Carniverous Meanderings

Nothin' like gnawin' on pork ribs to make one get in touch with the primal. To my civilized sensibility, it just seems wrong to be scraping teeth on bone, tearing, pulling, getting remnants of it all under the fingernails. I have to say, however, once I first chomped, I felt the urge to growl every time someone walked by to let them know that this rib was mine and not theirs. Of course, in getting in touch with the primal, chomping on great ribs is far more satisfying than any holler-inducing drum circle. Hence my stop at Rendezvous in Memphis for a late lunch/early dinner after a recommendation by someone here in St. Louis who frequents Memphis "because it's so close." Entering the restaurant via a back alley where it seems to share the entrance with all deliveries gives the impression of stepping into a speakeasy and I willingly went along with this evocation since I seemed to be surrounded by the right architecture. And I had Ellington and Bessie Smith in my head. Once they slide the ribs in a red plastic basket in front of you, the speakeasy theme fades away. No, this is not a restaurant review and I'm not in the habit of talking about my meals. I had recently finished Cormac McCarthy's Cities on the Plain, the third novel in his Border Trilogy. Never having been a fan of the western (film--with some exceptions--or novel) or never having been attracted in any shape or form to the cowboy myth (or the cowboy for that matter), I was surprised to find myself taken by both the main characters and by McCarthy's poetic descriptions of landscape. Like gnawing on ribs, reading these novels tapped into the visceral, the primal, the liminal space in which humanity and bestial meet. The ruthlessness of both man and nature is a constant challenge, and when battles are lost, what is left is a good amount of desolation, loneliness, and disconnection. And, of course, death and destruction. John Grady Cole's final face-off with evil incarnate near the end of Cities is a twist on the high-noon, ok corral sort of duel--more frightening if not more apocalyptic, and resulting in a more heartwrenching ending. Very sad, and very dark. There is a moral center--thank goodness--but its survival in the end is tenuous at best.

I still think John Grady Cole, and his counterpart, Billy Parham, should get together in a story with Huck Finn. I'd say Holden Caufield, too, but I think all three would become exasperated enough with him that they would end up slapping him around (and he'd deserve it). Boot him out by the end of chapter 1. Feeling a deep connection to McCarthy's characters, something about eating mighty fine pork ribs in a dim basement in Memphis that made me think I could hunker down at a campfire and chomp on some freshly killed and freshly skinned furry animal. Ok, that was a fleeting thought and one that disappeared completely when the waiter scooped away the red plastic basket containing the remains of some deceased pig. My civilized sensibility, such as it is, quickly restored itself and then, after crawling up out of the basement and back into the sunlit, smoky alley, I was on the hunt for some ice cream.