I sat with a friend yesterday. We had lunch at the Wazee Supper Club. I told him it was funny to have lunch there but he didn't care. He asked me if I knew much about matches. Matches? I asked and he nodded. Like fire matches? I wondered and he asked What other kind of matches are there?
I had a Mediterranean stromboli. It had feta cheese and black and green olives. I love olives. Tom - that's not his real name - Tom had a stromboli, too, but I forget what kind. He told me that matches were invented in 1827. They were made with white phosphorus, but white phosphorus is poisonous, so anyone who used them got sick. Mmm I said between bites. I hate white phosphorus I muttered, but Tom didn't seem to notice. He was busy looking around the restaurant. There was a baseball game on: the Dodgers. Tom didn't like the Dodgers but he liked to look at TVs. I would say he liked to watch TVs but that wasn't really it, he liked to look at them, and the moving pictures on them. It was interesting, he said.
What was interesting?
In 1855 some guy invented safety matches. These used red phosphorus instead of white, so people didn't get sick. And they had sandpaper as a striking surface. Old matches you could light on anything. Everybody kept buying the white phosphorous matches, though, because they were cheaper. I guess you didn't get that sick, I said, and a black olive fell out of my mouth. Tom nodded slowly. The waitress brought him another Coke.
Tom was recently married but things hadn't been going too well. His wife moved out to stay with her parents a week ago. That's why I was taking him to the Wazee Supper Club.
In the early 1900's, everybody started outlawing or taxing white phosphorous matches. That got rid of them for good Tom said. I tried to smile at him and wanted to ask him about his wife. The waitress came back and asked if everything was okay. I nodded and Tom didn't pay any attention to her.
But the real heyday for matches came in the forties. Yeah, I said, like everybody doesn't know how good the forties were to matches. I took another bite of stromboli, which was really excellent by the way, and Tom looked again at the television. That's when the Cocoanut Bar burned down in Boston because some busboy lit a match. He was changing a lightbulb and couldn't see. Almost 500 people died. Tom said it while still looking at the television. He had dated his wife for eight months before marrying her. I was in the wedding. Not the best man, so I didn't have to give a toast, but I was there.
They reopened the case in 1997. They figured out the fire started because there was a methyl chloride leak. It came from a refrigerator. Of course, I said, where else would methyl chloride come from? Had to be a refrigerator. I had finished my stromboli and the waitress picked it up. She had red hair and a nice face. Tom's wife had a nice face but she was with her parents. They lived about an hour away.
I walked with Tom back to the bank where he worked. I thought about asking about Melanie - that's not her name, either - but it was too late. Plus, we were on the street and anybody could hear us.
I walked back to my car after saying goodbye to Tom and thought This guy's got it bad and I can see why Melanie left him. A man on the corner asked me for a light. I had one, since I'm a smoker, and I know it's disgusting but I like it too much to quit. I lit the match and watched the flame flicker as it began, quivering in a rush, and held it to the man's cigarette. He sucked the flame in but I still held the match, even after his cigarette was lit. We both stood there staring - for a moment, a couple seconds, really - as the flame twisted the stiff paper and charred it black. I blew it out just as the heat touched my skin and I understood.
