Dinner with Raymond Carver

I was sitting down for a meal at a rectangular table in a diner with what may have been a group of literary dignitaries, although the only person I recognized was Raymond Carver, who was quietly eating across from me. The food had already been served and the men were poking fun at vegetarians as they enjoyed their meaty meals. I told them I was a vegetaerian, but didn't feel like explaining myself at the moment so I left it at that. Someone asked if I believed in god and I told them I was an aetheist. Carver set down his burger and looked at me.

"Do you think saying that makes you brave," he asked and I said no.

There was an uneasy silence that I eventually broke by asking if everyone at the table--all older white men--was Christian, either Catholic or Protestant. Everyone but Carver nodded or said yes.

"Not me," he said. "I'm an aetheist."

After we were done eating two waitresses came over to bus the table. One of them, a Guyanese woman in her late 40s who was dressed like a 16 year old Hot Topic employee, began swooning about something. When our bill was brought, Carver reminded me that Yacki's sister, Sumi, had left us her bag so we could pay for her food. He went through her bag and pulled out a credit card from her wallet, but I told him not to worry about it, I would cover it.

When I went to throw in my money I counted the pot to ensure we had enough for a decent tip and found that someone had paid in Euros. Suddenly I realized that it was the 1950s and it was understandable that people would pay in foreign currency. In a disconnected world pre-globalization you couldn't expect everyone to have the same currency. (Nevermind that the Euro wasn't created 'til 1999.)

Besides the American dollars and Euros, someone had also decided to pay with three playing cards.

- Arv

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