Base Story
It is 3 o’clock in the morning and Kate, who has been a friend for as long as I can remember, and I are at the pork chop sandwich place on Maxwell Street in Chicago after having gone out to dinner and to a bar. To finish off the evening we have decided to go for a sandwich on my vintage motorcycle.
The Pork-Chop-Place is a mobile restaurant which is a fixture of the Maxwell Street Flea Market which is celebrated every weekend come rain or snow. They are open 24 hours and the only thing that they sell are pork chop sandwiches, with or without sauerkraut, polish sausage, hotdogs, hamburgers and soda pop, but that is more than enough, because they everything is delicious.
I asked Kate out at my mother’s behest – she and Kate’s mother are best friends. Kate has just returned to town, after years of living in Europe and had few friends. I don’t think that either of us know if we are out on a date or if we are just renewing a childhood friendship. The night has been fun, but who knows how it was going to end. My feelings are a bit muddled.
“Watch out for the bone,” I tell her as she grabs her sandwich.
“Ok”, she responds, taking a bite. When she finishes, she surprises me by standing on her tiptoes, and wrapping her arms around by neck.
Past
“Watch out for the bun”, I said as Kate bit into her first pork chop sandwich. It was 3 o’clock in the morning and we were at the pork chop sandwich place on Maxwell Street in Chicago. Kate and I had gone to dinner and a bar and to finish off the evening and our first date we drove on my vintage motorcycle, for a sandwich.
The pork chop place was a mobile restaurant which was a fixture of the Maxwell Street Flea Market which was celebrated every weekend come rain or snow. They were open 24 hours and only thing that they sold were pork chop sandwiches with or without sauerkraut, polish sausages, hotdogs, hamburgers and soda pop, but that was enough. During the week, they lived off people who worked the night shift and on weekends off people at the flea market and after hours drinkers who were hungry: Kate’s and my situation.
I had known Kate for as long as I could remember. Our families were intimate and I had asked her out at my mother’s behest. Kate had been living out of the country for years and now, back in town, had few friends. I don’t think that either of us knew if we were out on a date or if we were just renewing a childhood friendship. We were having a fun night out but I did not know how it would end. Maybe it would end with a sisterly kiss, or maybe it would be the passionate beginning of something more serious.
“Ok”, she responded taking a bite out of her sandwich. When she finished, she surprised me by standing on her tiptoes, and wrapping her arms around me.