LEAVE IT TO CHANCE

  When someone is named Chance, that someone automatically gets more chances than other people just because it's what the name is about. How do you not give someone named Chance another chance? And if that someone named Chance happens to be our friend Chance in particular, he believes he is truly entitled to as many chances as he wants, by virtue of his uncommon name and his uncommon amount of talent in both the kitchen and the art studio. The only chance that Chance has yet to be given is the last chance, which he has somehow so far eluded.

  Chance doesn't even believe in the concept of a last chance. He has already made it over so many personal and professional hurdles which other people would consider 'last chances'  that Chance probably won't even recognize his last chance if one day he's ever faced with it. His confidence and his ego stand like bodyguards protecting him from the daily difficulties of life  pressing against him in a city as expensive as San Francisco. On the days that his confidence does waver Chance retreats to the nearest kitchen where he can re-charge himself. By the time he's through, he usually creates a few dishes along with a grandiose business plan for them. He's constantly trying to come up with ways to better market himself and find the perfect venue to showcase both his food and paintings.

   He invited Alex and I to a small dinner party in hopes of his guests helping him to brainstorm ideas. Alex has a great head for numbers and understands the best and worst ways of going about business ventures, and I have the sometimes appreciated, often unappreciated gift of honesty, which comes in handy when someone really wants to hear the truth. My face can never hide what I feel about something. Chance knows that I love what he cooks but I never think its enough and the courses take too long to be served. I have written about Chance in my blog before, specifically about being given  'sublimely small' portions of his delicious yet quickly disappearing food and still being hungry after the meal was done. I've always been a 'quantity over quality' kind of guy so the art of fine dining is wasted on me. I wasn't going to risk being left hungry this time so I smuggled in two Beef Teriyaki Slim Jims bent in half inside the big  pocket of my army pants. 

  Sure enough, when we got there the mouth-watering appetizers of grilled prosciutto wrapped green figs were already out on the table, but as soon as I  took the first step towards it, Chance intercepted me. " I promise you'll eat soon, Tarzan. We're just waiting for two more guests, and for the appetizers to be photographed."

   "Of course, what was I thinking, beast that I am. How rude of me. Food so beautiful is worth the wait," I apologized with a dramatic bow to Chance.

   " Finally Alex has trained you," Chance said, tapping Alex congratulatory on the shoulder.

   "Yes, my Eliza JewLlittle is beginning to learn," Alex jokingly bragged.

   "Yes, he's taught me well," I agreed.  A minute later I went into the bathroom and stuffed one of the Slim Jims into my mouth.

   When I came back out, a photographer and his assistant were busy taking pictures of the figs. He was very animated while he snapped shots and gave directions in French to his assistant who had the boring yet difficult job of holding a light perfectly still. After he was finished shooting  he introduced himself exuberantly with a big smile and a handshake while still holding the camera in his other hand. I immediately thought Jacques was gay as I do with every man I meet who is artistically talented at something, but then he introduced his assistant, Isabel, who turned out to be his wife.

   " You obviously love your job. It shows in how you move your camera. You do it with such--- finesse ," I said to him with a touch of exaggerated French at the end.

   "Ah ah, you speak French?" Jacques asked me.

  " Only the words that sound gay."
  He and his wife both laughed, understanding the nuances of English perfectly. It always amazes me how people from other countries can master English so well, or any second language. Some people are born linguists. Being a stutterer, the thought of learning  another language to stutter on is as appealing as carrying a second heavy bag of groceries home in my hand that was free. As we talked more, the French couple quickly caught on that I stuttered. I asked what the French word for stuttering was, and there was actually a choice of three: bafoulier, balbutler,  and my favorite, bygayer, which I made them swear wasn't a joke.

   The conversation went back to Chance's food and his paintings, which Jacques and Isabel were very impressed by as well. " We hope to spend more time with interesting people such as Chance and with his friends such as you after meeting him today," Jacques said.

   " You're just meeting Chance for the first time now?" Alex asked. "Aren't you his friend who does freelance work for Gourmet Magazine?"

