"What are tonight's specials?"
By Anthony Roberts
Dining Out at the End of the School Year
What are tonight’s specials? Steak cooked rare red like the graded rough drafts that sit in a pile in front of me covered in the au jus of bad writing in the past tense and passive voice How did you misspell Shakespeare? repeatedly? it’s on the cover of the book Order the entree Old enough now that I have to worry about my weight my blood pressure my cholesterol my blood sugar My salt intake and who knows what’s growing in my head now todays episode of Sesame Street is brought to you by the letters M, R, and I Back to the specials and Shakespeare I’ll order the ribeye let the cow kill me if it can and I’ll be damned if it’s said at my wake that my last meal was a salad As for Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet the doomed lovers who like the veal on the menu Are dead both a reminder to me of the 18 months since I cheated death (or so I was told) I never imagined that in my 50s would find me benefiting from therapy From 8 years of sobreity I’d ask Dr. Ruth but she’s dead and it’s already time for me to order dessert
Anthony Roberts is a veteran of Baltimore and Afghanistan. He currently lives in New Jersey in a home with beautiful views and interlocking fields of fire.
Listen to our Savage Wonder episode with him here.
He is the author of the Pushcart Prize-nominated Pigtown and The Clearing Barrel.
You can follow him here.
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