Chapter 39 good night joe

I met Ben at a friend's birthday party. A friend told me that Ben set up a food column in a weekly magazine, teaching others how to cook.The two of you should have something in common. He was afraid that I would be bored, so he recommended candidates to me.It's a pity that I didn't see the woman next to me.He is a man who belongs. While I was waiting outside the restaurant, I saw two people approaching hand in hand.Wearing a black down jacket together and carrying a sports backpack.The man is handsome and has a short crew cut.The woman has short hair, a pure little face, and thin eyebrows and eyes.Both of them have an oriental taste.

Beijing also has Cantonese cuisine.The restaurant we ate was near Gongti.The beautiful white house is moored in the night like a big ship with bright lights.The dishes are light, but the taste is still rough.After three months in Beijing, I have gotten used to deceiving my stomach.Say nice things about it.Don't allow it to be coddled. Reach out and pick up a chopstick fish.The fish meat was too rotten and fell apart one after another.Ben took the spoon and said to me, this is better.I served a small bowl of fish soup.Milky white soup with rich aroma.The air conditioner was too hot, and my forehead was sweating.

God knows why he wore a pair of burgundy corduroy trousers to meet people.Even worse was the pink round neck sweater, with the collar of a red plaid velvet shirt turned inside out.The styles and colors that outdated school girls like all appear on me.At a glance, he is the kind of fool who loses his demeanor for the sake of temperature. Ben took off his coat, revealing only a slim white cotton shirt underneath.Grass green fat cloth trousers.His woman, he called her Jojo, was wearing a black long-sleeved cotton shirt, with a thin black leather thread hanging around her neck, and what kind of pendant was strung on it, lining her thin neck as cold as ice and snow.have nothing to say.It was a pair of Bi people, both cool and pleasant.

A table of handsome men and beautiful women, eating in pairs, talking in pairs. Jojo started talking to a fashionable woman next door who mixed three English words in one sentence, with an elegant smile on her face. Ben ate the fish head in silence.Chew slowly. I light a cigarette.Smoke always makes silence invulnerable. Go to the bar together after dinner and drive separately.I got out of my little broken car and said to Ben, come on, I'll drive you.A second-hand Cherokee that has been through the dangerous game of rear-ending and being rear-ended. The front paint has not been touched up because there is no money.

Drive fast all the way.Rampage.Squeaking noise when turning.In the mirror, I saw Jojo in the backseat with a pale face, clutching the seat cushion tightly.more and more proud. When I got out of the car, she said to me, Joe, what is your occupation? I said, I draw cotton patterns and trace those little flowers and leaves at home. Why not try to make a sale? Why do sales? You have an indomitable character. But most of the time I am a boring and boring person, unwilling to do things that need to pay too much. she smiles.Reached out and patted my back.She is a pure and kind woman. In the bar, Ben sat in the shadows, his eyes shining like tears.

How could there be such eyes?That's the look only a passionate person can have. I was looking at him the whole time, at a 30-degree kink with him.That's a cautious distance.Get close, but not face to face.The tears in the corners of his eyes made my heart flutter. I drink glass after glass, sipping whiskey on the rocks. Always lived alone.The last time I was in love was two years ago.You can't say that you are in love, just being together.There is no difference between a man and a pot of plants at home. If you are free to water and fertilize, even if the flowers bloom well, if they wither halfway, there is nothing to do.There are so many ways to kill loneliness.Sleeping, watching movies, strolling along the long street, eating food stalls...

Not just feelings. I said to him, do you feel happy when cooking? He said that as long as you do anything with your heart, there will be a pleasant meaning.Sometimes it takes an afternoon to stew a pot of potatoes and beef. When I went to the bookstore, I bought most recipes, but I always ate fast food from small restaurants nearby. Why not give it a try? I don't know who will eat it after I finish it, I feel that acting in a one-man show is a self-abuse.I say. he smiles.it is more than words.I know what I mean and he gets it.Smart man. Have you read all those recipes? read.I saw that I recited the recipes of those dishes backwards.

