trying so hard to be nonchalant in his first ever visit to a pinoy restaurant in queens yesterday, the strange man ended up ordering bulalo, the pinoy pot-au-feau. he winced, then exclaimed "dang" when the humungous bowl flowering with sawed bone-in beef shanks arrived.
as he studied the bowl, he said he thought he ordered for some beef shank broth. which, i said, he got. he squinted and pointed at the marrow. "and should i eat this, too?" "esta loco? that's the best part," i said. he looked at me like i was a snake oil salesman.
"do you want me to help you with that?" i was sincere. two geriatric couples from our neighboring table started whispering something to each other. "how?" he asked, "order for a saw?" "now, you're dissing my people's food," i said. i told him the french has a similar dish, only that the meat, the bones, the broth are served as separate courses. he was not mollified. i ended up ordering broiled pork belly for him.
mostly in silence, we negotiated our meal. and when we were almost over, a crash from behind one of the unmarked closed doors startled us. unwashed dishes fell. the clang of bouncing silver, pronging through my bones.
growing up, i was a finicky child. even at five, or six years old, i remember i would never go out of the house without combing my easily tousled hair. mother would always upbraid me. it’s what you have inside that counts, she’d say. and her reproach was chilling. because other than being fussy, i was a hopelessly unassured child. i always thought something in me, something in the center of things inside me, was putrid, unlovable.
the strange man and i went on with our meal. the bowl of neatly sawed bones, otiose at the corner of our table. the marrow half extruded out of the bones, like some childhood memory, curdling white in the autumnal air of this city that has no use, no taste, somehow, of things interior.
