Dishings at Fiasco's

By B.B. Irvine

A writer recounts odd conversations, food, bands, and other diversions experienced at FIASCO'S, winner of a Least Awful Gourmet Award for its "signature Italian-type food," whatever that is. Meet owner Adolfo MacDuff, maitre'd Carmina Burana, chef Falcon Roost, and many others who are frequently found at the bar in FIASCO'S, pondering critical questions like whether a vampire polar bear could turn into a bat or not.
Readers will also learn:
Can Falcon Roost survive cooking at FIASCO'S much longer without serious injury?
Does anyone want to make the writer's screenplay of Kong Fu, which is exactly as bad as it sounds?
Is the "Under Nude Management" sign outside FIASCO'S another typo or not?
Will former Coney Island sideshow fire-eater Carmina Burana find love?
Can Adolfo MacDuff win a "world's biggest" food item notice for his giant gnoccho (and figure out how to pronounce it)?

• Language: English
• Publisher: B.B. Irvine
• Release date: Mar 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301589173

B.B. Irvine

B.B. Irvine was born in New York City in 1959. He graduated from the High School of Music and Art N.Y. (1976 music), New York State University at Stony Brook (1980 B.A. liberal arts), and in 1982 received a certificate as a Physician Assistant from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in North Carolina. He has worked in settings including emergency medicine, AIDS research, and addiction treatment in New York City where he lives. In 1994 he earned a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Grandmaster Richard Chun. His novels and screenplays evidence his knowledge of people and frequently weave medicine, science, history, romance, and martial arts into the action.

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Dishings at Fiasco’s

by B.B. Irvine

Copyright 2015 B. B. Irvine

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Chapter 01 - FIASCO’S

I met the chef from FIASCO’S as I was passing the local urgent care center the other day. Falcon Roost had hurt his back while holding a large fan he was using to blow smoke from the kitchen.

At least it’s not another cut or broken finger, observed Falcon, waggling his hand and not mentioning the fresh bandages on his arm: burns from the fire, I guessed, since he had ruled out cuts.

I inquired after charming maitre’d Carmina Burana, and the owner, Adolfo MacDuff.

Oh, it was just a small fire, you know, said Roost, matter of factly. Nobody died. He laughed. We’re open, it’s business that’s dead.

I was sorry to hear that, having held a party at FIASCO’S for the launch of my book, Selling Crap To Suckers (Belchly-Gassup Press, 2012).

FIASCO’S is down in the newly gentrified pub row, where one could once start in THE BURP AND SPIT on one avenue, crawl their way to THE BELCH AND FART, HURLER’S BARF (neon elements had blown out on BARGE), THE OLDE DAMP LOINCLOTH, and THE FRIENDLY STOOL (the intention was an open bar stool waiting, but no one with any knowledge of medical terms ever went in there), to name just a few, before stumbling into THE CRANKY HANGOVER over on the next avenue. Most of those old pubs and bars are now fancy townhouses, or restaurants, but THE FEISTY SLOTH is still operating, I think (it’s not easy to tell).

FIASCO’S moved into the old WINDY BOAR, a classic get soused public house run by ex-pats (no one knew from exactly where). They were now living an American dream somewhere else, having sold out rather than give in to the local area pressure to upgrade the pub’s TV screens – again, and this time for a lot of money.

I had been inside the WINDY BOAR just before it closed. As a parched art world friend of mine rehydrated, I overheard the thunderous discussion in the next room, while the cute bartender and some barbacks strained to listen through the wall.

Dinna theenk weel get the tullies, she said. Weer fouicked fight shore. She looked like she was waiting for the pricier bottles of rum to whisper in her ear.

Fouicken hill! swore one barback, named Owen.

Baguette shaggers! swore the other, named Owynne.

The bartender gave me her number, but what she said, what I heard, what I wrote down, and what I called did not match. But now I do know how to reach the Office of the Medical Examiner, if I ever need their services, or to make a referral.

The ex-pats left behind a vaguely English pub, done in a hunting motif featuring boars, both in image and fully stuffed. The stuffed boars featured mechanical systems that allowed them to sound as if they were passing gas, which was an in-house joke used for many a cheap laugh, but an addition not in the building plans they had kept.

