REVIEWS

AS THEY COME IN

          Soup and sandwich kitchens are plentiful around the world.  Some of them are good, others are, well, not so good.  Sally’s is exemplary and what takes place in Sally’s Soup ‘n’ Sand is something that doesn’t happen in the ordinary restaurant.  Why it happened to the particular fellow in our story and why what he has to tell you occurred in Sally’s is unknown and, I suppose, not relevant.  Come on, let’s go get a bowl of soup at Sally’s and see where it may take us.

                                                                                             SOUP
                                                                                                by
                                                                                    J. Richard Jacobs

          This whole mess began when my long-time friend, Malcolm Bluntt, knocked on our door about two years ago, I think it was.  Maybe it was longer, I don’t recall.  It was unusual for him because he didn’t normally come calling during the week and it was early on a Tuesday evening.  He was pacing—no—it looked more like he was prancing back and forth outside our large glass entry like a little kid waiting at a bathroom door.

          It was around six-thirty, as I remember, and Betty was in the kitchen preparing dinner.  He appeared to be more than anxious.  I opened the door for him and he, without a word, charged through and went straight into the dining room, pulled out a chair across from where I had a cup of coffee with the day’s newspaper spread out next to it, and sat down.

          He fidgeted nervously for a minute, then blurted out, “Arthur, you are not going to believe what I have to tell you.”

          These behaviors were not Malcolm.   If anything, he is a shy and gentlemanly sort and not one who would do anything without first asking permission.  But there he was, sitting in our dining room, his hands in constant motion as if he didn’t know what else to do with them.  He was not acting like the Malcolm I knew.  Not at all.

          “Okay, what has you all stressed out?”

          At that moment, Betty came in from the kitchen and set a cup of tea in front of him.  He hates coffee.

          “Will you join us for dinner?” she said.

          “Well, I....”  He was shaking all over.  “Sure. If I’m not intruding, that is.  Yeah, I’d like that.  Thanks.  It’s going to take a while to tell you what happened, anyway.  You’re really not going to believe this.  Incredible.”

          “Suck on your tea a little and settle down,” I said.  “You can tell us about it while we eat.  Betty has made her famous meat loaf and all the stuff to go with it.  From the look of it, I’d say there’s enough to feed a full division just back from the front.”

          “Um, the front of what?” he said.

                                                                                            * * *

          During dinner Malcolm told us about the experience he had when he went to lunch.  It was absurd.

          “Are you expecting us to believe that you read what you told us in a bowl...a bowl of alphabet soup?” I said.

          I took a quick glance at Betty.  She was maintaining her composure, but just barely.  She appeared to be straining to hold her face to a serious expression for our friend’s sake, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before she exploded into raucous laughter.  Betty’s like that.  All her emotions float near the surface.  It doesn’t take long for them to break through into the open air.

          “You don’t believe me, do you?”

          Malcolm appeared hurt by our negative reaction to his ‘miraculous’ revelation.  How else could we be expected to respond to something so insane?  I don’t think anyone else could have been as kind as we were to him after a story like that.

          “Well, sorry old friend but, frankly, no.  No, I don’t.  I can’t—”

          “Look. Look, here,” he said, a strange nervousness quaking in his voice, “I took a picture of it with my phone.” He diddled with his cellular for a second, then handed it to me.

          "When I first saw it, I couldn’t believe it either, and I’ve thought about it a lot since it happened.  Who’s to say God couldn’t cause the letters to float to the surface in that order?  It’s always been my understanding that He works in mysterious ways, you know?"

          There was no mistaking the distinctive pattern of one of our favorite restaurant’s bowls and the letters were arranged just as he said between overloaded fork-loads during dinner.  There are few who can shovel in food like Malcolm.

          “Well-l-l, yeah, but...but this is straining the ‘mysterious ways’ a bit, don’t you think?”

          “Maybe it’s just a coincidence?” Betty said.  There was a hint of a chuckle bouncing around in her voice.

          “That’s a pretty big coincidence, isn’t it?”  He squirmed in his seat.  “I mean, there’s more than eighty letters there.”

          “It could be that you arranged them yourself and—”

          “Come on, man.  You know me better than that.  I don’t play games with people.  Besides, this was in a bowl of soup I bought at Sally’s Soup ‘n’ Sand; not one I made at home.  See the bowl?”

