Photo by Bill Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis ventured down to Madison’s Willy Street for a most enjoyable Sunday dinner at Buraka restaurant in the company of Ernest Hemingway and Pat Stokes, the keeper’s beloved daughter who left behind a devastated family when she went on ahead of everybody else a couple of years ago.
Hemingway was there in the tasty Daiquiri, his favorite drink; Pat was there in the kind of suddenly surfacing memories that departed loved ones forever generate.
Pat loved quirky Willy Street—in all its quaint structures, its propensity for doing different things and its wonderful blend of out-of-the-box people. She spoke often of wanting to live there, and probably would have except for cruel fate that ended her exuberant life way ahead of time.
So Pat was there with the keeper and Phyllis, in the empty chair across the table as sure as the birds in the back patio trees and the recently blossomed flowers in their decorative pots and the delicious Ethiopian dishes.
In sharing dinner with Pat, the keeper voids Hemingway’s writing advice–“Don’t tell too much,” and could go on at length about how his life was forever enriched by a unique and loving daughter: It was nice for the keeper and Phyllis to have shared dinner with Pat; but goddamn the communication limitations!
