Christ & Lucifer Share Cacio e Pepe on Arthur Avenue
Maureen Martinez
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…seize it with both hands and make the most of it. – Al Capone
There’s a notorious Italian restaurant on a corner of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx where an infamous mob boss was shot in the head while eating his favorite dish; the chef’s famous spaghetti with white clam sauce that had beaten Bobby Flay the reality show host in a cook-off.
On the restaurant window there’s a banner announcing a special upcoming event; One Night Only! It says. It will be so exclusive most folks will only view it on the dark web after it’s over.
The menu will be so sublime, even Christ will rise to the occasion and make room in his busy calendar to attend in His fashionable summer sandals. The fallen angel Lucifer will be there, dressed in red of course, but without his regular cape due to the humid weather, and his cloven hooves will be expertly painted with scarlet powder gel nail polish.
It’s rumored the two have reserved a table with a checkered cloth and dripping white candle in a Chianti bottle, which is quite exciting considering the ability of food and low lighting to bring divided parties together.
They will sit across from each and tuck their linen napkins into their collars and accidentally touch hands while reaching for the warm Tuscan bread then dip their respective slices in the shared dish of imported oil before diving into their plates of thick Cacio e Pepe with pine cone crumbles for extra texture and flavor.
Per usual, Lucifer will add red pepper to quell his burning desires and laugh when he attempts to comment on the chef’s culinary excellence, but instead burps conjoined rings of fire into the garlic scented ether.
They’ll be served by a number of priests and nuns doing penance for crimes once committed and Christ and Lucifer will slyly smile at one another in recognition of having both been their bosses at one time.
The dinner will be such a smashing success they will launch a joint follow-up but this time it will be an open come-as-you-are event with a famous DJ and relaxed dress code in which rainbow t-shirts, bedazzled tiaras and thigh high Catholic school skirts are welcomed.
It will be held at Davenport Park in New Rochelle, you know the city where the movie with Zendaya was filmed, where the green hills roll to the edge of Long Island Sound and young Irish girls with sunburns bob up and down in the salty water.
The menu for the event will be neither dictated nor fixed, but instead will feature an endless buffet of every culinary delicacy imaginable, limited only by human creativity and the belief in one’s right to feast.
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Maureen Martinez (she/her) is an emerging poet who has been working as a counselor at an all-boys Catholic high school in New York City for over 20 years. She has four grown sons. Even the dogs are male. She comes from a long line of Irish ramblers, barefoot dancers, and raucous storytellers, which explains a lot. When not reading or writing on the porch, she is trail running or dreaming about mountains. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Meniscus, Folly Journal, Gramercy Journal, S/He Speaks 2, Washington Square Review, The Listening Eye, and Midsummer Dream House.
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Posted in Fall Feasts: Nov' 24 and tagged in #boudin, #poetry, Poetry