          That was true.  In all the years I have known Malcolm, the man never once cracked a joke to or about anyone or anything.  He was, as far as anyone knew, the world’s only true and eternal straight man.  It was doubtful he would take the time needed to do what was depicted in the picture while sitting at a table in Sally’s, and it was one of Sally’s bowls that she special ordered from a dealer in Italy.  He wouldn’t do that in a place where so many people, people who knew him, could see what he was doing, either.

          “All right, let’s assume that arrangement came from some supernatural source.  How do we know it didn’t come from a malevolent force and not from the Almighty?” I ventured.

          “Um, I guess we don’t know for sure where it came from.  I suppose it could have been arranged by something evil, but why would it be warning us rather than trying to trap us into something?”

          “Have you considered that it may be a veiled trap of some sort?  A message sent in the guise of a warning to get you and others who may believe you into a place where it wants you?”

          Betty’s face cranked into an expression of incredulity.

          I could see plainly that she was having a tough time containing herself.

          I’d better get her out of here before she comes unglued, I thought.

          “Maybe, but I really don’t think so.”  Malcolm appeared to be lost in deep thought for a moment, then continued.  “What say we meet at Sally’s tomorrow for lunch?  My treat.  If it happens again, you’ll be able to see it for yourselves and come to your own conclusions.”

          “And if it doesn’t?”

          “I’ll be embarrassed, sure as the day is twenty-four hours long, but I’m dying to see if it repeats, too.  It won’t cost you anything and it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

          We agreed to meet over lunch at Sally’s.

          Malcolm went home, and none too soon.  Betty couldn’t hold out any longer and, as soon as the door closed behind him, she launched a fit of laughter I thought would strangle her.  She laughed intermittently the rest of the evening and her giggling went on well into the time I should have been sleeping.  She just couldn’t stop.

                                                                                                * * *

          I got up a little early and gave Chad Wallinski a call.  Chad, a friend since university days, had majored in psychology and taken his Masters in clinical psychology.  I thought he might be of some help with Malcolm.  That he now worked as a letter carrier for the Postal Service in our podunk of a town had no bearing on his expertise.  I remember him as being the not-too-handsome guy who managed, with some regularity, to get into the panties of some of the most gorgeous, inaccessible campus chicks while all we football ‘heroes’ could do was stand around and drool.

          Anyway, he said he would meet with us, quite by ‘accident’, at Sally’s for lunch with Malcolm.  I figured he might be able to shed light on the problem and give us some insight on how to handle Malcolm and his fantasies.

          Betty and I entered Sally’s a little after twelve and Malcolm waved to us from a corner booth; one hidden away from the usual lunch crowd, though the weather was much too cold and blustery for most of the town’s namby-pambies to brave going out for chow so there was only a scattering of the more hardy souls.

          We joined him and exchanged greetings for the day.  As agreed, Chad, leather bag half full of mail slung over his shoulder, came in a couple of minutes later.  He brushed the snow off his shoulders and made a show of looking for a place to sit in a room full of vacant tables.

          “Look, Betty, there’s Chad.  Mind if we make a foursome of lunch, Mal?”

          “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Malcolm said.  “I mean, considering what we’re going to be talking about and all?”

          “Of course it is,” Betty said.  “He’s an old friend of Art’s from the university.  Besides, you said it was important to get your message out to as many people as you could, right?”

          “Yeah. I guess so,” he said.  His voice trembled with his trademark timidity and his head drooped to half staff. “Sure, why not?”

          Betty was being more calm than I’d ever seen her and playing her role well.  I couldn’t help but think that maybe this was going to work.

          After proper introductions, we ordered and, when the orders arrived, a generous-sized Rueben on Rye Special, resting on a large platter, was placed at Malcolm’s side.  The sandwich, overflowing with steaming sauerkraut and oozing melted Swiss, was flanked by two dill halves raised on steroids at one side and a mound of potato salad on the other.  I don’t know how anyone can eat that much, but Malcolm can.  In front of him the waitress set a huge bowl of alphabet soup.  He stared into the vapor wafting from that grand tureen and appeared to be praying in silence.  His lips were moving, anyway, though no words were coming out.  He just sat there, staring into that soup.  Nothing happened for the better part of five minutes, then the letters, those already afloat, began moving around and arranging themselves into a semblance of order.  After the original organization, other letters surfaced to fill in the gaps left by the first group.  That was enough for the three of us to begin squirming in earnest.  All eyes were bulging, even Malcolm’s, and he had seen this before.  I could hear Chad gulping for air as if breathing were new to him.