It was late when Palmer called me that night. He was always calling late. Always just leaving some show, some party, always buzzing on some combination of chemicals. I guess we’re all doing that, though, in our own way. Who’s to say what the right combination is?
David, he said when I answered. Did I wake you? Come meet me at Fabianno’s. It’s that place on Lauck. No, it’s in the alley. Yes. I have to tell you something. No, not over the phone, it’s important. They have good pizza here, you’ll like it.
Palmer hadn’t woken me. I rarely slept in those days. Not that I sleep any better now, but for different reasons. As to why I decided to go, well, I can’t quite say. Palmer had a magnetism to him. People seemed to swirl around him, like he had his own gravity. Things happened when he was around. To be honest I couldn’t even tell you how long we’d been friends, or when I first met Palmer. Maybe I never did.
When I opened the door to the restaurant, the first thing I noticed about Fabianno’s was the scent. It was pure oregano and pasta sauce. It was olive oil and fresh bread and red wine. It was like crossing the threshold from outside the restaurant to inside had transported me somewhere else entirely, to some place in the old country.
The place was dimly lit. A faint red glow emanated from nowhere in particular. And it was empty. Palmer was nowhere to be found. Two rows of empty tables made up the center dining area, while empty booths lined the stone walls of the restaurant’s interior. I stood there for a moment, wondering if I was early or if the place was actually closed. Would Palmer even show, or had I wasted precious hours of potential sleep? They were so hard to come by in those days.
From somewhere toward the back of the restaurant, where I assumed the kitchen was, a man appeared. I figured he must be the host because he wore a suit, classic cut with a charcoal-colored blazer and a crimson tie underneath. His hair was neatly trimmed, and he looked to be somewhere in his mid 30s. He seemed as though he could have appeared that way for the last two-hundred years.
He didn’t smile as he approached, but simply extended his gloved hand to the side, gesturing toward the booths, and said “You’re finally here, welcome. We have a table ready for you.”
I didn’t understand. Had Palmer reserved this place? It seemed too formal for his usual taste. The whole thing was increasingly uncomfortable to me, like a dream world where things were ever so slightly off from our own. But was it my dream, or Palmer’s that I’d stepped into? I didn’t know, but I followed the host to the empty booth.
“The owner will be with you shortly,” he said, before turning to leave.
“Wait,” I said, “did my friend mention when he would be back?”
The host frowned. “You made your reservation for one, sir,” he said, then he returned to the back of the restaurant from where he’d come.
What was Palmer doing here? Was he playing some kind of joke? I dug my phone from my pocket and called him. It rang twice, three times. There was no answer, but for a brief instant I heard a buzzing from the kitchen, like a phone vibrating on a table. I called again, letting it ring and listening for the same buzz, but before I heard anything another man appeared from the back, this time wearing a white chef’s coat. He was bald, with a salt and pepper beard, and with him he brought a tray of dishes.
The chef smiled as he set the dishes in front of me. First a basket of freshly baked bread in the center of the table, followed by a light caprese salad, and lastly a small plate of penne pasta with mozzarella, roasted garlic, and fresh basil leaves, topped with the darkest, reddest marinara sauce I’d ever seen. The smell of the food was intoxicating, but the sauce had a viscosity to it that was unlike any I’d seen before. It was too fluid, collecting at the edges of the dish in deep red pools of burgundy.
“Special,” the chef said, “for you.”
“Is my friend back there?” I said, nodding to the kitchen.
The chef turned his head slightly, giving me a knowing smile and said, “You, my friend, are well taken care of. Please, enjoy.” He gestured at the table, then turned and left me with the food.
I looked at the dishes. As odd as this experience was, I couldn’t help but feel my hunger growing. Perhaps the oddness was by design. Palmer was a connoisseur of “experiences”. The smell of the garlic and tomatoes filled my nose, so strong that I could already taste it. I decided I’d waited long enough.
The bread and salad were impeccable, perfectly balanced in their simplicity and presentation. But the pasta, the penne with the garlic and the sauce, how can I explain it? Have you ever experienced the taste of ingredients so fresh and so expertly combined that you feel a connection to very soil in which they were grown? I could taste the rich, organic earth that had given rise to these tomatoes, as if they’d been plucked from Italian gardens not minutes from when they were crushed and cooked into sauce. A taste not so much elemental as it was metallic. The acid of the tomatoes mixed with a hint of…copper, or perhaps iron. It filled me with a ravenous desire for more. So overwhelming was this experience that for a moment I had visions of an ancient Italia. Premonitions of pre-historic stone grottoes took over my mind, of people gathered around flames in ritual sacrifice, a dark figure looming over a peninsula, guiding legions toward some terrible purpose. Time is not as you imagine, it said to me, and ours is a long history. Join us. It beckoned me, and I wanted to come.
“I trust everything was to your liking” came a voice from the back, loud enough to break the spell. A large man with thick black hair and a bushy mustache appeared from the kitchen. The owner, no doubt, by the way he carried himself as he approached the table.
The plates in front of me were empty, but I didn’t remember finishing. How long had I been here? Where was Palmer?
“It was, yes,” I was still somewhat in a daze, “but I was planning on meeting a friend here, name Palmer. Has he called?”
The man gave me a confused laugh. “Palmer is you, no?”
Now I didn’t understand. I shook my head. “No. Palmer is my friend. I was supposed to meet him here…” I looked at my watch, “well, a while ago.”
Confusion changed to something darker on the man’s face. “This reservation was for Palmer. Are you telling me that’s not you?”
“No. Yes. Look, I’m just looking for my friend.”
“You have no friends here,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say to that. The truth is that it made me afraid. I felt suddenly untethered, like I was swimming in waters much deeper than I realized, much further from shore than I thought I was. But I didn’t want to leave without Palmer. “I’m not leaving without Palmer,” I said.
In that moment I realized that the faint red glow of the restaurant was coming from the kitchen. From beyond the dining area it grew, glowing like a blacksmith’s furnace, stoked hot for the iron.
“Palmer is but a dream in the black hours of the night,” the man said to me. He seemed to grow then, looming over the table as he leaned down and said, “Fabianno’s has been here longer than you know, and will remain so long after your bones have gone to dust. We are eternal. And now it is time for you to leave.”
I wish I could say I’d stayed, that I’d fought harder in that moment to find my friend. But looking back, who knows, maybe he was right about Palmer. What I did instead was get up from my seat immediately and walk out of the restaurant. I was overcome with dread, feeling that if I stayed any longer the fears lurking in my subconscious about what had transpired that night would be confirmed, or worse, expanded upon. I left without looking back.
I did return the next day, though. Think whatever you want of me, but I did that much. When I made my way back to the alleyway where Fabianno’s had been, it was gone, with no trace that the restaurant had ever been there. I stood there for a long moment, feeling a breeze pick up and thinking that, for just an instant, I could hear the chanting of thousands, echoing off the walls of an ancient arena. Then it was gone, as the breeze faded.
A few days later, Palmer called me, asking me where I’d been lately. We met for drinks, and he made no mention of Fabianno’s whatsoever. I studied my friend’s face intensely, looking for any hint or sign that he secretly knew of what had happened that night, and all I can say for sure is that I’m not convinced I recognize Palmer at all.