Collards and Anxiety Dreams

My hotel is the Embassy Suites. Its located in the what the tourist brochures always refer to as the “fashionable Buckhead Neighborhood.” The hotel is a bit of a puzzlement. to me, and makes me wonder if the Aminzade scale needs revision. It offers a fluffy 46″ towel, but a combination conditioner and shampoo. There are no extra amenities (damn, I really felt like a shoe mitt tonight!), and the shampoo and hand lotion are served not in a basket but on an intricately-folded washcloth. I’m not sure there’s a word for the artistic folding of washcloths. Is it a variety of Orgami, or would it be called a branch of the art of napery? At any rate, it’s a pleasant change from wicker.

I’m teaching an evening class this day, so we have a little time to do some exploring. Jeff is kind and gracious enough to indulge my desire to find Son’s Place. It’s a “soul food” establishment that my sources (that’s you, Chris!) claim has the finest peach cobbler known to humanity. I generated a map and directions from the Internet (http://www.mapsonus.com), but the results aren’t proving very useful. After several wrong turns we stop a gas station for help. I climb up the side of an Atlanta Parks Department truck to ask the occupants for directions. They haven’t heard of Son’s, but get us on the right street.

Son’s is everything we hoped it would be, despite one upsetting note. Perhaps because I’ve spent so many years as a student I have a real aversion to eating off of a cafeteria tray. Son’s serves their food in the worst incarnation of a tray, the “trate” which replaces rather than holds bowls, saucers, and plates. It has molded recesses for the main dish, and three side dishes, and a well to hold a beverage glass. Despite this off-putting setting, the food is ambrosial. No ribs today (too bad), but fried chicken and catfish, black-eyed peas, and by far the tastiest collard greens I have ever had. These do, however, have an unfortunate side effect. I generate collard burps all day and into the evening, popping Altoids and hoping my students don’t notice. The peach cobbler lives up to its reputation.

As we leave, Son himself arrives. I introduce myself to him and he shakes my hand warmly and asks where I’m from. As Jeff and I pay and leave, Son walks over to the cash register and rings a gigantic bell to get the attention of all the diners. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Russell and Jeff, here all the way from Vermont.” Extrovert that I am, I’m still surprised and embarrassed as everyone looks up from their trays of chicken and catfish to give us a hearty round of applause. Jeff is a remarkable travelling companion — he seems to not only tolerate my desire to look for unusual eating establishments, but to share my enthusiasm.

That night I teach the evening class, and head back to the hotel for a fitful attempt at sleep. As I lie in bed half-awake, I hear thunder behind the curtains. I’ve been good about avoiding TV even though the Embassy suites provides me with two of the monsters, but there’s no avoiding the images in the newspapers and the airport CNN screens. They have been filled with pictures of NATO bombing in Kosovo and tornado destruction in Oklahoma. I don’t feel anxiety or fear, but my I half-dream images of the hotel being destroyed by a terrible storm or earthquake.

After the thunder rolls through, I have less catastrophic but far more realistic anxiety dream. I am teaching a class, but the students are chatting and ignoring me. I clear my throat and say “OK” to no avail. I then try my most potent weapon — a long, silent pause. It doesn’t work. They chat away. This nightmare more or less comes true the following day, and the earlier, more ominous one wasn’t entirely off the mark either.