
		  DINNER WITH K.

	   (c) Copyright 1992  by Franchot Lewis

	 Now, I shall tell you of my dinner alone with the
    famous writer, novelist, and adventurer, K.
	 He is a tall blonde one. He is always attached to a
    communication device that constantly sends and receives
    messages to and from the universal communications net. He
    remains in touch with his various interests. As he sat at my
    table a box on his lap buzzed and beeped and rang and chimed
    and constantly demanded his attention. He begged me to excuse
    the interruptions as he took and sent messages. I would have
    been annoyed by any other guest who kept allowing a squawking
    box to interrupt our dinner. K. is different. If you can get
    him to sit still for a millisecond the quality of that moment
    of his conversation is worth the inconvenience. K. has the
    ability to get one to think, and to do more than think, to
    get one to participate in life, to get off one's duff and live.
    K. is one of the biggest brains and do-ers in the galaxy and
    is probably worth two or three million interruptions.
	 I see that most of you are familiar with K. from his
    many books and guest appearances on the nightly galaxy view
    tele-wide screens. So, perhaps you think I am a long
    suffering, short little one in a shadow, a friendly cuss,
    always in search of a good conversation, who likes K. and
    plays dumb to his animal behavior? Perhaps, you think I am a
    joke? I know, I should have balked at having to stand second
    to a talk box during that dinner I had with him at my home.
    My wife thinks I worship him as if he is a god. When K. came
    to our house to prepare the meal, my wife left to visit her
    friends. She does not like him. She says he teaches me bad
    habits. She thinks that like most artist K. has a picture of
    himself which out shines the image others have of him. In his
    own eyes he is a heroic cynic who is brave and bold, and
    unafraid of challenging universal conventional notions. Well,
    in my eyes he is a romantic. He is a hero, too, an aging one,
    who sallies forth from his artistic fortress, into the wilds.
    I have known him for fifteen years, and well for five. He has
    played the part of friend and guru.
	 K.'s face  was lit. His eyes shined. He looked delighted
    as he declared, "I have a treat for you: fresh meat. Killed
    it myself."
	 I may have moaned. I tried not to show how I felt. I
     think I whispered, "They don't allow that much?"
	 "Only if you go out of the galaxy to the hinter worlds
    for it," K. replied.
	 "They let you bring it back?"
	 "Yes."
	 "My Uncle Zowie was forced to dispose of the fresh meat
    he had smuggled in," my voice may have sounded like a whine.
	 The shine in K. eyes was gone, he groaned,"Was your
    Uncle Zowie part of the scandal in dead meat stock?"
	 A soft murmur escaped my lips, "My Uncle Zowie?"
	 K. began to lecture. The tone of dread and disgust was
    in his voice."Vermin were scavenging the outer rim of the
    hinter worlds for dead meat. They sold their hauls to local
    vermin distributors. Their stock was bug infested, and it
    infected some of the best guts on the home planet."
	 "Shucks," I mumbled, summoning up memories of how my
    uncle suffered last summer through stomach wrenching pain. I
    remembered how he howled and the way my aunt screamed at
    him for abusing himself by eating the dangerous and rotten
    filth.
	 "Some vermin were raiding zoos and even pet farms," K
    continued to state his disgust.
	 "I heard of them, but not my Uncle Zowie," my voice
    sounded almost like a lament.
	 "He was not involved?" K. raised an eye brow.
	 I shook my head.
	 "Just a thought," he nodded, and the shine in his eyes
    returned. "This is fresh, wild game meat," he tipped his
    head up. "I shall eat nothing but the best. This is for my
    gut and yours."
	 He opened the package of meat. It was a huge piece,
    enough to feed a dozen. He laid the meat out on the kitchen
    table.
	 I stared and spoke down into it, "Looks different--"
	 "Sure!" K slapped me on the back. "You can buy meat in
    the store - after that pore ol' soybean has had all sorts of
    new finagled designer chemicals punched into it, and its been
    mangled into bits, then re-arranged to be a pithy flesh-like
    pulp and made the object of endless enzymes for hours at a
    time. It's textured, flavored and tenderized, but it has no
    taste. Not a smidgeon of taste - the chemists' concoction is
    far too much of a wimpy, heartless thing for any self-
    respecting diner to try to approach. It is a sorry entity
    onto itself that only the tasteless are fool enough to get
    near."