Or had ever mentioned… maybe.

The Flemmy brothers (Arthur and Cuttadeel) could only be understood half the time when they were sober and were only loquacious when drunk, so only a handful of fellow ex-pats (from some shared Old Country somewhere) were capable of recalling anything the Flemmy brothers had ever said. And if hearing it verbatim would have been hard to understand, hearing it through someone else’s accent was incomprehensible, and could cause internal damage if heard more than two or three times.

Also never mentioned (maybe) was that the farting mechanisms in the boars were still operating automatically.

The WINDY BOAR was a large space, with a small stage where famous groups like The Tubby Pukers had revitalized football brawling songs for a new generation of drunken intolerants. Avant-garde and just plain crappy bands had also taken that stage – after I saw a double bill of The Pisspants with Stumbledrunk and the Bindlestiffs, I had put the WINDY BOAR on my short-list of places to end relationships and dump dates in.

Adding the space from a small, long closed delicatessen next door, the new owner turned the old pub into a new restaurant, one Proud to Offer Italian-type Cooking, as all the adverts for FIASCO’S read.

New owner Adolfo MacDuff thought FIASCO’S sounded Italian, and when his cousin told him it was the name of a sporty car in Europe, that had cinched it.

As for Italian-type Cooking, after I read the menu and ate a few meals, it seemed to mean they were using cooking utensils and stoves, and ingredients like meats, vegetables, grains, and diary, which were used all over Italy (as well as Europe, both Americas, Australia, and anywhere cooking Western food – no curries or any Asian entrees were offered at FIASCO’S, although sushi chef Ichiban Neko would be available as soon as his tendon repair rehab was over, and that finger was back in shape).

I wasn’t certain where they would put that sushi station. Even though the added space from the long-closed deli storefront next door included in the WINDY BOAR deal meant that FIASCO’S was big (even retaining the stage from the WINDY BOAR, adding a very nice specially built dance floor area in front of it), it would never be huge.

Conch Slipshod was hired for the re-design of the newly merged space to be called FIASCO’S. He was the partner at Slipshod and Skewed, Architects (L.L.P.) who had designed Babel Towers in New York City (lodging for U.N. office workers and semi-dignitaries who needed a small place to live in New York for less than six months).

As Adolfo MacDuff put it, architect Conch Slipshod was challenged but cheap.

He was young middle aged, both slightly blind and slightly deaf, and maybe not overly bright – he never quite heard or saw things fully, and he seemed to have problems understanding things. But he looked handsome, distinguished, and he flirted well.

The architectural design was clever in dividing space, but otherwise unimaginative, and the new owner’s definition of nice put a cents sign through the c.

They put a few doors in to link both spaces, knocked down enough dividing wall for the new dining room, but no other walls. They added HVAC machines but did not run any new ventilation ducts or water lines, or upgrade anything else. They revised the dining room (enlarging it), and they added a wall separating the new bar area from the kitchen just behind it, within the old storefront deli’s counter space, using those water and drain connections.

Kitchen, bar, dining room on the street side, toilets and some office and pantry spaces in the back. That was FIASCO’S.

The WINDY BOAR had featured a really ugly boar that the new owner’s cousin said resembled one seen in a hunting feast hall in northern Italy ("Trentine, sort of trans-Alpine Italian"), so in a celebration of anachronism, the soft pastel shades of the otherwise Mediterranean décor now had a really ugly giant boar on the dining room wall, as well as one in the area where the bar had been relocated when the kitchen and dining rooms were rebuilt.

FIASCO’S (with its Italian-type cooking) then created a dining atmosphere for civil conversation over very soft music from forty Vivaldi CDs imported into the new owner’s macTop (a Masterworks Set box received as a gift).

The HVAC ducts and various fans and motors added into it had unusual harmonic responses to air flowing over and through them. These produced subsonic, low-end rumblings and noises, until the whole building sounded as if it had jittery bowels and a tendency to pass gas.