   "No no, not yet. But one day, I hope. This photographer cancelled  the plans to come here so I am, you say stand-in, aah, pinch-hitter, no?" he laughed as he held his camera like a bat punting a baseball. " For me it is still what you call a hobby. For my job to make money  I do computer programming. But for my heart  I take pictures, " he looked down adoringly at his camera in his hands,
    " So did that photographer from Gourmet Magazine tell Chance about you?" Alex asked, more confused.TAK

    " No, no, not at all. I read Chance's ad on  Craigslist at 3:30 in this afternoon. ' TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF GOURMET FOOD AND EAT IT AFTER  '. Sounds good to me, no? " he shrugged his shoulders and smiled. " I  take photos of high-class food for my portfolio without paying for it and Chance gets copies of the photos without having to pay me. Perfect deal for both of us. And Isabel gets to eat too. Right, my lovely assistant ," Jacques put his arm around Isabel and pulled her close to him.

    " I'm really not his assistant. He doesn't even have an assistant.  I'm a teacher at The French-American School on Gough Street but we didn't have any dinner plans so tonight I'm Jaques' human lamp stand. Usually he just clamps the light wherever he needs."

   Alex grinned when he finally understood how this all came about. "Leave it to Chance. No one can get people to do things for him and make everything come together at the last minute like he can." 

    "I didn't know you could find people on Craigslist to do things with their clothes on, " I said. Jacques and Isabel understood that joke too, and we all toasted Craigslist with our champagne glasses before making a second toast.

    "To Chance!" we all clinked again and took another sip. My sip was actually a gulp, which made me burp right in Alex's face.

     "Why do I smell Barbecue?" he whispered to me suspiciously.

     " It's Teriyaki ," I grinned at him and turned to talk to Jacques and Isabel. 

    Chance stuck his head out of the kitchen for a moment holding his cellphone. " I know the meal is moving a little slower than anticipated, but I promise we'll be eating soon. The two women we're waiting for are very special to me so I don't want to start without them. It just takes them a little longer to get places because one of them is blind."

   "Oh my God, this is a disaster," I said in my most overly dramatic voice. "A blind person and a stutterer is the worst combination of handicaps to put together. A blind person can't see that a stutterer is stuttering. All they hear is silence. I had a blind patient in the hospital once who thought I kept leaving the room every time I would get really stuck on a word."

  I laughed along with everyone but part of me was truly dreading this upcoming encounter. When the doorbell rang I turned to Alex with a look of panic. "This is going to be the worst meal of my life,"  I assured him.  

  As we all listened to the footsteps of the two women and the seeing-eye dog coming up the long wooden staircase, I could tell that everyone was slightly nervous. Most people get uneasy around the handicapped, especially around the blind, who are the royalty of the handicapped.  

  "Everyone, this is Esperanza and this is Beth Ann, " Chance stood between them with his arms pulling their shoulders close to his. " These women are my mentors and muses. Beth Anne helps me to see the work I've already painted more clearly, and Esperanza, with her amazing visions, guides me in which direction and to what level the paintings I haven't made yet should go.  Together they are my perfect inspirations."

  " Please call me Espe," Esperanza smiled broadly, looking around the room to make us feel individually noticed as if she could see. " This is Helen," she leaned down and stroked her brown German Shepard as Chance guided her into the chair at the head of the table. " She's very friendly but she trained to just stay by me so don't take it personally if she doesn't come to you."  

   I moved closer to Alex and whispered as we sat down." Do you realize what she did? "

   "What are you talking about?" he whispered back.

    "She named it after Helen Keller.  Every time someone calls the dog, it must look like they're calling her Helen instead of the dog."

    " Shut up, she'll hear you, " Alex warned me, lowering his voice even more.
    Beth Ann came to sit at the other end of the table closer to us. She was tiny, with the face of a woman in her fifties but the body of a 13-year-old girl and bright red hair in pigtails to match. Immediately you could see just by the way Beth Ann looked at Esperanza across the table and by the gentle way she called to her to make sure Esperanza had everything she needed that Beth Anne's concern and love for her blind friend was very real. You could see how she protected her, though Beth Anne was half the size of Esperanza and of everyone else in the room.
     Finally, we were allowed to eat the green grilled figs, but only after Chance asked Jacques to take pictures of us cutting and lifting them with our forks up to our mouths.
   As I devoured my figs, I watched in amazement how skillfully Esperanza ate her figs after she assessed their size and shape with her utensils. Each slice she made was methodical and slow, and she was barely done with one by the time my three were gone. The thought of stealing one off her plate when no one was looking crossed my mind but I didn't know if Helen would bark at me. I tried to focus on the conversation happening, but I couldn't stop wondering how long it was going to take Esperanza to finish the appetizer, and how much longer the entire meal was going to take because of her.
   Besides eating slowly,  Esperanza also spoke in a very calm and evenly-paced manner that totally went against my strategy of 'dive-bomb 'n retreat'  which suits my stutter and comedy style very well. She asked me four different times to repeat something I tried to say before I had to explain to her I was a stutterer. Seeming a little embarrassed, Esperanza apologized over not recognizing sooner that she wasn't the only handicapped person at the table.
    She finally finished the figs and Chance brought out the next course, a creamy scallop soup drizzled with truffle oil served in Martini glasses. Chance asked us to pose with our spoons as Jacques took pictures of us having our first tastes of the Scallop Martinis, but it was so delicious I couldn't stop eating it.