	 "Oh?" I said softly.
	 "You should see the lack of blood cells that inflict
    the asses who eat store-brought meat," K. belabored the
    point.
	 "Yeah," I said softer.
	 "Gimme wild, game meat anytime. My stomach can no longer
    handle soybeans," K. grinned.
	 "Yes," I nodded. "But, how do you cook it?"
	 K. gave me the recipe, repeating it as he prepared
    the meal. He said: "Wash the meat and soak it overnight in
    brown ale. Ryan V ale is best. Place the meat in a large pot.
    Lay upon the meat sliced onions, bell peppers, Vox seeds
    and salt. Roast on low heat with the lid on in a maxi-oven
    for four minutes. Add some more ale and roast for another two
    minutes. Now, for the sauce. Take a deep dish. Put in two
    slices of the roasted game meat, a thin layer of Roguer's
    mixture, a pinch of Toning celery, and pour in enough meat
    stock to cover the meat. Place for fifteen milliseconds in
    the maxi-oven to boil down the liquid. Remove the dish, let
    it cool, then extract the juice. Return the dish to the maxi-
    oven for another fifteen milliseconds. The meat stock should
    now be a dark brown coating on the bottom of the dish. Scrap
    this coating into chunks of bits. Pour clear Von soup into
    the dish and stir until the brown bits are dissolved. Place
    the dish in the maxi-oven at low heat for a few milliseconds
    until it comes to a boil. Skim the soup of all undissolved
    bits. Add parsley stems, dried Raffia leaves, cracked
    peppers and brown onions. Let the dish simmer in the maxi-
    oven for three milli-seconds. Let cool, then strain it
    through an Yuan cheese cloth. Serve and enjoy."

	 The meal had been prepared. We were eating. K began to
    tell a story. K is known as one who likes to tell stories.
    Some of his yarns are rather long. He is known to make each
    interesting by adding humor, or by telling them while serving
    an exceptional cask of ale, or an extraordinarily unusual
    slab of meat.
	 "On Guff are found the worst detention centers. I was
    detained in one of them for twenty four hours in an air tight
    cell with just enough air for one docile one, and I was given
    the warning that the air was sufficient if one behaved, and
    if one did not, one would suffocate and die."
	 "Oh," I shrieked, a scrap of meat was stuck between my
    teeth.
	 "The air was bad, thin and it smelled," K. chatted on.
	 I took hold of my knife, my weapon of dissection, and
    grunting, pried the meat splinter loose from my teeth, as K.
    continued to narrate his adventure: "I laid on the bunk and
    waited until the grinning, sadistic guards released me."
	 K. treated the meat as if each piece was a chewy morsel.
    Using a knife and fork, he nipped little bits of meat at a
    time loose from the slab and nimbly popped them into his
    mouth. The meat snapped at me. I snipped at it with my knife,
    sliced and speared it. The meat crackled back, fighting in my
    mouth, attacking my jaws and leaving my gums irritatingly
    tingling with pain. I had too spit it out.
	 "Does it smart?" K interrupted his tale.
	 "No," I lied.
	 "It is not sweet, confectionary, candy meat," K.
    cracked. " It stings, unlike the lush, charming, juicy,
    tender, luxurious crap that comes in those luscious looking
    store-brought packages, the nicely nice stuff that will
    shorten one's life."
	 I tried again. After several minutes I had been able only
    to get down a few meat crumbs. My stomach was grumbling with
    hunger. A great gaseous blob came bellowing up from my belly,
    a cry, a yell, a roar, demanding that I feed. I scolded myself
    and swore I would not allow this tough meat to break me. I
    cut into it and shoved a large piece in my mouth. It pinched
    me, but I was determined to tame it. My teeth would be like
    scissors and presses. The meat was strong. It held fast, as
    my teeth closed against it to squash, grind, pulverize it. I
    mashed my teeth together, squeezing my jaws--
	 "You should relax," K. suggested. "You are dinning, not
    fighting."
	 "Ugh?" I uttered with my mouth closed and filled.
	 "The meat is resilient," K. spoke in a low voice.
    "Enjoy the challenge of eating real food. Ones who grow
    sinew bones, powerful bodies, robust constitutions, the
    hardy ones, the immovable males,  feast on real meat. It will
    make you solid."
