The Dish - Stephen Piazza

You’ve got to understand, because it’s really quite simple- they were very important men. It took me a season and a half to ingratiate myself to them, oh, the humiliations- I was virtually their coffee boy! And, for once, I had impressed my coworkers with solving a very sticky situation the business had gotten itself into; as my reward, they agreed to come over to dinner! What luck! This meant more than the uneducated, unemployable riff-raff would expect it to- this dinner was the opportunity to prove myself, affirm myself as their peer, their partner, their friend. And, if it went well, it could mean I could possibly be the sort of man who could perhaps be invited to such a dinner myself one day. 

So they were very important men, and this was a very important meal. My house was scrubbed, and scrubbed again, each foot of six hundred; the floor swept mopped for insurance. Not one item was out of place, not one vase bereft of flowers or tablecloth one inch awry. Good wine- plenty of wine. Alcohol makes the world a little brighter, my face a little more fair. And of course, the meal must be near ambrosial- after all, as they say: a man’s home is his castle, his first realm of control, and if I could not sustain them on good and hearty food, how could I keep them well on the corporate level? 

My mother- God bless her! I had put her in charge of the cooking, for I had inherited her diligence, which extended from the yard into the kitchen, and well, after the wine, I had no money to hire a caterer. Of course, she’d be cloistered away when the man got here- the thought of them seeing my piteous, dessicated mother was unthinkable! And she’d no doubt expose me horribly, show them some pictures of myself as an infant, or take their hand in that primitive, obsequious gesture and bring it up to her forehead. But they’d eat her food, and they’d like it. 

My mother came up to me, some hours before these men were due to arrive (while I was very busy, mind you). She had something to say before she said it- I could tell, because she wrung her wrinkled hands together and peered at me with her beady black eyes- her inky, liquid eyes. I asked the woman to spit out what she had to say- for the very important men were coming over, yes, and I couldn’t sit and play patty-cake with her- and she told me that she had finished cooking, and would I like to try her dish and tell her what I thought? 

Well, here’s what I thought! I was expecting something good, but something classical, mundane a pot roast or casserole mush, something they all could eat, and recognize, and not think a whit more outside of, oh well, that man, our gracious host, he does serve some sublime food, doesn’t he? 

Well, what she offered me certainly wasn’t that! The dish! I had eaten it one thousand, no, one million times before and had not thought twice of it, but I was myself and my superiors were superiors, and in the view of them, it became a grotesque sight, unpalatable slop, a humiliating blow to me. I knew that if those very important men took one look at that dish they’d laugh me back into the maintenance closet. 

When she showed me this, with that placid animal look on her face, expecting me to be pleased, even grateful for this! That I would take this waste, and feed it to my peers- no, my betters! I felt something tear its way through my heart, a possessive, bestial spirit: I remember I yelled, I screamed. The tray was yanked out of her hands, and my good spirit had left my body and had been replaced with an entity much worse- enraged- the tray moved from my hands to her head- there was a muted CRACK! A great mass fell to the floor. The tray met her again- the thump was wet this time. I knew she was gone before I touched her, but I did. When I was a little boy, I had slept with her, longer than I ought to, and in the silent hours I’d wake from some ghoul or nightmare, and I’d reach for her, her shoulder or chest, for my hand to be lifted by the suppressed, soporific rise and fall of it, and I’d know that she was still with me, ready to be startled out of wherever it was that she had gone to hug and kiss and comfort me. I touched her for a long moment, and knew that I was alone. 

So I was sitting next to my mother’s cooling body, utterly lost- it was as if the tray had whacked me across the skull instead of her- and there was still the question of the very important men coming over for dinner. If they wouldn’t cart me off to prison the moment they saw the murder on the floor.

It was as if I was a machine- I don’t remember making the choice to move, only that my body began to- but I started to set myself to work with the ghoulish task of hiding the corpse. In my hands, a butcher’s blade appeared- there was only the bend and crunch of bone, the wet squish of the blade grinding down through flesh, and I awoke from that stupor I had dreamed myself into to see all of the parts strewn about the place- limbs and torso and head all disconnected. The eyes were still open- they were glossy, like volcanic glass. 

I was looking at this meat that had once been my mother, and wondering what to do with it, and whatever in the world I’d do when the very important men arrived and I had nothing to serve them, when whatever cleverness I had once, the cleverness that stuck me in this situation in the first place, came back to me. 

Some hours later, my guests, these very important men, arrived, and we mulled about business and business and more business over wine for a little while. They drank plenty- I did not. I had to keep all my wits about me and they were already starting to escape my gasp. Then, when they were fairly jovial, and fairly tipsy, and were fidgeting in the way that only eating could still, I brought out a dish of my own making, a traditional meal, one that I thought would delight and please them, if they’d grace me enough to try it. 

Oh, please it did- they tucked in with relish. Bits of gravy stained their lips and collars- a little bit of drool dribbled out of the mouth of another. I had cut myself a portion, a small one, as befits a host- and I almost had a bite, but there was a twisting in my bowels. It knot so tight it made me nauseous. But that was nothing, that was only because I was so nervous, of course, so desirous to impress my- my friends. My equals. They smiled at me- one pat me on the back. I had done well, and I eased myself into the comfort of my success. 

But the moon went west, and they all had a second serving each, and I must have been sallow with exhaustion: I wanted to skip dessert and get them out of there and have them take the dinner and the damned plate too, but they were all raving about the meal- they wouldn’t shut up about the meal. I tried, once or twice, to direct the talk somewhere else, to the company, or the weather, or their vacations in Spain with their yellow haired wives and children- but they wouldn’t stop asking me! Who made this? What’s in here? What’s your secret? Who’d you put in there? 

And I knocked over the wine glass, and it stained the tablecloth the color of an ugly fresh bruise on ugly dark skin, or half-dried blood, and I did not hear their gasps, or their worries, or the questions anymore. I laughed- I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed, and I might have begun to scream too: 

“It’s a family recipe!” I cried! “An Englishman’s Shepherd's Pie!”

Stephen Piazza is a sophomore English major from Mount Kisco. He loves his family, friends, and the nature of New York State.