Salad Dressing ©

Have you ever eaten a $70 Caesar salad?
I did the other day.
It also seems that even though I’m getting old I haven’t change much in appearance.
I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
It could just mean I always looked old.

All week I have been assaulted with phone calls by someone I have learned to dislike for many reasons but he likes me, which makes it hard to dislike him, but I do.
He has fucked me up so many times with his BS.
When he was younger he had it all, houses, cars, money, fiancé and everything was looking great until someone gave him a line of cocaine one day.

People react differently to drugs and when he tried it for that first time it was like he had found the one thing in the world that was meant for him and he dove right into it until in the end everything was gone and he was in a mental institution more than he was walking the streets.
Do you know how many times I had a pizza driver show up at my house with a bill for a pizza he delivered to the nut house because he ordered it and had the driver come get the money from me.
MANY!!!!!!!!
You couldn’t leave him alone in your house if you had a phone because you never knew where he was going to call when you turned around for a second.

I came down stairs one day from a quick trip to the washroom and he was on my phone.
My heart stopped when I saw him.
I strained my ears to hear who he was talking to and then he said, ”Hi, I want to talk to John Gotti”OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!
He was calling the FBI trying to talk to a Mafia boss that just got busted from MY PHONE!!!!!!!!!!
I almost killed him that day.

A friend of mine got a call from some woman looking for Buddy and my friend said he didn’t live there.
They told him that he called from that number asking for help and to talk to the pope to ask for forgiveness.
My friend was stunned; the call was from the Pope’s office at the Vatican.
They called to bless him and my friend said he didn’t want any blessing and that he was Muslim.
He called me as soon as he hung up on the Pope’s office and immediately wanted to know where Buddy was so he could run him over.
He calls at 5 am for the stupidest things, he calls my parents at the time to just to say hi and shower them with praises and to revel in some of my past acts
MY PARENTS DON’T KNOW THAT MUCH ABOUT MY PAST!!!!!!!
Till he started calling them that is.
He didn’t only do this to me, he did it to everyone.
It wasn’t long before most of us didn’t want him to come over.
Besides he always drooled because of the medication he took.
No one talked to him but me because I felt sorry for the prick and I am still suffering for someone I don’t really like.

He walked right up to me one day in a café in the middle of a tense stand off to bum five bucks off of me.
I told him to beat it and he refused to go.
Unfucken believable I thought.
I swear Mad Dog was going to shoot him right then and there.
I gave him a ten, it’s what came out of my pocket I would have given him a hundred I wasn’t looking at what I was pulling and after he took it he stood there like an idiot.
He even had this idiot’s look on his face as he looked at each and every one of us, as we stood there ready to jump at the first spark of trouble.
I think a light finally lit up in his head and he took off.

This is the same guy I posted about once that drove to this horse ranch in the country one night to see the horses then decided he was going to pet them and forgot the door open and millions of dollars in horse flesh is racing up and down the highway in the middle of the night in every direction.

Anyway it was his birthday this Saturday and he wanted me to go.
He said don’t bring money just to show up and he was paying for everyone.
Every day he called to remind me and I said I would show up,
I had to just in case no one else did.
He said his family was coming to and there would be twenty people that were going to this fancy restaurant in Little Italy.

That was another problem for me.
I don’t go to Little Italy any more.
It’s one of two haunts from my past that I try to avoid if I can and not go there.
It’s nothing to worry about I would be treated very well in fact, it’s just that when I walk away from something I usually keep walking and don’t like going back, this place holds a lot of memories for me and of me for other people, which I found out soon enough.

As I was sitting here writing the post below the phone rang, it was Buddy for the third time that day, he was asking me to go there now and keep him company.
That was an hour earlier than the rest of the people; great I would have to sit there and listen to the old stories he constantly rambled about over and over and he told everyone about what you did in front of you……..I said ok and slapped the post together got dressed and took off.
It was only a mile so I decided to walk over.
It was a nice walk and I like the old houses and buildings in Little Italy, they bring back memories when I was a kid and all you could hear is the screeching of Italian mothers calling their kids to come home eat lunch.
It has a lot of character still with the little shops looking exactly as they did 40 years ago when I was a kid.
It was a nice day a little overcast but not cold.
It only took me about twenty minutes to get there and as I got close to where I was supposed to meet him, I could see him from a block away sitting out on the patio.