	 My jaw muscles worked themselves into an awful state of
    painful rigidness. Stiff pieces of the meat were stuck in my
    aching gums, but I would be firm, and tough enough like K. I
    closed my eyes and worked my jaws, harder, up and down. I
    ignore the sharp pain the hard and fast chewing of the meat
    had brought to my jaws. I would devour the food, consume its
    essence, chew it to its core, annihilate its gristle. K.
    now nodded approval of my ferocious effort and continued his
    tale. After three minutes more, I finally had the gunk of
    meat into manageable shreds and on their way down toward my
    hungry stomach.
	 "I was aboard the maiden voyage of the Dasas II, the
    first ship into hyper space," K. began to recount another
    chapter of his well-known adventures.
	 "I know."
	 I attacked the meat slab again and took a larger portion
    on my knife. K. indicated approval, and continued the tale.
    "The additional speed at the time was not worth the
    inconvenience."
	 "The Dasas was a pioneer ship," I mumbled behind a full
    and chewing mouth.
	 K. replied, "Was very cramped, not very clean, very sour.
    The ship's captain was a bore. He leaned a bit too much to
    exaggeration. I quote him : I am authorized to tell you that
    this the most important trip of your lives is the most
    important trip in history."
	 "Wasn't it?" I asked, my voice muffled through food.
	 K. put a sour look on his face and answered sharply, as
    if his wit had curdled at the thought of my question. His
    acetic tongue wagged, "Of his life, maybe, but not of mine.
    And, who can speak for history?" K. sighed, instantly no hint
    of the tart look remained.
	 He was well into an amusing description of what life was
    like for him when he was an eighteen year old conscript in
    the army of the Canting warlord Mucks II. I had been
    laughing along with his comic mimic of his drill sergeant,
    when I  shook and cursed as a glob of the meat scrap got
    caught in my throat.
	 He stopped the tale, transfixed an intense gaze upon
    me, who was squirming with embarrassment while coughing and
    spitting to keep from choking on the chunky glob of meat
    scrap that for the horrendous moment was unmovable in my
    throat.
	 "What did you say?" he demanded  to know.
	 I said nothing, just coughed violently, in a tremendous
    effort to expel the glob caught in my throat.
	 "I am a collector of expletives. I know tens of
    thousands cuss words from thousands of worlds." K. eyes bore
    into mine, as he talked, all but ignoring my loud coughing
    and barking, as I tried to force out, to even barf up the
    meat chunk. K. questioned me about the cuss word I had
    shouted at the moment the chunk got stuck in my throat.
	 "I rather avoid domestic cuss words altogether," he
    said, "and refer to the exotic ones I acquire during my
    travels.  You chose to use the word, 'Senna'. I've never
    heard it used that way. I suppose it is a fine word choice if
    you are referring to an object that is the mother of a minor
    irritation, but a major cause of pain merits a much grander
    epitaph. I use often a word that I picked up  from the natives
    during a Terran hunting excursion. The word, Hell."
	 My eyes had become red. I was in deep distress, snot
    was running down my nose, and I was hacking loudly, trying to
    expectorate the irritant from my throat. I whimpered,
    "Aren't you going to help me?"
	 K. rose from the table, walked behind me and whopped the
    flat side of his open hand against my neck. Out of my mouth
    came spittle and the gunk and a sudden wail of pain. "That
    hurts!" I complained.
	 "Are you choking?" he retorted.
	 "Hell," I replied.
	 He laughed. "Novice diners on good meat always choke
    at first," his eyes twinkled.
	 "Why didn't you warn me?" I pouted.
	 "Would you have listened? A one of adventure like
    yourself?"
	 "I am not a one of adventure."
	 "Not yet? Right?"
	 I pointed out to him that in my book, I was very
    religious. I had faith. I believed everything. Tell me any
    thing and I will trust you.
	 His eyes twinkled again. "Really?"
	 "I believed what I am told, I listen."
	 "There is much of my younger self in you," he grinned.
    Next, he turned the word, belief, around on his tongue, and
    he took off gossiping about his beliefs during his childhood.
    He concluded this recollection by saying, "My parents always
    observed the holy high holidays. They were conventionally,
    moderately orthodox. During the most important religious
    holidays my whole family went to the temple dressed in our
    best clothes. Going to pray was an important social occasion--"
	 "You're not an atheist now?" I asked.
	 He shook his head, "Never."
	 "That's good," I nodded mine.
