A real good split second

A new Vietnamese restaurant is moving in down the street from me and when Chas and I drive by we notice their new neon sign is up. It says “PhoK5.”

“I agree,” Chas says, “I never liked five.”

The next day was as bright as that remark, cool, sunny, perfect for a walk. While passing the new restaurant I noticed that though the Pho K5 sign was up  they hadn’t yet taken down the sign for the restaurant that had been there previously, Medina’s, which had perfect Cuban food and was an Orlando institution. It was great mingling of the past and the present and I ran across the street to shoot a picture, thinking “I have to send this to Tim, he’ll love the old/new mix.”

It was one of those thoughts that springs into your head fully formed before reality can come along clobber it: Tim died years before you could just “send” pictures to anyone in a way that didn’t require a stamp. And yet, for a fraction of a second he was not only alive to me but had somehow acquired an iPad and might want summer rolls.

To explain Tim properly would take more time than its good to take in a blog post. but the nutshell is that he was a huge personality in a compact form with a voice like Pee Wee Herman, a gift for kitsch and a genuine innocence. He also taught me how to travel. From Tim I learned that not only could I go places but I could read a Hungarian train schedule, know when I was getting ripped off by a Roman gelato vendor and when it was time to go home. And he loved Medina’s, especially Medina’s steak, which was just a thin, juicy strip of beef covered with a pile of fries big enough to bury a cat in.

What made Tim alive to me for a split second I have no idea. Some of my friends would say that it’s because time isn’t linear but folds over on itself so sometimes eras criss-cross, which would be okay with me as long as I never have to revisit high school. I’d like to think that, being a traveler, Tim might actually visit me sometimes, but I’m also fine with the fact that it’s just a powerful memory of one of the best times of my life. That was a really, really good split second. 

Pho K5 is everything I hoped it would be, incidentally: delicious, fresh, flavorful food, nice new neighbors and I didn’t have to travel far. 

If I did, though, in time or on a Hungarian train, I’d know how. 

Tim and I in Rome in 1992 with gelato we didn't get overcharged for.