It was my turn to pick up the tab, the choice of location had been Raymond’s. In a friendship that went back to third grade and\u00a0which was ruled by many traditions, this tradition \u2013 one person selects a restaurant for a Friday lunch, the other is responsible for the check \u2013 goes back to the day I left my wallet on the kitchen table and Ray covered a sizable bill. Something he did, I should add, without complaint and a graciousness that speaks well of my best friend. <\/p>\n
Once we got over the ensuing contests of sticking-your-buddy-with-a-check-the-size-of-a-mortgage-payment, we selected places like Frank Pepe’s on Wooster St.,\u00a0just as Ray did for our most recent repast. <\/p>\n
Pepe’s was actually a concession to me. I knew that Ray actually preferred Sally’s down the street… Sally’s being New Haven’s other<\/em> \u201chigh temple\u201d to Neapolitan apizza<\/em>. Call it a New Haven \u201cthing\u201d… local folks have been arguing about it for decades… which pizza reigns supreme on the street… Frank Pepe’s established in 1925, or Sally’s founded by Pepe’s cousin Philomena Consiglio in 1938 and named after her eldest son Sal. <\/p>\n Our large mushroom, sausage and bacon arrived at the table, steam rising from its blistered black edges. We both knew to let the pizza rest for a few moments to \u201ccompose itself.\u201d <\/p>\n I surveyed our fare, \u201cyou know… my Aunt Meggie was right! I mean… she was right about a lot<\/em> of stuff… but about this<\/em>? *whew*…\u201d <\/p>\n Ray lifted an eyebrow. <\/p>\n I pointed to our pie. \u201cShe’d see a squirrel or a skunk squished on the road \u2013 killed and flattened\u00a0out after repeated run-overs, and she’d call out ‘road pizza!’\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cOh, that’s pleasant.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cNo, no… look. Look at the darkened mushroom slices, the crumbled sausage meat, mini strips of bacon burnt and curled… it does look like a squirrel, or two <\/em>squirrels that have been hit a dozen times. The only thing missing is maybe a little fur… which I am sure we could have added as a fourth<\/em> topping.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cYou couldn’t wait to share this on a different afternoon? An afternoon when, perhaps<\/em>, we weren’t having lunch? Besides, no one has a fourth <\/em>topping unless you’re a Wolfgang Puck wannabe.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Perhaps<\/em> the observation was ill-timed. Still I couldn’t help but smile. Thinking of Meggie always makes me smile. She was not the author of the term road pizza<\/em>. That honor belonged to my Uncle Saul… or so I was told. Meggie just took to the concept <\/em>the way a bear takes to shitting in the woods, and used it in conversation\u00a0at every\u00a0opportunity. If my Mother, Meggie and I drove to the Crown Market on Whalley Avenue and if we saw something on Fountain St. that had previously been a bushy tailed grey squirrel, Meggie would point and say, \u201croad pizza!\u201d\u00a0 One time we saw the carcass of a deer on the road side near the Maltby Reservoir, Meggie couldn’t contain her excitement, “That’s one for the humans!”<\/p>\n We were nearly ready to tuck into one of Pepe’s finest. I poured us each some birch beer. \u201cIt was her dark side.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n “Dark side?\u00a0 Your Aunt?\u00a0 Anyone who could make oatmeal raisin cookies like your Aunt couldn’t have a dark side<\/em>.”<\/p>\n I considered the remark, and regarded my generous slice, which to my eye\u00a0looked very much like “road kill” minus the fur.\u00a0 Somehow Maggie’s glee at pointing out various animal bodies that littered the road just didn’t square with the person who detested any form of violence.\u00a0 And while she held nothing against squirrels, opossums, raccoons and skunks… the same\u00a0can not be said for deer.\u00a0 Against deer she waged a private vendetta.<\/p>\n Maybe it was a product of living up in more rural Woodbury and having to share her gardens with countless deer that got it her ticked. But the more likely explanation is her frequent automobile to deer confrontations on the lanes of Woodbury, Southbury and Newtown.\u00a0 Two short anecdotes.<\/p>\n After her second <\/em>encounter with “Bambi” that had left the front end of her Volvo looking like she had been hit by a T-34 Tank, we watched as Uncle Saul put two deer decals under the side window on the driver’s side.\u00a0 Meggie gritted her teeth, “I hate ’em all!\u00a0 They’re too many of them… it’s us<\/em> against them<\/em>.”