Wash the sea bass, remove the scales, gills and viscera, and dry them with gauze. Add an appropriate amount of salt and rub the inside and outside of the fish evenly. Wash the onion and ginger, slice the ginger, shiitake mushrooms, and slice the ham.stand-by. The fish plate is first placed horizontally with two scallions, and the fish is placed on the scallions. Arrange the shiitake mushrooms, ham, and ginger alternately on the fish, and pour 25 grams of cooked lard. Put it in the basket and steam it on high heat for 15 minutes until the juice is clear and the fish is cooked. Remove the original juice and scallions after they come out of the cage, and pour 35 grams of hot oil.

………… This is the first half of the process.What I made was just a steamed sea bass. But we have to spend so much time and energy, concentrate on everything, prepare everything, and proceed step by step.Calm passion is the most exhausting.Because it has to be controlled so carefully. Most of the time I'm just a boring, boring person.Reluctant to do things that would cost too much. indeed so. The party broke up in the early hours of the morning.I was quite drunk when I walked out of the bar. Ben drove me home.He drives so smoothly, it's like gliding on water.I noticed his fingers.Hands are the part of a person that best reflects the state of life.

Slender fingers.With sensitive and sensitive skin, it is the hands that only manual creators have.Don't care about dust. Jojo sits next to him.When the car hit a red light, she leaned over and kissed his hair. Mark told me, this is a strange man. Jojo is his elementary school classmate. They have known each other for 25 years and have been in love for 15 years.Never married. Every time, the time I was with a man was no more than 3 and a half months. There is always passion in the beginning.There will also be people who are out of their minds, etc., there will also be intermittent pain that twitches in the heart, and there will also be sweet words and sweet words of idiots talking about dreams.Gradually, it all became a play of watching myself with cold eyes, watching myself standing in the center of the stage, making the actions that should be done, and saying what should be said.

