It Should Not Happen to a Boy by David Kiai

Author:David Kiai [Kiai, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781467882521
Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
Published: 2012-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

9

Grandfather’s bicycle

Why I think my grandfather still had money when he started living with us was because of the small and not-so-small favors that he did for himself. It was a known fact that, when Grandfather asked you to escort him to the shopping center, you had better take the offer, not only for your own good, for he did not take well to having no as an answer, but also because such trips were not without their own highlights and benefits. It was a common thing that the one who was lucky enough to escort him would be the one to benefit from crumbs from his table, so to speak. He was so very fond of roasted meat, which could be got from the only butcher in the trading center, who came to be a good friend of my grandfather. This friendship was not so bad in itself because it meant that, if he ordered a kilo of roasted goat meat, he would be handed a mug of soup. In any case, everybody won. Grandfather got an extra mug of soup, the butcher retained Grandfather’s loyalty, and whoever had been accompanying Grandfather got to savor the dregs of the mug.

The trick to making the perfect soup was to add to the pot the stuff that remained after an animal had been slaughtered which could not be eaten otherwise, like the head, which had first to be roasted on a blazing fire to get rid of the hairs, then split in two to make the soup even richer from the fats and brains and stuff in the head, and the lower limbs, which had also been roasted and scrapped to remove the hooves and the hairs and the bones broken into two to further enrich the soup with bone marrow. This mixture was then brought to boil. After several hours of boiling, the water turned brownish, and the surface was filled with sweet-smelling fat. Add a couple of preferred herbs, these, according to taste, being either bitter herbs or sweet-smelling ones, and some salt, and you almost had your soup. The last bit was to beat this mixture, I say beat because this is what we termed the process of thoroughly mixing up stuff so that the oil on the surface was evenly spread and the small clumps of cocked brains and meat were made even finer. The resulting fatty and brown liquid was then poured into a cup and the soup was ready for drinking. It was this cup of soup that always made accompanying him on his excursions very agreeable.

Although the butcher was friendly with my grandfather, his friendship was only restricted to him and to nobody else who might be accompanying him. And this was for a good reason, for he would be soon out of business if he got into the habit of giving a cup of soup to every attendant of Grandfather because there was always somebody with him. On the other hand, Grandfather did

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