<\/p>\n We stood on the driveway looking at each other.\u00a0 No one knew what to say.\u00a0 Things were kind of quiet for a moment.\u00a0 Meggie waited for someone to make a mitigating comment of some sort, like… “Oh, they are so cute.”\u00a0 Or, “Come on Meggie, they are harmless.”<\/p>\n The latter observation would be met with a glare, “Harmless?\u00a0 Harmless did you say?\u00a0 The problem is that they have no natural enemies.\u00a0 We should re-introduce mountain lions to Litchfield.\u00a0 That would help keep the deer population in check.\u00a0 Maybe that’s too extreme?\u00a0 OK, this is better:\u00a0 I think we should pass a law that every\u00a0adult in\u00a0Woodbury should have a quota <\/em>of 20 deer that they would be obligated to kill each year.\u00a0 Give everyone a gun, and they would be required to kill 20 deer a year, or they would have to sell their homes and move to another town.\u00a0 No, make that a State.\u00a0 Everyone has to do their part.”<\/p>\n Uncle Saul was quick to point out, “No natural<\/em> enemies?\u00a0 What about you?”<\/p>\n Honestly, I didn’t know what to make of it.\u00a0 I was just a kid.\u00a0 I loved everything about Meggie except that she taught 8th Grade Science… and now there was all this rough talk about deer.\u00a0 I may have asked my Mother why Meggie didn’t move further south if she was so angry about deer.\u00a0 We had no deer in New Haven on Alston Avenue.<\/p>\n Another time… it was Meggie’s Birthday and we went up to Woodbury for dinner and cake.\u00a0 Uncle Saul presented Meggie with two nicely wrapped gift boxes.\u00a0 The first had a clay coloured Willis and Geiger safari cotton bush jacket, and the other box had a pith helmet.\u00a0 The gift card was inscribed, “To my favorite great white huntress, with all my love… Bwana Saul.”<\/p>\n Dinner and cake were the\u00a0best… the stories went on and on.\u00a0 After we said goodnight, Meggie waved to us from the front porch.\u00a0 She looked about the area.\u00a0 Was she looking for her next mark?\u00a0 Before we got into our car, my Father pointed to Meggie’s Volvo… there were three<\/em> more deer decals under her window.\u00a0 It certainly looked like Meggie was intent on doing her<\/em> part.<\/p>\n I never asked anyone whether Meggie actually patrolled the roads of Litchfield County looking to nail deer.\u00a0 The thought seemed outrageous.\u00a0 Or was it?\u00a0 Maybe she was just the victim of amazing coincidences.\u00a0 One time her Volvo (this would have been her\u00a0third one that I knew of) was totaled in a deer collision, and she hurt her neck and had to go to a chiropractor for months.\u00a0 If someone asked her how she was feeling, she would shoot back, “Better than the son-of-a-bitch deer!”<\/p>\n Years later, on one of my visits to her home in Chatham, I though about bringing up\u00a0the subject of her obsession with deer.\u00a0 We were sitting in the den which was chock full of bric brac and mementos.\u00a0 Included in the decor was an original Sharp’s buffalo rifle which occupied the prestigious wall space behind the couch.\u00a0 In spite of her threat to arm the citizenry of Woodbury with guns to meet the deer challenge, she actually didn’t approve of guns.\u00a0 But the Sharp’s was a piece of history.\u00a0\u00a0Anyway, I guess it would have been too hard for her to mount the Volvo on the wall.<\/p>\n No… there would be no point\u00a0in asking about whether some of those decals were the result of intentional muggings.\u00a0 I liked not<\/em> knowing.\u00a0 I was supremely happy to think that there was a rogue <\/em>element to Meggie.\u00a0 A dark side.\u00a0 <\/em>To me, it added to Meggie’s character.\u00a0 Not that she was without dimension.\u00a0 I think of it as one more facet to her incredible personality… even if seems out of character to the casual observer.<\/p>\n I looked at my slice… very\u00a0 happy.\u00a0 I raised my birch beer in toast, “This is for the humans!”<\/p>\n Ray nodded, raised his glass and proceeded to scarf down slice #1.\u00a0 “Good choice, Jim.”<\/p>\n “Yeah… next time we’ll swap out the bacon for some venison.”<\/p>\n “I don’t think Pepe’s offers it as a topping.”<\/p>\n “Then we’ll just have to bring our own.\u00a0 I hear that the deer are running on the Merritt.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was my turn to pick up the tab, the choice of location had been Raymond’s. In a friendship that went back to third grade and\u00a0which was ruled by many traditions, this tradition \u2013 one person selects a restaurant for … Continue reading