As we were sitting there a woman walking by with a young man in his twenties and stopped to say hi to buddy.
Then she looked at me and said ”K is that you”?
This is one of the reasons I don’t come down here because some people might remember who I was.
I said yes and asked her how she was.
She said she was fine and brought the young lad over and introduced him as her some.
I took a good look at him and nope; he bared no resemblance to me.
She told him that I was the K his uncles talked about all the time.
Great they still talk about me.
I knew I should have faked my death and if anyone seen me after that they would have probably just quit doing drugs due to hallucinating. LOL.
It’s been twenty years since I left this place and they still remember, that sucks when you are trying to be forgotten.
She asked me what I have been up to all this time and where i have been.
I gave her a genetic this and that.
She put me up to date on her family and her kids then after a half an hour her son was begging to go eat.
Before she left with her son she told me I should come down more often, the boys would love to see me.
I bet they would.
I told her maybe some night when I have nothing to do.
She said we could all talk about the good times.
The good times, yes they were good times and I do miss those days but they are not for me anymore.
It was the main reason I left because I didn’t want to get deeper and finds myself in more trouble than I cared for or dead.
I decided twenty years ago I wasn’t going to live out my life as a Hood in jail, in a nut house or sitting in some fucken room stoned waiting to die.
Her bother was one of my crew twenty years ago and after I left he hooked up with some other bunch and spent a lot of time in jail.
He got into drugs real heavy and now he is almost a vegetable sitting at home all day waiting and watching TV stoned on meds.

About twenty minutes later buddy’s old partner showed up.
He got out early and now is very well off.
The guy makes heaps of money sitting at home watching 8 32-inch monitors at home watching the stock market and making millions.
We talked for a bit and talked about the old days with buddy jumping in periodically saying, “I remember that”.

Another of the lads came by; he is now a chef at a very upscale restaurant.
He told us they took in $25,000 the night before.
I’m telling you, we were in the wrong racket.

As we were sitting there buddy sees his families car drive by the patio we were sitting at and he suggested we head off to the restaurant to meet them.
When we got there a couple showed up that were meeting him there and we all walked in.
This was a very good restaurant with full service.
There were people that took your coat and went to hang it up while another one took you to your table where there were two other waiters waiting for you ready to serve you.
The owner of the r restaurant came over and took a long look at me before he told buddy that his family just called and said that they wouldn’t be able to make it.
Fuck, we all saw them drive by.
That cut the people down to 6 of us without his family and the others that didn’t show up.
I got to tell you, everyone knew buddy and they all treated him with respect even though he was a little off center.

Buddy told the owner that I was in a hurry had said I needed to be home by 7pm but I told him to forget it that I could be a little late.
The waiter brought us menus, did I mention I ate at home because buddy didn’t say we were going out to eat.
I ordered a beer while we all looked at the menu.
I wasn’t hungry but I didn’t want to sit there watching everyone else eat so I ordered a Caesar salad, something light.

We all sat around listening to buddy reliving the past and managed to embarrass all of us at one point making it even I guess.
We all wanted to kill him probably by the time our dinner showed up.
I have to admit we were all enjoying ourselves and he looked like he was happy.
Why wouldn’t he, he was sitting with some really big hitters in his mind and that made him feel important.
He always wanted to be someone important and what he never really realized was that he was who he was looking for before he got into the drugs.
So instead he hung out with people he thought were important and fed off of that.

I was sitting there telling everyone a story when the owner of the restaurant came over to me with a tray of Samboukas and said it was from a gentleman at the table he was pointing at.
I looked over and nodded to someone I once knew.
A waiter showed up with a bottle of red wine and the owner took it and told me we would enjoy this very much and it was on the house.
I thanked him and he went off to tend to his restaurant.

We sat there eating and getting to know each other even the ones who knew each other.
We haven’t seen each other in decades.
When we had finished the waiter brought over the bill and no surprise to anyone there buddy had no money.
What did you think I was going to leave my wallet at home because someone who always borrows money off of everyone everyday said he was paying told me so.
No one said anything, we all had a good time and after all it was his birthday so I tossed the seventy bucks I had in my pocket on the table for my salad and pretty much everyone paid at least double or triple of what they ate,
Buddy took the money for the bill and left the waiter a forty-dollar tip and kept the difference.

The owner came to me and said “Come back any time K”.
Hmmm
I told him I just might because the food was fantastic, well the salad was but what everyone else ate looked great and they said as much.
Outside we said our goodbyes and I headed off home.
Today I got a phone call from buddy thanking me for showing up and helping with the bill.
I told him I had a good time and would see him for his fiftieth next year.
What do you do?
Do you become an asshole or just try and endure some agony for a friend.

The good old days are just that, good old day.
These are the new days and I kinda like it this way, for now at least.
How much trouble can you lot get me into anyway.
Wait don’t answer that.
I want it to be a surprise.

You know, that was the best Caesar salad I have ever eaten.

Have a nice day

Walker