	 He added, "Naturally, my childhood beliefs did not add
    up. I could see that religious celebration was more important
    as a social event, and that the sacred meaning of religion
    had been lost. For example, we pray in an ancient tongue
    that few understand. We learned our prayers by rote and
    constant recital. I have prayed without understanding a
    single word, or having to-"
	 He said that he doesn't go the temple, although society
    throws a fit, and levies the heavy no-going-to-temple tax on
    him, but that won't force him to pray publicly.
	 "I think I am as religious as anybody," he affirmed my
    faith in him, " but I can't take praying in public at the
    temple, repeating words that mean nothing. I seek answers
    as to the meaning of life, and other ways to be in
    communion with the Creator."
	 "Good, good," I all but applauded him. I told him that
    his spiritual search sounded like a similar experience of
    mine.  I told him I had read his book on spirituality,
    including the banned one.
	 "Smart Ass?" he grinned. "Thought I knew everything
    when I wrote that one."
	 "Who hasn't thought that?" I asked.
	 He answered, "In all seriousness, personally, I believe
    The Creator is in each of us, and all of us are of The
    Creator."
	 I began to squirm again in my seat with my mouth open,
    but this time my eyes danced around in my head like a school
    child's. My voice sputtered out in quick ejaculations. "Would
    you mind a new, novice on your spiritual sojourns to Kyats?"
    I leaned forward, pressing him eagerly for an answer.
	 "You?" his eye brows lifted up an inch.
	 "Yes," my head bobbed up and down like an excited young
     male one asking a favorite uncle for a favor.
	 "You're a quiet one, more likely suitable for a day trip
    to Joaquin than a safari," K had a serious look on his face.
	 "I-" I sighed.
	 He spoke critically."I've placed you in the quiet portion
    of my mind."  I groaned signaling my disappointment. Then, he
    smiled, "One who might occasionally slip out to watch the
    exotic females of Ra sna V." I returned the smile. He
    finished the comment, "A gentle one who never makes
    trouble."
	 "Making trouble, how can --" I pressed him further.
	 "The authorities think that no-gooders like me who seek
    the fulfillment of life are trouble makers."
	 "How can the spiritual hunts for food and the
    fulfillment of life cause trouble?"
	 He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head.
	 "I have asked that of the authorities!" he exclaimed.
	 "I don't make trouble," I said. "I have a phobia for
    pain."
	 "Brother, welcome aboard!" he shouted. "I shall take
    you on."
	 "Good." I was happy. I leaped a bit from my seat. I was
     so happy.
	 "Our first stop will be to sign in with the brotherhood
    of the hunt on Margo ta's Place on the Reis Sphere. If you
    prefer the quiet section of the clan --"
	 "No, adventure."
	 "I should explain: there is no quiet section, only a
    quieter section. Just a few brothers belong. The quiet ones,
    the high adventurers, the true gamblers, the big game
    hunters."
	 "They're quiet?"
	 "And serious. In the other sections are the loudmouths,
    the braggarts, the drunks and the hot shots. The ones there
    for the show."
	 "The quiet section are for the ones in the know?"
	 "Exactly."
	 "What about the inner sanctum on Raffia VII?"
	 "Raffia was the entrance point for new recruits when it
    was secluded. Now, it is semi-secluded, the front door to
    every want-a-be."
	 "I see."
	 "The truly-ares and will-be-es have left."
	 "You are going to take me on a get-together for the hunt?
     And on to a real hunt?"
	 "Forget what you think, I shall show you the right
    way," said K. "You have heard of the get-togethers for the
    hunt? The get-together has become some strange kind of game,
    where all sorts of ones mingle freely. You're in dangerous
    territory at one of them."
	 "Uh?"
	 "Raffia is where fools mingle freely with correct
    behavior cops."
	 "Cops?"
	 "Rocked heads, the strident nannies who have arrested
    minds, the stick and foils of the authorities. Raffia is a
    little thick, but if it suits you, go ahead and go. One of
    the rocked heads will approach you and take you for all you
    have in a minute: your time and your freedom."
	 "Oh, I didn't know," I moaned.
	 "Don't feel bad. I never knew what went on at a get-
    together either until I crashed at a few, so I am not
    surprised by your ignorance."
	 "Gee."
	 "Don't worry, good old Uncle K will get you to a hunt.
    With a little trusting magic I shall get you thinking like a
    hunter."