In a boisterous public house, it was not a detectable problem, but in the quiet restaurant and bar, it was somehow unmistakable. Everything would give a slight shake or two, just the slightest subsonic rumble tremor, then the noise of a low reed organ note, or even two, just for a second or two: "wahnnnnnn-thp-thp-thp-thpppppppppppptttttttt!"

No one smelled anything except good food, of course, but it had a subliminal effect that resulted in increased use of toilet supplies, cleaning, and servicing.

And a mixed review – food that made people evacuate during or soon after the meal had that sort of effect.

A newspaper reported someone visiting from the cliffs of Dover actually said, Nevermind the bloody robot farting boars, right? The building has wind, you know? It sounds like it’s bloody passing gas the whole time I’m eating there!

Adolfo MacDuff read that in the paper and responded that, Limeys think ketchup on spaghetti was what passes for good Italian-type food. He was pretty angry, and it got worse when I was apparently the first person to fill him in on what sort of noisome farty boars he had inherited from the ex-pat owners.

Yeah, the Iberians. At least they weren’t Limeys. Adolfo sniffed. The only good thing about the British is, they figured out early on how much the French suck. Other than that, they’re pretty much the same. As a Scotsman (of sorts) he couldn’t resist a comment.

I was quite startled by his initial observation, having met the Flemmy brothers. "Iberians? They were from Spain?"

Spain, hell! They were Irish!

"Iberians? Not Hi-bernians – Iberians?"

"Right. I-berians."

"From Ireland?" I persisted weakly.

"Well, they sounded that way, buddy, but I don’t watch Masterpiece Weeper, so my Brit-Lish isn’t as good as my Italianio or Franchoz, ‘cos I’ve studied those. Adolfo grinned. Intentedly, in fact."

Sensing stupidity tempered with hostility ahead, I smiled and complimented what I could: Yes, I’ve heard you speaking those in the kitchen to Falcon. Very nice.

I knew from my art world friend that the Roost family was famous for an artist in the unusual crafts category [see Arte Museum of Unusual Crafts (AMUC), East Northeast Syracuse, N.Y.]

Falcon Roost was related – and it was also right there on the web, so of course it must be true.

Actually, Falcon gave Adolfo MacDuff "A genuine Piece of Art from the Gaseous Forge of Wilmer Roost" (as the placard read) for his office, and it came up when I was going over the contract and plans for the book party.

Adolfo asked me if I could tell if the piece was a dog or a cat, and I said dog, although a turd with triangle tips was just as accurate a description (that’s why I did not pick cat).

Adolfo nodded, very serious. I find it is almost like the inkblot test, yes?

Mmmm, I nodded. The thing had no legs, no real face, just two triangle tips stuck on top of a dark brown lump the size and shape of a small sweet potato.

I decided calling it a turd with triangle tips was a realistic image (the art world calls it "representational"), whereas dog or cat – or anything except maybe a giant horn eared slug – was fanciful at best. For some reason, though, these gaseous pieces were very, very pricey (likely the dangerous process called wilmering – requiring an aqualung to survive the workspace resin fumes – and the strange events at the opening night of the Arte Museum of Unusual Crafts had both combined to drive notoriety values up).

The waitstaff had all noticed the gas passing noises in the dining room walls, and liked to cluster in certain alcove spots to watch diners looking around to see who had just dealt that footnote.

It was a subtle enough sound that waitstaff got away with not telling the owner, but their tendency to pause and gawk was harder to miss.

Get moving, you loafers! hissed the maitre’d, Carmina Burana. She was also hard to miss.

Carmina Burana was a literal spitfire: she had been a fire eater in a famous Coney Island sideshow not too very long ago, and she was still debating whether to leave FIASCO’S and return to it. Everyone straight swore she was gay, although no one had ever seen or heard of any actual girlfriend like that (and her gay friends would definitely know, right?)

Maybe she just had a very narrow range of people she liked.

Even allowing for the managerial position she held, Carmina did not have many friends at FIASCO’S, and I think she equally aroused and terrified Adolfo MacDuff, the owner.

He was well satisfied with the quality of her work, and too scared of her to dare