So here I am in Philadelphia, back in the early ’80s I guess it was, with Carl Sagan. Now, this was after Cosmos had made Carl a celebrity and talk show regular, and his “billions and billions of stars” had become so popular it’d metamorphosed into a parody punchline, like Bart Simpson’s “I didn’t do it,” and we’d flown to Philly together, because we’d been booked in tandem at some big university. Can’t remember if we worked the platform together, or if we had separate presentations (more than likely the latter), but we were billeted at the same hotel.
And so, we decided to ditch the usual academic vampires and/or student lecture committee that take one, pro forma, to a long and boring dinner prior to the evening gig—a dinner at which one becomes the dancing bear, answering all those burning questions they just thought up on the spot, under the pretext that the queries have been smoldering in their guts for eons.
Carl and I conspired to elude them, go out and get a couple of really good Philly cheesesteaks, and make our way to the lecture hall portage, en duo, akimbo, and with alacrity, sans native beaters.
Well, the place I used to think had the best Philly cheesesteaks in the world (till I had the one at the lobby café in the Atlanta Hyatt Regency, which comestible I commend to your palate if you’re going to the Dragon*Con) was over in South Philly o yeah which was—and still is—a particularly chancy venue. Kadodies fresh off the farm in Chittlin’ Switch, Iowa have been known to vanish into South Philly and most of their selves never seen again, though from time to time a severed head does get mailed back to the family in Iowa. Collect.
So we pulled a bunk, ditched the paladin/liaison/servitors guarding/keeping an eye on us, grabbed a cab, got one of those old-time hackies who knew where to go and where not to go, and accepted his suggestion of the best out-of-the-way cheesesteak joint in the known world, and off we went, with Carl looking a bit chartreuse. We had known each other for years, we were good friends, but Carl always had a soupçon of reservation that my release papers from the Happy House had been forged by someone, such as Dr. Moreau.
“Never fear, Pard,” I said (à la Whip Wilson, 1942), “I’ll watch out for you. I’ve forked these parts before.” I often spoke to him as if he were Smiley Burnette.
And many clicks of the meter later, we were afront a small, undistinguished eatery swathed in Lovecraftian miasma and arcane emanation. Also a neon sign twittering for repair.
We thanked and paid the hackney, off he went into the oppressive night, leaving us on the sidewalk with only the hiss of the rattlesnakes and the crinoline-rustling of the sagebrush blowing across the fetid plains of South Philadelphia.
“Was this a sublime idea?” Carl asked bravely.
“Waddie,” I replied, hitching up my gunbelt, “this is Life being lived in the raw. Mount up, stretch back, hitch yer gitalong.”
In retrospect, I’m sure I said none of the above.
2 July 2001