*First posted 7/10/23 10:16 AM. I just had dinner with my son and his girlfriend at the 11th Street Diner on Miami Beach, where I always had a Manhattan. I had not been to the Diner in 8 or 9 years. I ordered a Manhattan. The waiter looked at me a second. "You don't know what a Manhattan is. I know you have it: rye whiskey, not Bourbon..." "Ah yes, we have it. Vermouth?" Yes (like that's what makes it a Manhattan, to self). "Ice?" "No ice." "Crushed?" "No, no ice in the drink..." "Strained?" "Yes, no, CHILLED." After he left our table to place our orders I told my son and his girlfriend the Night Watch dream. His girlfriend asked the waiter where he was from as we left. Italy, not India.
Man, I had a delightful dream last night. She was Indian. She had that distinctive colored Indian skin that you can identify as Indian even if all you see of it is the skin on a thumb, as I did in reality watching a Youtube tutorial with my son. She didn’t have a name in the dream. I’ll call her Sarong. I met her at a restaurant I went to with my parents. In the dream my parents were in their fifties and I was in my thirties so that’s all wrong in reality but my parents weren’t in the dream after the restaurant. Sarong was our waitress. I ordered a Manhattan, just a shade darker than her skin. “Do you know what a Manhattan is?” BECAUSE SOME RESTAURANT STAFF DON’T. “Whiskey, sweet…” “I know what a Manhattan is” she said with three-quarters open eyes. SOME waitresses don’t know. SOME waitresses DO. That was the first attraction. "Do you want it with Bourbon?" "No ma'am, rye; I want it straight, no ice..." "Right, that's what straight is, no ice." "Right," I was amused. "Chilled, vermouth, not gin." "Be right back with it." It was perfect, right up to the rim of the martini glass like I like it, so right-up-to-the-rim I marveled how she carried it on the tray without spilling a milli-amount of it.
Sarong had a small head, small face, big brown eyes, a little bit of a thing, petite, and spoke the slightest India-accented English but her dominant speech characteristic was smart-ass. That's what attracted me.
We ended up going out somehow (dreams don't fill in details). Where do you take a waitress on a first date?, I thought to myself. Would a restaurant be mixing work and play to her? I was uncertain how to deal with this person in just about every way. I think I asked her. "Yeah, we eat out" she said in smart ass. Do I take her to an Indian restaurant? Is that insulting, like if I asked a Black girl out I wouldn't take her to a soul food restaurant. I chose one of those chi-chi "fusion" restaurants on Miami Beach. "I'll pick you up around 8?" I asked, but wondering if she lived in some Nuevo Bollywood in Fort Lauderdale or something. "I'll meet you at the restaurant," she said. "I can walk to it." "Oh, you live on the Beach!" Had I just committed another faux pas? "What hotel are you staying in?" "Why, I live here!" "Oh, I thought you were a tourist from Ohio or something." Touche! Oh, touche! The rapier was so sharp that I hardly felt it go in and then found it ticklish rather than painful. I laughed, we both laughed at her whip-smart parry. "See you at 8", I said, and now I saw her eyes sparkle a little and her mouth turn up in a slight smile. That broke the ice. She was slightly intrigued. Had a good sense of humor. I decided it was safe to goof on her.
She showed up at the fusion restaurant right on time and dressed in various shades of brown--not my favorite color, in fact, about my least favorite color in dress. Shirt, not blouse, pants, both brown, muted, understated, brown shoes with a slight heel, her big toe peeking out. Unpainted. Good, that fit. Waitress hands, nails plain.
The chi-chi fusion restaurant served one of those exotic chi-chi appetizers, something with both the brittleness and meltability of taffy. I faux-debonair broke off a piece, which shattered the rest and put it up to my mouth and gently between my teeth...and it melted down my chin. She expertly broke off a piece of hers, a clean break, brought it up to her mouth and placed it sensuously on her tongue which she slowly, seductively withdrew into her open mouth, all the time looking directly into my eyes. The taffy wasn't the only thing that melted. I consciously gulped and stared. She smiled and her eyes shut briefly in a laugh. She had goofed on me! I was playing the Rube-in-South-Beach well I saw.
"So what are you going to have? I love steak but out of deference to the sanctity of cows in your culture..." She laughed full-throated. The dream did not detail the fare we settled on, nor how this first date ended.
The next scene was at my work. I was a lawyer but worked for a judge in his chambers. We had just gotten back from lunch. "Hello Benjamin!" the amiable judge called to me from his inner chambers. His judicial assistant had just gone to lunch. "Kathleen brought us some gift cards." They were big, furry Hallmark-type cards, "Floofies" they were called in the dream. "What do you do with them?" Sarong asked. "You do this," and I picked at the fur with one hand and tickled Sarong with the other. She giggled like a school-girl.
We went to a dress shop ahead of our second date, which was to be at some fancy function. I like to dress women who I'm really interested in and I wanted to show Sarong off at this public event so I took her to this haute couture place to buy her a dress. "You're probably used to homespun, I know, but I thought this place would be a little different for you." I looked at her mischievously. "Homespun! Like your Brooks Brothers suit!" and we both laughed. She put her arm through mine (a first) and we looked directly into each other's eyes and then walked to the store. We liked being with each other.
Immediately I saw one of those long cape gowns that are currently in vogue, white, which I thought would contrast stunningly with her skin, and gold accents which I thought would perfectly "go with" her unique Indian brown. When the sales lady showed the dress to us Sarong's eyes about went out of her head. "Go try it on!" I exclaimed, complementing the excitement I saw in her face. While she did that I had a mini panic attack. I was going to pay for this but this was going to be expensive and I wondered at my credit card limit. She came out of the dressing room, she had put her hair down, her entire face beaming and, well, I about died. I had never seen a dress make such a transformation and I had never seen so beautiful a woman. I have supreme confidence in my taste in women's dress and this validated my confidence for all time. I had never chosen so perfectly. Sarong looked like a Hindu princess. And she knew it. She had good taste. We didn't look at anything else and I didn't care the cost, this girl was going to get this dress if I had to mortgage my house.
She was all demure now, like a princess, her movements slow and elegant and she sat down next to me as the store ladies fussed and smoothed over this and that, her eyes modestly but proudly down, her face lowered, and then looking up at me, her brown eyes big and expressive, her brown wavy hair a perfect garland. "Now, what do you girls do in your country, wear some hat or cap, maybe a hoodie, on your heads?", I goofed. She anticipated my goof and slowly, elegantly brought her hands to her neck, then her ears and pulled from the back of the gown a dramatic modest hood that fitted close on her head and framed her lovely, small face. She could put the cape hood up when she wanted to or leave the framing to her hair. I mean, It. Was. Perfect. "I have some egg yolk at home for between your eyes." She cackled. I woke up.
