Date night. Saturday night. Anytown, USA. You get a hot tip on a good restaurant, and decide to try it out. Steak and shrimp, the specialty of the house. You do an Internet search to make sure they are as good as your tip said. This place is famous for their gigantic prawns. Maybe you download a Groupon; it's always good to save a buck.
Your spouse presses your shirt. It's the one night a week when it's just the two of you. You drive to the restaurant, and the parking lot is full; a good sign. The cars are all top marques , another good sign. You place your hand upon the horseshoe doorknob, give it a good swing and hold it for your wife…
Cue the music, motherfu****. You've just entered The Twilight Zone.
My pupils narrow, and I'm blinded temporarily by the sea of white. The tint in my bifocals darkens until I can see the light is coming from the white hair from the patrons. The decor is dark tongue and groove wood with wrought iron trimmings. Ancient photos and replicas of famous western paintings hang on every wall.
I check the menu. Did I wander into The Golden Corral by mistake? No, we're in the right place. It's like walking into the best restaurant in town, in 1974.
The place has a Hotel California vibe to it, in that the patrons never left. I'm relatively certain the lady with the walker must have won a Lindy Hop competition at some time in her past. The man swirling his whiskey and Coke looks like a retired barnstormer, for sure. Even the waitstaff has grey hair, our waitress has hers in a grey ponytail. It's probably the same hairstyle she wore to work when she was sixteen.
I looked around for someone more my age. I saw an old man with a pornstache. Those went extinct some time in the last century. Another man had on a cowboy shirt, the kind with the pearl snaps instead of buttons, and pointed pocket flaps. He's snapped up all the way with a bolo tie to finish it off. His high water white slacks reveal pointed black cowboy boots underneath.
When our meal arrives, it involves beef the way they used to serve it. Goddamned near raw, except it's a few degrees warmer than when it was alive. The prawns are gigantic, except they're prepared in the only way I ever saw shrimp until I turned thirty. They're flattened out like a lollipop, breaded, and deep fried. Just like you might find in a box from the frozen food section.
I ate my supper in silence. Fear prevented me from asking if they'd ever heard of scampi, or barbecued prawns. I didn't want to have to stay there forever. We paid the tab.
The meal was great, it was just the height of cuisine from forty years ago.
We hugged each other in the parking lot, glad to have escaped the permanence of the place. Old What's Her Face wanted to go to the mall. I was so happy to be alive, that I agreed.
I celebrated my good fortune with a beer from Old Chicago. She bought some pants and shoes to wear to the theatre tomorrow night. On the way home I stopped for a couple of magazines, the paper kind, like I haven't read in years. These are for stocking in the camper. I picked up Azimov's, Ellery Queen, and Hitchcock's. I even added a copy of the new Heavy Metal magazine, just for fun. The next time my iPad battery dies out camping, I'm ready with some evening entertainment.
It was a decent night. We're never repeating it — ever. There has to be some kind of fusion restaurant, or Tuscan based place around.
I hope all of you had a great Saturday night. Mine was fine, but a little bit scary.
Yikes! What a description. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yup.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really thought this was going to morph into a short sci fi story.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nope, it was all true. I felt like I wandered into the wrong building.
LikeLike
I’ll bet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
and I thought I’d never see the word “barnstormer” again…
LikeLiked by 2 people
What, no reaction to Lindy Hop?
LikeLike
Well, I was actually thinking about barnstormers a few days ago.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How funny, definitely the basis for a story…I can see you going back there a week later, only to discover it is modern and full of young people, you ask them if they’ve refurbished in the last week, but no, they’ve been like that for 6 months or more. In the corner, eating at a table alone, sits the old lady with the grey ponytail, you go to talk to her and she tells you that she used to work there when she was a young girl, and just wanted to come back to see what the place was like now.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yikes! They all looked at me like, “You don’t belong here, son.”
LikeLike
Wow. All I can say is that it sounds like an experience. Though I did shudder at the thought of raw, barely cooked meat. Never liked it when my steak had the appearance of something that could grab the knife out of my hand and attack me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wonder if that could actually happen in Windemere? I don’t mind rare beef, but I ordered it medium rare to avoid that situation.
LikeLike
Sure there’s been several illusionists and prank loving casters to do something like that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s how I felt the first time I went back to Cypress Cove at age 36….when the last was age 7. Scary old naked people. I knew, without a doubt, my body was the most beautiful one there, but scary. Glad you made it out alive!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I felt kind of like I wandered into the wrong part of town.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hahahaha! I remember eating steak that raw, and lovin’ it. Yuck! If nothing else, you have excellent material for a new character.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was like a time warp, I swear. A doorway that led back 40 years. All I need is a personal screwup from 40 years ago that I have to amend and it’s a short story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How bizarre.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can imagine your shock.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was afraid I would spot some of my dearly departed relatives.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha ha ha
LikeLiked by 1 person
Twylight Zone!
LikeLiked by 1 person
For a while there, I wasn’t sure if this was a story or what!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was all true, but I am a storyteller.
LikeLike
I can hear the music from the Twight Zone…
LikeLiked by 1 person
It was strange. All I needed was a 40 year old wrong I committed and had to set right. Then it could have been an episode.
LikeLike
Wondering into Golden Corral when expecting more is either The Twilight Zone or a horror story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s just creepy! Did you feel a little dirty after you left?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I always wonder about places that are kept that dark inside. The meal was fine, it was just not what you find at a top place in 2015.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, that’s a real pet peeve of mine – a restaurant with dim lighting… makes me wonder what they’re trying to hide.
LikeLiked by 1 person
yup.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just think of all the great trouble–er, adventures you could have with a 40-yr time portal!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve tried hard to avoid time travel as the basis for a story. It’s been done to death. Living it, on the other hand, might be pretty cool.
LikeLike