Tommy's Lunch

I was immaculately conceived in Tommy's Lunch. I swear to God this is true. I appeared, rather suddenly and dramatically, in that tiny space behind the jukebox. It was late at night. Tommy wasn't there. If Tommy had been there it would have been over in a flash. Tommy doesn't like any mysticism going on in his establishment.

So you see Tommy and I go back a long way. A long way. You probably won't believe it, but Tommy used to look like Errol Flynn. He really did. That was back when they still had pinball in there, real pinball, with the numbers on rollers that clanked around when you scored. That was before they put in the pastry section. Before they painted all those stupid cartoons on the pillars, too. That was when Tommy looked like Errol Flynn. It was really something to see. They had waiters, too. Real waiters. And violinists on weekends.

I am lying through my teeth.

Still, I've been thinking a lot lately about things like the Platonic idea--and I hit upon the notion that in the shadow world which is Cambridge. Tommy's is really the imperfect reflection of Sardi's. I really hink so. Go in there on any weekend night and you'll see what I mean. I mean Sardi's back in the old days--back when gangsters went there, and showgirls, and all those members of what they called high society. Tommy's is like that too, in that too--in a strangely refracted way. The gangsters are usually crypto-punks in tortured leather, the showgirls strident and society--well, society usually consists of Keezer's on parade--but still, it has a certain something to it like Sardi's used to. It has that certain je ne sais quoi--I guess you could call it desperation. You see, nobody I've ever really wanted to meet at 2:30 in the morning is ever in Tommy's, but I keep going anyway. Look, it's something to do. It distends the evening. Tommy's is a regular paean to Possibility, and at 2:30 in the morning those things can be important.

I was immaculately conceived in Tommy's Lunch. And Tommy is the reincarnation of the Troll under the bridge. All of this is true. I swear to God. I've put so many quarters in this damn thing. I can't even think straight. They're trying to get me again. Whole new wave of them. No way, you bastards. No fucking way.