JOSEPH MICHAEL IRAGGI

Whether it’s the death of heat in Dallas or the wind-blown summer in So Cal, Nancy Kaye is always at her game of do this and do that. The holiday of freedom celebrated every July was the scene for this day of duty. My mother, like her mother, loves to take care of her family and a holiday was the perfect excuse to bring together brethren for time well spent.

 

I came from the humidity of Dallas that boxes you in and traps you—mosquitoes hit you like torpedoes and the street burns your feet. I landed in Los Angeles a few days prior to this one. Of course, my mother was waiting at LAX with a smile and the promise of a meal. We lunched at Patty’s Diner, in Toluca Lake, which had been serving up bacon and eggs to studio personnel since the 1950’s. I chose a tuna melt and my mother ate the classic BLT. This lead to that and I’m sitting on the sofa with her merle Australian Shepherd, Wyly, who was a mirror reflection of myself--smart, obedient to a point, talkative, and unabashedly affectionate, almost to a fault.

 

My mother rose at 8:30 to begin her fastidious process of care and control. She woke to spray her balcony overlooking Universal Studios with a hose and watered her collection of cacti. The whole time I had been asleep in her studio on the air mattress, or at least tried to appear dormant. My mind takes a while to wake, and in the meantime I would not be disturbed. I heard the hose move through the sliding door and into the house, dragging all the way through the front door. Then, I heard the high-pitched voice of her thirteen-year old neighbor, asking for the dog shampoo. Monica was a cute little lady with blackened hair and piercing eyes to accompany her glistening white teeth that were a bit crooked. She was a tiny lady, an almost teenager with a gigantic amicability. She didn’t have her mother around, but she had mine.

 

“Miss Nancy, first I’ll hose the breezeway, then we’ll do Wily.”

 

“Okay, Monica,” my mother replied. “I’ll help you whenever you’re ready.”

 

“Miss Nancy,” Monica beamed back. “I think we should spray off the barred doors too.”

 

“Whatever you want to do is great,” my mother said with an inner pleasure only I could recognize.

 

Wyly followed my mother this whole while, as he rarely left her side. Every other sentence was directed towards him, which he took in stride. She often called me Wyly in passing conversation, which should illuminate the extent of his elevated status and meticulous maintenance schedule. Her day was always concerned with caring for those closest to her, one of which was a canine and the few others, human.

 

She provided for us through her design business, in which she continues to make spaces attractive, comfortable, and eclectic depending on the clientele. Regardless of the style, there is always class and artistic innovation inspired from the greats of yore. Her schedule was busy, yet she still found time to call her brothers and attend shows of her boyfriend’s band.

 

Nancy Kaye has been going since she came out of the womb, and has been gone since. Her quirky sense of humor and well-equipped intellect come from years of caring for those who cared for her--not from a classical education. She worked and worked. This day is no different.

 

Wyly was washed clean by Monica leaving only the paws and butt for my mom. Another neighbor accompanied them--Katie, a twenty-six-year-old, striking art director from Liverpool with extra virgin olive oil skin and endearing features. She related to my mother because they both prettified things--my mother in the real world and her in the cinematic realm. Monica’s miniature white poodle, Tia, kept Wyly comforted with licks and yips of understanding. Three generations of women joined together to complete the process by drying the sixty-five pound doggie.

 

I was now showered and dressed, drinking coffee from a French press and eating oatmeal, all of which my mother prepared with care. My mother returned to the cubicle-like kitchen and mixed the key-lime juice with condensed milk for the pie.

 

“So, Joe,” my mother inserted. “Do you want to go watch fireworks tonight on Mulholland with some of Brant’s friends?”

 

“Sure, after I get some reading in,” I answered.

 

“Well, we won’t be going until around 8:00 or 8:30.”

 

“I’ll let you know by then how I’m feeling,” I said, “I just don’t want to get caught up in a crowd. I’m not much for throngs of people.”

 

“I’m not either, so I’ll talk to Brant and make sure that we’ll be up for it.”

 

My mother continued her preparations for the afternoon meal commemorating our country’s independence for another year--washing and cutting all the vegetables for the sizable salad that would pair with our t-bone steaks. Vine-ripe tomatoes, slender cucumbers, sweet yellow bell peppers, complementary green onions, tender crisp hearts of romaine, baby spinach leaves, buttery avocado, protein-rich garbanzo beans, and savory black olives were thrown into the mix. Later, she topped the vegetation off with balsamic vinaigrette, lots of freshly ground black pepper, and a little cayenne that added an extra bite to instigate a thorough sinus clearance.

 

When the salad was finished, she retreated to her room for a bit of relaxation before the meal commenced. I was finally afforded the silence necessary to read at a rapid and focused pace. I dove back into the six-hundred-page epic of Dostoevsky, The Possessed, which offered a realistic fantasy world filled with a whole array of characters and perspectives. The young generation of breakthrough, radical politics versus the old bourgeoisie were still alive on the translated pages of Russian. I couldn’t help but become involved with their struggle to balance a necessary dose of rebellion with conformity for the betterment of society in its entirety. I was enthralled with the ability of the Russian literary icon to create an abundance of tangible characters that all interconnected in a way that was true to social reality. It was amazing how cold high society was towards everyone around them, even their own family, while the lower classes clung to their kin for salving the wounds inflicted by the vastly disproportionate incomes between the two classes. The story took place in the late 19th century and the less fortunate had just been released from the constraints of feudalism-- a fancy word for slavery.

 

After I was completely absorbed by the novel, my mother came strolling out of the room and seasoned the t-bone steaks for grilling. She evaluated the key-lime pie to make sure that it had set and proceeded to top it off with Cool Whip. Once the steaks were rubbedwith olive oil and fully peppered, she placed them on the propane grill that sat on her patio overlooking the tall buildings of Studio City. As I kept reading, I could hear them sizzling on the fiery grill that sat atop the city like a temple of sacrifice.

 

“Joe, you forgot the asparagus,” my mother said as she poked her head inside.

 

“Oh, yeah,” I replied as I hopped up from the sofa to retrieve the green spears from the icebox.

 

I thrust the stalks under the water to cleanse the unwanted additives and placed them on the cutting board for chopping. I cut them into small sections because I had decided to sauté them in extra virgin olive oil rather than steam them. I put the olive oil in the skillet to heat it up for a moment before adding the asparagus. Then I placed some of the left over chives in the oil to add to the garlic, black pepper, and dash of salt that would bring these green bits to the pinnacle of pleasure. A few seconds later, I tossed in the greenery and used a spatula to keep everything moving towards completion. My mother let me know that everything was about 4 minutes from being ready, and I assured her that the greens should be done right on time. My mind withdrew as the task became monotonous.

 

Only after my mother came into the kitchen with the beefsteaks did I exit my trance. I tasted a piece of asparagus and concluded that they were perfect. After removing them from the heat, I divvied out a few onto two of the three plates, as my mother’s boyfriend, Brant, was not a big fan of anything green that couldn’t be smoked.

 

Copyright 2009