Sometimes I also ask myself why this happens.Then I stopped asking.It's a matter of course to get used to it. what is love.Could it be a brain teaser puzzle.The result is just for a laugh. Some friends will also say that it is because they have not met the man they really like.None of them are your "right man".ridiculous.Could it be that if you want to buy sweet and fresh peaches, you really want to take a bite, so keep trying?If you try too much, you will be discouraged and taste numb. Still feeling better drunk.Once drunk, I feel like a warm person.Skin and stomach are burning.Can someone close my temperature.I am willing to give. He parked the car, asked Jojo to wait downstairs, and helped me into the elevator.The elevator with dazzling lights went up rapidly, and I heard his breathing in the silence.There was a warm breath of skin on his neck. His hand gently wrapped my shoulders and called me in a low voice, Joe, are you feeling unwell? I said no.I am about to wake up. His teary eyes stared at me.Clear eyes.With a clear heart.I know he knows everything. He watched me pull out the key and open the door.I said, I'm OK, don't worry. He nods.He stared at me fixedly, then turned around. A week later, I went to the film archives to watch a film and saw him. This is an activity that I have been doing for three months.Very secretive, never tell friends, because do not want to run into any acquaintances.Watching several good movies in a row in a dark movie theater alone.Is there a better way to escape than this? Can isolate so many disappointments and dissatisfaction in the closed dark air. Saw him by chance.Wearing a black down jacket, the inside is still a pure white cotton shirt.Why are there men who look so good in white cotton shirts.He came alone that night, at the back of the line to buy tickets. Play Wenders' special session. "Lisbon Story" and "Roman Chanawan".This director's work may not be liked by many people.And it was cold, with freezing rain. I follow him.Watch him walk in.Watch him walk to the front left and sit down.Watch him take off his coat and put it on his lap.Look at him taking out a pair of myopia glasses with black frames.I watched him like I was watching a movie.When the lights went out, I took my place next to him. I said, Ben, we meet again. He watched me in the dark.There was a moment when I believed that when our eyes met, there was an outlet for the soul to stretch out the indomitable path.The road quickly broke through the atmosphere and led to the sky.The road is so smooth. We sit together.I smell the warmth of the skin on his neck again.I was careful when I sucked the air.Sometimes I want to touch him. The movie is beautiful.There are free people drifting on the road and sad music.Love songs make the blood boil. Always be on the road. At halftime, he went out to buy hot coffee.The coffee in the paper cup is mellow and fragrant, and it is very warm in the hand. We walked down the aisle and smoked a cigarette. Through the glass window in the corridor, I saw that it was snowing outside.Big snowflakes fluttered all over the sky and fell on the dark and bare branches. I said, it's snowing.he smiles.He said, you look like a happy child when you say this. By the end of the movie, the snow was even bigger.The people who were leaving the theater poured out of the theater scatteredly, waving for taxis one after another.There was a commotion.We stood on the steps until the end of the music, and there was silence at the entrance of the cinema. I turned to look at him and said, let's take a walk.He said, well, I want to too. Consonance should mean: having the same idea at the same moment, and being able to see the bottom of each other's heart at a glance. We are on the same page. Such a man.Seeing him for the second time is like having lived for 20 years. The snow quickly drenched our hair.There is already snow on the road, and there is a rustling sound when you step on it.It was freezing cold.We walked 7 stops, a full hour and a half.There are taxis speeding past on the side of the road.But our world is outside this cold city, outside the atmosphere. Talked on and off all the time.He said that his full job is a photographer for a magazine, and he started a food column because he likes it.When I was a child, I grew up under a fence, and the clearest belief in my heart was to be self-sufficient. Not only to be self-sufficient, but also to live a better life, discovering fun and meaning from many details of life. How about making a steamed sea bass?I smile. yes.After finishing, move the dining table to the window near the sunshine, spread a white fine linen tablecloth, pour a glass of red wine, and taste slowly.If you can see the white snow on the roof in front of you faintly shining, the deep blue sky is clean and bright, and there are Italian operas wrapped in fine silk in the air... How much is life, you can enjoy such a subtle emotion. Your later years should be spent in small towns in the south of France. I imagined so too.It is best to have a piece of land of your own. We laugh. Go under the apartment.My home, he has been here.I said, I'm here, hurry up and take a taxi home and take a hot bath. send you up.It's so late at night, it's not safe in the elevator. I opened the door and said, why not go in and have a cup of hot tea. No.Go to bed as soon as possible, if it is convenient, make brown sugar ginger tea for yourself.He looks at me. Those teary eyes.Suddenly I thought there would be tears falling.He stretched out his hand to pick it up, but only saw his own bewilderment in the open hand.He looked at me quietly.He said, Joe? I shrugged in embarrassment. I heard that you grew up in Jiangnan, why did you come to such a far north? Is there a reason?Flocks of birds fly thousands of miles, resting while flying, just to find a warm habitat. you will find it.He said. Why? Because you are such an indomitable person.I can tell just by watching you drive, he laughed, your car surprised me that day. Not what you think.I said, I need a lot of sense of security in my heart, a lot of sense of security. I know.You wear such thick clothes, even in a restaurant with central air conditioning. He knows everything. We didn't talk about Jojo, and we didn't talk about relationships.Some words are unnecessary.Between me and him, everything is clear.I don't wonder why he had a 15-year relationship with no results, just as I don't wonder why he went to watch a movie alone. We shouldn't have a chance to meet again. He stretched out his hand and stroked my left cheek lightly, his fingers sweeping over my skin like butterfly wings.He said, good night, Joe. Good night. Put the wok on the fire. Cooking wine, fresh soup, pepper, salt, water starch, sesame oil, cooked lard. Burn into gorgon juice. Pour over the fish. Wash the coriander and arrange it on both sides of the fish tail. These are the final steps of steaming sea bass. On a weekend night, I cooked for the first time, and I made this dish according to the recipe I remembered.Concentrate and concentrate on it, just like creating a handmade work. Sitting down at the table covered with a white linen tablecloth, I raised my glass of red wine and took a sip. My heart is very warm.I think of that man. I heard him say to me, Good night, Joe.