Akhmed and the Atomic Matzo Balls. Gary Buslik

      IN THE RESTAURANT LOBBY OF THE CHICAGO FOUR SEASONS Hotel, Diane nudged Les (and herself) toward their daughter. “Les, meet Karma.” Diane shifted her weight, wiped her palms on her dress, and cleared her throat. “Karma, allow me to introduce you to your, um, well, uh…”

      “Father,” Karma said, completing Diane’s sentence with a baleful glance. She turned to Professor Fenwich and offered her hand. “Glad to finally meet you, Popsie.”

      Les detected something vaguely sarcastic there. Nevertheless, girding himself, he opened his arms in a well-rehearsed, completely insincere gesture of paternal affability. “Please, call me Les.”

      Karma, refusing to step into his embrace, withdrew her hand. “I’ll stick with Popsie.”

      He looked her over in the dimness of the elegant eatery, this Gold Coast gastronomical temple to nouveau riche epicurean gluttony (as if you could tell the difference when it came out the other end). Sure enough, even in the impuissant light, he could (unfortunately) see Karma’s resemblance to her picture in Diane’s purse and, necessarily by extension, to himself. Popsie and daughter, mother and future son-in-law—one big happy family.

      After shaking his future father-in-law’s hand on behalf of himself and his betrothed, Angus whispered something to the maître d’ and, (despite the languorous lighting) visibly enough for all to see, slipped him a folded hundred-dollar bill, whereupon Karma snapped her fingers for her little tribe to follow him to their window table.

      Snapped her fingers.

      So right off the bat Little Lord Fauntleroy Culvertdale and his future femme confirmed the impression they had precursorily made on Popsie (being Republicans was abominable enough, but chartering a giant cruise ship for their exclusive use as a bridal suite was beyond the solar system in over-consumptive insufferability).

      Nevertheless, Leslie Fenwich, Ph.D.—Professor Leslie Fenwich—had always wondered what it would be like to have dinner at a decadent bourgeois trough like Seasons, overlooking this boulevardian emblem of conspicuous self-indulgence (until now he had dared not try the experiment; aside from the cost, there was always the risk that someone from the university, perhaps sightseeing on Michigan Avenue after having had a properly proletarian Gino’s pizza, would connoiter him leaving said decadent bourgeois trough, imperiling his reputation as a committed proponent of wealth redistribution and dashing his pedagogical ambitions), so Angus’s invitation had held a certain fascination. If anyone from the English Department did happen to spot him, he had only to tell the truth—that he was enduring the unendurable as a sacrifice to the welfare of the university; that to attract big money, you sometimes had to jump into slop with swine. It was disgusting, and average college administrators wouldn’t do it, but, of course, Leslie Fenwich wasn’t average. Whatever he did, he did to perfection—with, as he would sniff to chancellor Beebe, while scrubbing her back in the shower, “full devotion to the cause.”

      In preparation for this dinner, he’d had his blazer cleaned and pressed—menial work that marginalized and degraded Third World subalterns, who had immigrated to America hoping to find freedom, only to be forced into a life of unfulfilling labor and subservience to middle-class, white-customer oppressors, forced to adhere to historically Eurocentric, repressive standards of commerce, such as competitive pricing, guarantee of quality, an unblocked fire exit, and rat-free premises; not only did they have to touch their so-called superiors’ personal garments (sometimes of a most metonymically demeaning nature—e.g., pantyhose), they were forced to call them “Mr.” and “Mrs.” (in Les’s case, “Dr.”) and actually thank them for their business, as if they were serfs thanking their feudal lords for not pillorying them in the public square or strapping them to a tree to be eaten alive by hounds. What’s more, also in preparation for this meet-up, having discovered that he had no shirts without secretion stains in the nipple areas, Les had rushed out to Marshall Field’s to buy a new button-down-collar long-sleeve, only to discover that the beloved emporium was no longer Field’s but—get this—Macy’s, the flagship brand of the national corporate behemoth, Federated Department Stores, which unsentimentally devoured venerable regional treasures the way barracuda devour shrimp.

      Which was precisely the menu item—shrimp, not barracuda—the Professor now screwed his eyes into on the Season’s appetizer list. North Atlantic jumbo shrimp, detailed and shucked, served on shaved ice with Thousand Island-cilantro dressing and wedge of lemon. Yum. His glance minueting to the right side of the menu, he began to salivate at the description of the various steak dishes. At first he thought he might select the Delmonico New York sirloin au poivre with cognac sauce, but that city reminded him of Macy’s, which was not only the standard bearer of the aforesaid Federated corporate monster but which sponsored the Fifth Avenue Christmas Day parade. Sponsoring anything remotely to do with religion he found so repulsive that his salivary glands immediately shut down,