THE LAST DAYS OF TRIBELLA
It was the place to be
Back in 1993,
Glasses clinking,
Waiters waiting,
Servers serving,
Nobody thinking,
Bouncing along
On a merry wave
Of small talk, wine-of-the-month-and-cheese talk,
Living large over Bloody Marys with
Olive, shrimp, and celery stalk.
We’d go there once a week or more
To whisk away our worries
With fresh-baked focaccia dipped in oil,
Exquisitely grilled calamari,
And occasionally, a “sorry.”
The wait staff was impeccable
In that bygone, storied era,
Especially the Mexican sisters,
Salma and Sara,
Who attended to every detail
Without fault, without fail.
Regaled regulars were we back then,
Second only to quiet, old Rudy
Who sat at the end of the bar
From Wednesday until Tuesday.
Salma would bring me a Marlboro after we ate,
With a branded matchbook,
Around a quarter past eight,
On a black dessert plate with two pieces
Of private-label chocolate candy,
While Sara delivered two snifters of brandy.
They’d let us stay until well past closing,
With never a hint we might be imposing.
Days turned to decades and regulars wafted away
Like maple leaves leaving on a breezy fall day.
With new locals flocking to trendier places,
The patrons and staff got tired and older,
The bread and the romance, considerably colder.
Attempts at marketing never succeeded,
We went when we wanted …
… Reservations no longer needed.
When thick became thin, we tried to weather
The mask-up lockdown storm together.
Our home away from home was barely alive,
Offering deep-discount take-out in a bid to survive.
How they longed for just one good old day,
As the sisters planned their economic getaway
To an abandoned family estate
Across the border,
Exchanging medical for property disorder.
The rest of the staff was COVID chaff,
Just a cousin, a cook, was left to assist
Those two fine Mexican sisters,
Who by a stalwart few
Would be seriously missed.
The last of the silver fell out of the lining
When they opened the patio
For semi-authorized outdoor dining.
We went one winter night cold as hell,
A commercial space heater blasting by our table,
Another by Rudy blasting as well
(Only five feet away, but we’d never tell).
Somewhere under parkas and wool hats,
Salma and Sara skirted electrical cords
With serving platters like acrobats.
No cigarette or brandy came that night,
Only a sense that nothing in this world
Would ever again be right.
I left a tip of sufficient size
To get the sisters and their ES Lexus
From the Kishwaukee River as far as Texas.
A few years later they came back to me,
In the post-lockdown facade of normality.
By then the place was a chicken drive-thru,
But in the shadows behind the pickup window
I swear they were there, waving to you.