      " I can hear by the speed of a spoon hitting the glass that someone on this side of the table is eating much too fast," she said with her ear aimed in my direction as her head rotated slightly like a satellite dish to pinpoint me.
      " That would be Gary, " Alex chuckled, wanting to make sure she knew it was me and not him.
      " You should be glad you can't see me eat because it looks even worse than it sounds," I said to her, which luckily made everyone laugh even though she didn't.
      " Such delicious food shouldn't be gobbled down.You should relax and try to savor Chance's creations. It's much more healthy for the soul and the body to eat slowly," Esperanza looked straight at me with her eyes rolled up to the back of her head.
       " I know, it's one of my worst 10 habits," I admitted.
       " 10? " Alex raised his eyebrow.
        "O.K,  20," I corrected myself. "It's just that I didn't even get a chance to eat lunch today. Work was so busy. "
       "What kind of work makes you so hungry, Gary," Beth Ann asked in a kind attempt to rescue me from what would have been am embarrassing moment to anyone except me.
        "I do inpatient Physical Therapy in the hospital right across the street," I proudly pointed towards the window where it was in view.
        " How funny, the one place I've never been. I'm a follower of Christian Science so hospitals don't exist in my life. I've trained myself not to even see them in the landscape. They've become invisible to me. But please tell us what you do in one. I'm sure it's interesting."
       Alex and I squeezed each others hands under the table. He had escaped from a Southern Baptist upbringing so he was particularly allergic to the religious, but he was better at hiding his shock than me. I had never met a real live follower of Christian Science. It was like meeting a Leprechaun, except that Leprechauns don't believe in as much magic as Christian Science does. Who would have ever imagined that I would meet my first Christian Science believer in the San Francisco art community!
      " Wow, you're my first. Congratulations," I smiled dumbly, still amazed.
      " Well I'll take that as a compliment then," she smiled back.
      "Can I ask you a question?"
       " Only if it's a question I haven't heard. I'm very aware of how people feel about Christian Science so I ask you to be polite.  Remember, ' it's fair to choose but not fair to judge'. "
       " Oh it's not a rude one at all. Being in the medical field, it's just something I should know since I'm eating with you. If you start choking, should I give you The Heimlich Maneuver, since it was invented by a doctor?"
      " Well, I never heard that question before so I'll answer it, " she chuckled. " If I'm signaling you to help me, then you can and I will consider it an act of kindness. But I would ask that you say a prayer for God's help before you touch me."
      "Then how about if you have a heart attack and I do CPR on you until an ambulance gets here?"
       " An ambulance is a hospital on wheels so please don't let me be put in one.  But you can do CPR for as long as it takes God to revive me. Is that a good enough answer?' she smiled.
       " That means I'll  have to keep doing CPR for God knows how long. Just the thought of that is so exhausting. Please do me a favor tonight and don't have a heart attack."
        "Everybody please do Gary and me the favor and not choke or have a heart attack at my dinner party ," Chance joked as he stood up and removed the empty Martini glasses. " To clear our palates, and our conversation," he looked back at me and said, " the next course is a sorbet made from berry iced tea and Himalayan salt that is the perfect sweet and sour taste to prepare us for the course after that." The sorbet was a wonderful blend of flavors I had never tasted before, as was the nori-encrusted salmon served over asparagus that followed. The last course was a cheese plate to make sure everyone, especially me, didn't leave hungry. I was so stuffed by the end that I didn't even have to eat the second Slim Jim in my pocket.
     The night as a whole was a success for Chance, who got great business advice from Alex, free photographs from Jacques, more inspirations from Esperanza and Beth Ann, praise for his cooking from everyone, and special praise for the bigger size of this portions from me.
    Personally, I learned a few key lessons about food and the art of dining, the most important being never to eat with the overly-religious or the blind again.