AZOTUSLAND Chapter Sixty-Nine

Non editor's note:

From here it is all about speed. Names will be incorrect and certain continuity issues ignored to simply finish. When completed, the editing will begin in earnest and all manner of issues resolved. Try to remember you are reading a 200-plus page rough draft and just enjoy!
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It was that Saturday and Jim had posted and invitation for the first 24 people who signed up to come to a Middle Eastern style dinner and discussion of an unusual New Testament story. Jim new it was risky. He viewed American Christendom as so soiled with greed, political agendas and bad theology that he was not normally as open to discussing his own faith as he was to hearing from others. He simply wanted to live quietly and creatively in practical love and community.

He specifically asked Ted and Manfred to help him prepare and serve the meal. Two large dark pots bubbled away as Manfred and Ted setup the three long tables as Jim had specified. Each of them had to be positioned just right on cinder blocks so they were very low to the floor and had to be adorned with long table clothes.

Ted, working alongside Jim often in the kitchen, was s till suspicious but also curious. Jim had pitched Ted on the fact that it was a "Bible Study" of sorts and he was also still considering Jim's offer. He had already put out wooden bowls filled with unsalted nuts on the tables and was now at the sink doing the long duty of washing the fresh organic spinach of dirt and grit.

Ted had asked what the heck kinda "Study" Jim would do, given his "Commie-Marxist-Homosexual-Anarchist lifestyle", and Jim had laughed and said "Flaming? No, but willing to learn." Then he said "Read Luke 7, from like halfway along to the end. We are going to re-create that type of dinner and let the story tell itself. Will you do it?"

"Yer an odd man Jim," Ted said.

"Yes, but there is meaning to my oddness, I promise. Oh, and I am not a Marxist...in fact...nevermind."

He suddenly felt he was pushing the younger man and asked instead, "Do you remember Babette's Feast?"

"Yes," Ted said, "and I remember you had to leave for some odd reason."

"True," Jim said. "I admit I got overwhelmed at the end. But it's about 'grace' Ted and a very uncommon meal. And that is what I am asking for your help with...a very uncommon meal."

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There were plates for twenty-four, eight at a table set and lots of long and short pillows to lean on placed around the floor area near the tables. As guests started arriving Jonathan clicked on the music in the background, Dead Can Dance's A Passage in Time and Saltarello started to play. Arrayed on the tables were the bowls of nuts, larger ones filled with fresh spinach, goblets for wine, baskets of bread peices, small decanters of strong tea and pitchers of water and glasses. Jim had also ordered six chicken pastries called Bastela du Chef from El Mansour in San Francisco for the occasion which Manfred had picked up the night before and carefully wrapped.

Sex and her husband Dan, a dashing man with a dark hair arrived with Templar and his date, am Italian flight attendant named Dante and sat at the second table. Rand and Renata soon joined them.

Maugham and Martine checked in with the kitchen and Jim yelled "Out!" and they complied and went to the table near the door. Roo and her new partner Telia came in and sat next to them. Two newcomers named Dawn and Tom came in and looked up at the ceiling at the parachutes attached when made the Big Room seem like a tent in the desert. Dan Palmer and his wife Kiera walked in followed by Delphia, Cara, Alice, Fred and an Episcopalian minister named Rich.

When everything was almost ready, Jim scampered down the stairs to the IC and walked in.

"Are you ready?"

"I think so," Andy said.

"Hey, everybody loves you," he said to him.

"Not Maugham," Andy said.

"Not so. He has a picture of you by his bedside," Jim said. "Drives Marty nuts! Everytime they are making love she looks over and there you are watching."

Andy's head bobbed and down and his body chuckled. "Okay."

The rode up in the elevator together and Jim put him right next to where he would be standing.

At the end five others arrived. Detective Volosky, River, Dirk and Rachel Williams.

As more of them arrived Manfred was quite excited and burst into the kitchen clapping his hands. Then he hugged a sweaty Jim from behind who laughed as he stirred the big pot. Then he stopped, turned to Manfred and said "You are such a gift to me Manfred. I don't care what anyone says about you."

"What do the speaks of me Sahib?"

"That you always try and steal my women, that's for sure."

"Oh yes!" Manfred exclaimed. "It's what makes funfullness in the wonderfulness of life Sahib! And Ms. Rachel is heere outside just now and I shall hasten to her side to drive her away from yoos with all possible dispatch!"

"Great Manfred," Jim said dryly.

When Jim came into the room with a big pot he was very pleased. The room was dark except for the lighted warm glow of candles. The music had mellowed to Severence. Maugham leaned back into Martine and asked "would you like to feed me grapes?" She rolled over and gave him a look then said "Fortunately we don;t have any." Just then Ted brought over baskets of fruit for each table. Martine smirked, grabbed two red grapes and bounced them off Maugham's forehead.