A Man with a Menu
by Mark Montgomery
He was there again on Sunday night. Slight of build and scrunched up. His shoulders formed the silhouette of Rodin’s Thinker. His sad blue eyes light up when he sees me.
“Ah Monsieur” He stretches out his hand to greet me. He pulls it back to shield a rasping smoker’s cough. “Bonsoir Monsieur. How have you been?” The old man’s face is as creased as a crumpled paper bag. His ragged moustache is cigarette stained. “I am happy to see you. I have news.”
“Good news I hope?”
“Oh yes Monsieur, very good news.” He jumps up from the low window ledge of the Visit Flanders tourist bureau, just off the Grand Place, the main city square, in Brussels. “My social worker will complete all my papers by 23 July.”
“Oh that is good news! Congratulations.” We both sit down on his window ledge.
“That means I will be given a small apartment…” He drags on a Homemade cigarette “… of my own… with my own shower!”
“I am so pleased for you!”
Rue du Boucher – Brussels
“… and they will give me an allowance of €8 a day! I will get back-pay for the past 4 months! That will make….” He looks up to the sky. His lips move as he calculates silently. “…errr well it will be a lot you know!” He jumps up again from the low parapet in excitement.
With Sliver Hair, a Ragged Shirt…
With silver hair, a ragged shirt and baggy pants, Belgium’s answer to Bojangles has reason to be ecstatic. For the past 4 years he has slept rough. His nightly residence is the covered forecourt of the Belgian Stock Exchange.
“It can get cold, but it’s dry” he argues. He can only go to his digs after 23:30 each night. He has to gather up his plastic bag of worldly belongings and be away by 05:30 each morning. “That’s the only way to avoid the police, you know.” So until his accommodation is available, he sits on the window ledge of the Visit Flanders tourist bureau. Waiting.
“Haha!” he cackles and coughs again. “To finalise my papers, my social worker says I have to register as a job seeker!” He coughs again. “I am 64 years old! Me?
A job seeker! Are they mad? But that is how bureaucracy works, I suppose.”
“What will you do with all the money they give you?”
“Monsieur...” He points down Rue du Boucher. “… See that restaurant on the corner?”
“Yes.”
“I have sat here for 4 years now – from early in the morning till late at night – every day. I have watched.”
“Watched what?” He ignores me.
“On 23 July at 8 PM…it will be my turn.”
“Your turn…?” He is in a dream that he has rehearsed for 4 years.”
“I will sit at that corner table… with the white table cloth and the white serviettes. I will make sure there is a full set of cutlery. A spoon for my soup. A knife and fork for my starter. A separate knife and fork for my main course. A spoon for my desert and a small knife and fork for my cheese and biscuits.”
“You seem to have thought about this a lot.”
“I will want three glasses. One for water, one for white wine and one for red wine. They will bring a separate glass for port when I ask for the cheese platter.”
“Yes…”
The Grand Place – Brussels
“…and then the steak for the main course….oooooohhhh” He jumped so high. And then he lightly touched down. “I don’t want to see the plate! The steak must be huge and two centimeters thick. I shall insist that it is done au point. And I will check that it is done to my taste before the waiter leaves! And French fries…you can have as much as you want there you know. They just keep loading you up till you are fit to burst!”
“Well you don’t …”
Keep it Simple
“… with a Gorgonzola sauce in a silver gravy boat” He sits on the windowsill again. He crosses his legs and drags on his homemade cigar. “For desert I will take just a simple warm apple pie and cream…I like to keep things simple….with lots of cinnamon. Gosh I have missed cinnamon!”
“Wine?”
“Châteauneuf–du–Pape with the steak! Don’t even try to change my mind!” He stares into space again “…and with the apple pie… a Late Harvest from your country – South Africa. I have never tasted it but I hear good things about it. What do you think?”
“To finish, I want some cheese. Pecorino, but a very mature one, not the tasteless young one. Some Camembert of course… and perhaps a goat’s milk cheese? I will still have the taste of the gorgonzola in my mouth…from the sauce…so I will not take another blue cheese.”
“True…”
“Port with the cheese of course.”
“Of course.”
“People say they have a good 15 year old Porto. They don’t see me, but I hear them talk…”
“I am genuinely pleased that your situation has resolved itself. Enjoy your meal on the 23rd. I will be thinking of you.”