	 The meal was finished. The dishes were cleared from the
    table. We went into the den to finish off the cask of ale.
	 "You have mumbled something along those lines," K. said.
	 "Huh?" I shook my head.
	 "Of course, much planning must go into a successful
    hunt. What you have in mind is some sort of combination, party
    and hunt, I think. I never know what you are actually
    thinking."
	 "Me?"
	 "It's difficult to figure out one's thoughts. They must
    come out in the statements one makes." He tensed, "Now, you
    are thinking about what?"
	 "The hunt I want to go on," I insisted I was a serious
    candidate for the hunt. He frowned. I grinned to try to roll
    back the frown from his face. "K., you use to say you could
    read my mind?"
	 "Not accurately. Everybody is different, nobody is the
    same. I actually do not know what anyone is going to do until
    they do it."
	 "Do you think you will take me on a hunt like the one
     you wrote about in your last book?"
	 "It depends on where we go and who comes along."
	 "Who should be take?"
	 "Make a list and see who will be free at the time."
	 "Let me see," I started to consider a list.
	 "Shush," he said abruptly. "I just had a thought that
    you might be serious."
	 "Yes?"
	 "Then, why do you want to take a mob?"
	 "Huh?"
	 "The hunt is a spiritual search; that what you hunt for
    is not the prey, the object of the hunt is self. One hunts
    to discover one's self."
	 "I'm sorry," I mumbled.
	 "If you are serious I shall take you with me to Terra."
	 "Terra?" I asked.  He glared. I mumbled, "I mean,
    Terra -- I will have to take a week off from work."
	 "What?" he asked in a low, quiet voice. He sighed. "If
    we were arranging a quick get-together, I would answer: why
    not make it a closer destination? Terra is on the farthest
    rim of the outer spiral. A trip there wouldn't be cheap in
    time or credits. Just from thinking of a list of those whom I
    think might be interested in coming, I believe they could not
    afford such a long journey. I would suggest that we consult a
    chart of the hinter worlds, and find something closer. My
    guess would be the northern sector, or maybe even closer
    north than that."
	 I mumbled, "If you prefer Terra."
	 He replied, his voice thick with the syrup of sarcasm,
    "You don't think that's a good idea?"
	 "Life is short," I said. "One must live now."
	 "Yes," he answered.
	 "Blasted, let's go Terra then."
	 He smiled, relaxed. "I have just come from there," he
    said, "I had a nice time."
	 "Just nice?"
	 "You read my books?"
	 "Yes, nice."
	 "I bagged a cellar full of good meat," he smiled. "We
    had some tonight."
	 "It was nice," I said, and remembering what K. had
    written on the ritual that is the hunt, I quoted him. "The
    hunt is for finding ourselves, meeting the challenge of the
    hardships of hunting in the wilds, and it is a hunt for
    food."
	 His smile broaden.
	 "You brought back the best meat of the hunt," I said.
	 He nodded, "The very best."
	 I nodded.
	 He began to tell me his secret of hunting. "To get good
    meat," he said. "You must chase it, and you have to let the
    meat know you are chasing it. The secret of good meat has
    something to do with the natives' glandular system. When they
    get frighten and run their glands secrete adrenalin--"
	 "Huh?"
	 "Adrenalin, it's some thing found in them; and the more
    adrenalin in the meat, the tougher, chewer and the better
    the the meat is for the masculine appetite."
	 "I see, " I said.
	 "That slab we had tonight came from one of two natives
    of Terra,  two no more than fifteen of their years. Good
    tough, young males. I chased that meat for two miles through
    a field, over a gully, and when the pair had crossed the
    gully, I let them think they were free. I pulled back. Their
    adrenal glands must have been pumping. I saw them pant for
    breath. Then, I came on them again--zip. I was right on them.
    Suddenly, I was right on them and they were horrified. I
    yelled, screamed at them. Shoo! They ran. I didn't let them
    both get too far. I shot one of them, stunned him. He went
    down, screaming. The other native glanced back, saw that his
    companion was down and panicked. I pulled back and waited.
    The native went back for his fallen companion and began to
    try to carry him. I waited, knowing that the meat was getting
    better as they were pumping more and more adrenalin. Ah, God.
    Hmmm."
	 "Great," I said.
	 He sighed, "Yes."

     (c) Copyright 1993, Franchot Lewis ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
