greasy rangoon on a day in june

Tonight, my fifty-three year-old, gold-hearted, schizophrenic friend and I made a nine o'clock sweep of the local wining-and-dining district in search of "oriental food," as my friend put it. Most notably, Milwaukee's fine food serivce drag leads down the aptly named street, Brady. The name is apt for my lack of ever having an untwisted experience while strolling its pavement.

There's not much in the way of lush foliage lining Brady street, but spring color seekers need not look far. Like any spectrum usually can, the street's eateries can be broken down to three mutually opposite theme components. These are grease and bottomless coffee; sirloin and rasperry vinagrette; and pork rinds and Budweiser. Red and green make yellow, so it may come as no surprise when your glass mug of fair trade organic Panamanian dark roast requires several cold hard quarters in pursuit of bottomlessness. Not to mention, these teahouses deal in a selection of imported and local beers that just might have something to satify the craving for raspberry vinagrette.

Somewhere in the gray band lie the Oriental Coast and the EE Sane Thai Restaurant, whose awning spans over the east sidewalk of the intersecting strip, Farwell Avenue. Gray is designated as the spectrum element of these two providers of Asian cuisine because of the neutrality toward economic and social stratification each employs in their services. The prices are only slightly above that of the greasy spoons on Brady and Farwell, and corporate domestic beer is represented as well as imports that include Far Eastern brews. Also, napkins are fan-folded in the water goblets at each table, but there's no guy in a black suit making rounds with a carved twelve-inch curry grinder.

I have received nothing but encouraging and affirming fortunes from my cookies following meals at the Oriental Coast, but my my friend and I found the restaurant to be closed on Tuesdays. It wasn't a far walk to EE Sane Thai Restaurant, but my friend is fifty-three and somewhat of an ambler. He often reminds me of his age--tonight by saying he'd meet me there, since I was already walking a good four sidewalk squares ahead of him. I replied that I thought he was doing very well for someone who was really "much, much older than fifty-three" and had undergone countless plastic surgeries to hide his identity.

He and I are starting a streak of disgruntling the waitstaff of restaurants that are closing in five minutes, but which guess it's ok. At Pizza Man last week Wednesday, it made me wonder for a moment if the waiter described the seafood pizza as "honestly... disgusting" because its preparation time was greater than that of a ham and pineapple pie. In any case, EE Sane saw nothing wrong with allowing us to order something for takeout. EE Sane has an enormous selection of dishes, but I had stared at my reflection in the Oriental Coast's darkened window still wishing for a plate of sweet and sour pork. The Thai version of the classic would do just fine, and so would an order of crab rangoon. The cashier asked how spicy I'd like the pork; I asked him what options I had. He said, from one to ten. I must have considered the fire in Pace Salsa Hot as being a ten and that in Pace Salsa Medium as being a five. What I failed to consider was that if one paints a red line from one side of a gymnasium wall to the other, that red line represents the spiciness of an habañero. That is, if another, four or five-foot line is painted where the first line starts. This line represents the spiciness of most other peppers. I wasn't taking the full spectrum into account.

Since I assumed five would be right around medium, and Pace Medium is a bit bland, I replied that I'd like it at six. The cashier looked up with round eyes as if he were about to tell me that he hadn't heard anyone say that in a while. With the register chattering incessently and one couple after another giving their brief parting testimonials on just how really great everything was, it seems possible that our waiter might have decided to let the six, itself, explain the power of a six.

We ordered a couple of beers from the wide selection and hunched over them at the counter, each of us suckling a cigarette. I broke the silence and asked my friend if he'd like to shoot a game of pool, then feigned surprise when he told me we weren't in a bar. I shared my neurosis about the street musician who's been playing outside of Walgreens for the past few days. I'd never heard a folk singer sound so angry. And by what he was saying in an intermission that resembled a fit of some sort, I believed he was angry at me for trying to sing along the other day. I considered writing him a note telling him, in case it looked like it, I wasn't trying to ask for a cigarette with sign languange earlier, but that I wanted to know if he wanted one for later. Then, I thought I might get another intermission dedicated to me. Maybe I'd better give him a dollar, not just change, when we're walking back.

We paid the cashier an amount very typical of what might be spent on a meal of bacon cheeseburgers, fries and a couple of pints. Again, I found myself walking alone until I was reminded to slow down by a chronic, wheezing cough a few steps behind me. My recently acquired roommate sat studying in the apartment when we returned. He moved to the United States from Japan about five years ago, works at a place called China Wok, and has never had crab rangoon. EE Sane knows its rangoon. Sitting around the coffee table, my dear old friend muttered something about his disagreement with spicy food we've all heard someone about his age mutter at some point in our lives. But, he finished up just fine. It was I who said I'd finish the rest of mine when my tongue wasn't entirely covered in scar tissue. It might have been nice to chase the spice with edible salve, as the cream cheese in crab rangoon is kind of like. In the chaos of the closing restaurant, I almost think he might have asked me to pick a number between one and five. And it was evident by the contents of the brown paper sack that he heard nothing about crab rangoon.