Occupy, 1978

From A Manual For Manuel, Julio Cortázar. 1978.

So just wait till I tell you about another form of response that only yesterday raised a big ruckus in the Vagenande restaurant, and it’s going to be repeated for a week starting today in a lot of others as long as we’ve got the dough because you should see what the chow comes to in places like that. Gómez went with me at one in the afternoon, the time for fat ladies and dudes with fat bankrolls, you’ve seen the art-nouveau surroundings and the moth-eaten atmosphere that gives it a special prestige. We asked for leeks in vinegar and pepper steak, red wine and mineral water, a responsible and proper order as you can see. As soon as they brought the leeks, Gómez stood up and proceeded to eat them on his feet, one leek after another, talking to me as if nothing were wrong. A statistic of the looks: eighty percent surly, ten percent uncomfortable, three percent amused, three percent undaunted, four percent interested (piles acting up, paralysis of the spine, just crazy?). The waiter with another chair, Gómez who tells him no, thank you, I always eat like this. But sir, you’ll be uncomfortable. On the contrary, it’s quite functional, the action of gravity is better and the leek descends to the stomach as if it were being pulled along, that’s good for the duodenum. You’re putting me on. Not in the least, you’re the one who’s come to annoy me, with laudable intentions, I’m sure, but you can see. Then the maitre d’hotel, a rumpled old man with kind of fish eyes. Excuse me, sir, but here. Here what? Here we’re accustomed to. Of course you are, but I’m not. Yes, but just the same. The gentleman isn’t bothering anyone, I put in, cleaning my plate with a piece of bread because the leeks were great. Not only isn’t he bothering anyone, but you’re the one that’s come to bother him, not to mention the waiter, so that. The Ortegan circumstance deeply involved in it all, laides chuchuchuchuchu in the ears of other ladies, a rolling of eyes, scandalous, people come here to sit down and chat, go eat at a lunch counter. Then Gómez, wiping his lips with Brummellian elegance, I swear to you: If I am eating on my feet it is because I have been living on my feet since the month of May. I could tell you about the row, bread all over the floor, the cashier calling the police, the pepper steaks getting crisp on the grill, the uncorked bottle of wine and everything unpaid for, you can imagine, because as long as we left the bastards would accept the loss, but then and there Gómez sat down like a count, holding the folded napkin in his hand, and said in a fairly loud voice: I do this for my fellow man, and I hope that my fellow man will learn to live on his feet. A great silence, except for two or three chuckles from guilty consciences, believe me, not many people enjoyed their lunch. Tomorrow we’re going to repeat it in a bistro on Bastille.