’ll warm you right up.”