Driving Blind by Ray Bradbury Read Free Book Online Page A

wine list, like an old friend. “Here’s a swell one. 1970, St. Emilion. Yes?”
    “Thanks. A very dry vodka martini.!”
    My butcher scowled.
    “But,” I said, quickly, “I
will
have some wine, of course!”
    I ordered salad to start. He scowled again.
    “The salad and the martini will ruin your taste for the wine. Beg pardon.”
    “Well then,” I said, hastily, “the salad,
later
.”
    We ordered our steaks, his rare, mine well-done.
    “Sorry,” said my butcher, “but you
should
treat your meat more kindly.”
    “Not like St. Joan, eh?” I said, and laughed.
    “That’s a good one. Not like St. Joan.”
    At which moment the wine arrived to be uncorked. I offered my glass quickly and, glad that my martini had been delayed, or might never come, made the next minute easier by sniffing, whirling, and sipping the St. Emilion. My butcher watched, as a cat might watch a rather strange dog.
    I swallowed the merest sip, eyes closed, and nodded.
    The stranger across the table also sipped and nodded.
    A tie.
    We stared at the twilight horizon of Florence.
    “Well …” I said, frantic for conversation “… what do you think of Florence’s art?”
    “Paintings make me nervous,” he admitted. “What I
really
like is walking around. Italian women! I’d like to ice-pack and ship them home!”
    “Er, yes …” I cleared my throat. “But Giotto …?”
    “Giotto bores me. Sorry. He’s too soon in art history for me. Stick figures. Masaccio’s better. Raphael’s best. And
Rubens!
I have a butcher’s taste for flesh.”
    “Rubens?”
    “Rubens!” Harry Stadler forked some neat little salami slices, popped them in his mouth, and chewed opinions. “Rubens! All bosom and bum, big cumulus clouds of pink flesh, eh? You can feel the heart beating like a kettledrum in a ton of that stuff. Every woman a bed; throw yourself on them, sink from sight. To hell with the boy David, all that cold white marble and no fig leaf! No, no, I like color, life, and meat that covers the bone. You’re not
eating!
”
    “Watch.” I ate my bloody salami and pink bologna and my dead white provolone, wondering if I should ask his opinion of the cold white colorless cheeses of the world.
    The headwaiter delivered our steaks.
    Stadler’s was so rare you could run blood tests on it. Mine resembled a withered black man’s head left to smoke and char my plate.
    My butcher growled at my burnt offering.
    “My God,” he cried, “they treated Joan of Arc better than that! Will you puff it or chew it?”
    “But yours,” I laughed, “is still
breathing!
”
    My steak sounded like crunched autumn leaves, every time I chewed.
    Stadler, like W. C. Fields, hacked his way through a wall of living flesh, dragging his canoe behind him.
    He killed his dinner. I buried mine.
    We ate swiftly. All too soon, in a shared panic, we sensed that we must talk once more.
    We ate in a terrible silence like an old married couple, angry at lost arguments, the reasons for which were also lost, leaving irritability and muted rage.
    We buttered bread to fill the silence. We ordered coffee, which filled more time and at last settled back, watching that other stranger across a snowfield of linen, napery, and silver. Then, abomination of abominations, I heard myself say:
    “When we get home, we must have dinner some night to talk about our time here, yes? Florence, the weather, the paintings.”
    “Yes.” He downed his drink. “No!”
    “What?”
    “No,” he said, simply. “Let’s face it, Leonard, when we were home we had nothing in common. Even here we have nothing except time, distance, and travel to share. We have no talk, no interests. Hell, it’s a shame, but there it is. This whole thing was impulsive, for the best, or at the worst, mysterious reasons. You’re alone, I’m alone in a strange city at noon, and here tonight. But we’re like a couple of grave-diggers who meet and try to shake hands, but their ectoplasm falls right through each