ernst

10:05 a.m. - 2022-11-09
lesson 2

I never knew how his name was spelled, but according to the internet “Manoosh” is a popular Lebanese street food and “Manoush” is a Persian girl's given-name. So I'm speculating that his signature dish, the “Manoosh/Manoush(?) Dog”, was named either as a nod to his Lebanese roots or in honor of an Iranian loved one (someone dear whose recipe might have inspired it?). And that we, the customers, had nicknamed him after the 'Dog in-turn. He did tell me he was an immigrant, but I don't recall from where...

Provenance aside, Manoush was slight of build with a luxuriant black mustache. His hair was thick and he wore it in a sort of Levantine jerry-curl, topped w/an oversized tweed flat-cap. He smiled broadly while he worked and his skin was the color of toasted almonds.

~ ~ ~

Lisa's skin wasn't the color of toasted anything; it was as smooth and pale as a dish of cat's milk. I used to stare at her neck every morning during homeroom (she sat right in front of me), scrutinizing her blonde nape-whorls as the teacher droned on about whatever it was homeroom was meant to accomplish. I'd worked with her sister at a hotel in Newport that summer. Dana was fit and cute and I was painfully aware of it, but she was already in college and had some preppy boyfriend whose appeal eluded me. It was through her though that I'd met Lisa. The two of us hit it off and, as I was new to Rhode Island, she showed me around. There was the cave above an estuary that overlooked the beach, there was a chasm along the cliff-walk where some jilted Gatsby-type had ended it all; she took me night-sailing on Narragansett Bay. We had some hang outs and some make outs and yeah...teenage kicks. But not as often once school started. I never saw her at house parties or keggers or bonfires, and she wasn't part of the punk scene. She wasn't part of any scene as far as I knew. We remained friends though, it was impossible not to. She possessed an awkward-but-infectious charm; laughing unexpectedly in the middle of her own sentences and inflecting statements as open-ended questions. As if reality was a dubious proposition. So when she said she was coming down to visit me in D.C. I looked forward to it.

~ ~ ~

I'd been a lousy student in high school, truant and distracted. So after graduation the idea of college had struck me as an unattainable hassle. I took a few years “off” instead...following my parents down to my dad's new post at The Pentagon and working the kind of jobs one does at that age; bar-back, bike courier, construction worker, ape-wrangler, deckhand. But in an odd way I was living a parallel “college” life. Because, through social happenstance, I'd fallen in with the class of incoming freshmen at George Washington University. A cadre from whose ranks many lifelong friends were called.

What is it about that age? Is our friendship radar just that acute after years of navigating lunch-table hierarchies and clocking signifiers in high-school halls? Or is it that we're still malleable; glowing ingots in the same crucible...cast together to be cast-again, together? I'd spend every weekend on campus, crashing on a dorm-room sofa or, if the fates were willing, next to an amenable co-ed. I went to frat parties and shows at the student union. I squeezed into bars crowded with underage binge-drinkers and hung out 'till all hours on every substance available, talking music and politics. The cynical hedonism of the 80's was barreling headlong towards the finish line at this point, and the whole scene was straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. It was “The Rules Of Attraction” basically. It was “Less Than Zero” with catering by Manoush...

~ ~ ~

Given that his eponymous specialty was topped w/a spiced meat-slurry, I guess you could call it a "chili-dog"? But Manoush's middle-eastern roots were betrayed by the seasoning: cumin, cardamom, garlic, fenugreek...a little nutmeg maybe? This would be ladled out w/a handful of chopped onion grilled on a propane flattop. You could smell it for blocks, you could smell of it days later... Many were the hung-over mornings when an entire residence hall would awake to the savory, pervasive ghost-reek of last night's Manoush Dogs.

Like most busy cart-vendors he worked with an efficiency born of repetitive motion. This allowed him to multi-task at his other calling; street philosopher. He couldn't have been older than forty, but he leaned heavily into the role. Offering up sage advice (solicited or not) to the college kids waiting for their 'dogs. Maybe he was quoting relevant passages from the Qur'an? Or maybe it was just homespun wisdom delivered with a thick accent, either way we ate it up. I'd speak with him at length when there was a lull in business and, on a few occasions, had helped him move his cart abruptly (Board of health? INS?) into an alley.

That alley was next to a Tower Records, by the way. His hot-dog stand was set up in front of Tower Records and across the street from Lafayette Hall, the dorm that had become my adopted social nexus. So it was all happening right there, on one corner. The holy trinity of sex, drugs and rock and roll...topped with Lebanese chili-sauce. I was eighteen and the air was electric.

~ ~ ~

Lisa looked good when I picked her up at the train station. She'd always been “cute” but something had changed. She hadn't gained or lost weight, it was more like the weight had been redeployed. Notably towards the top of her sweater, but also in other key tactical positions. And maybe she had a new haircut? Or started wearing make-up? (The latter seems unlikely, she was always more of a cherry chapstick and out-the-door kinda gal.) Whatever it was I took note. As did a friend of mine who remarked after he'd met her, “Oh yeah dude, she's got that hot French farm girl thing going on”. I'd never met a “hot French farm girl”, but I knew what he meant.

Regardless, I was happy to see her and attempted to repay the kindness she'd shown me when I moved to Newport. Which wasn't hard, because D.C. was a blast back then. Chaotic and sometimes dangerous, but a blast. So we did some wild activities and such...but what tour of the nation's capitol would be complete without a Manoush Dog?

~ ~ ~

He waved from across the street and started grilling the onions for my usual order. We walked over and I introduced them.

“Lisa! Is so wonderful to meet you! A friend of Ernie is a friend of Manoush...now what kind of hot-dog for you, my new friend?”

“I don't know...ketchup?”

I was mortified. The whole “ketchup is a child's condiment” argument aside, this was supposed to be a destination 'dog. I mean, of course his steamed buns and kosher franks were of the highest quality...but you don't buy a fucking Rembrandt because it was painted on linen canvas. Manoush sensed my disappointment and held up a finger before I could speak.

“Very good. For the Lisa Dog then, only the freshest ketchup.”

There were of course multiple squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard on the cart, but Manoush knelt down to a shelf below the grill instead, and emerged with a one-gallon can of ketchup (that's a big ass can). He smiled as he labored with the can-opener and then, after producing a clean spoon from the pocket of his apron, elegantly ladled a ribbon of ketchup across the 'dog like he was finishing off a beef tenderloin with Bordelaise sauce...

The simpler the composition, the greater the emphasis on constituent integrity.

Lesson learned.

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