Joshua Chaffin’s fantasy dinner — Joan Didion, Axl Rose . . . and QAnon
Abe Shindler always came early. And so I’m not surprised he is first to arrive for dinner — at 4.30pm. As I ease him out of his heavy overcoat and collect his hat, he withdraws a piece of candy from a crumpled brown bag that has been mouldering in his pocket — possibly for decades — and offers it to me.
“Swedish Fish? Aw, thanks, Abe!”
Why would I invite my late bar mitzvah tutor to my fantasy dinner party? Because I was a terrible student and I’d like to make amends. More importantly, because Abe always had good gossip. He would do the rounds of the Jewish households in our Boston suburb, readying children to read the Torah on their appointed day while collecting scraps of news at each stop. “Did you know the Slotkin kid got into Harvard?” he tells me. “And the father’s about to be indicted.”
We are in the private dining room at Francie, a brasserie in Brooklyn that struggled to open. Francie is the life’s work of restaurateur John Winterman and chef Chris Cipollone. It was supposed to debut last May. Then a pandemic happened. I figure it’s the least we can do to hold our soirée here. Besides, I like the private room. It is the converted cellar of an old bank and feels like a candlelit vault.
I’m drinking a Negroni with an extra shot of gin to speed up the job. Abe is having a cup of tea, recounting for me who’s up and who’s down in Jewish Boston, when Graham Norton, the BBC television presenter, strolls in. It feels like the arrival of a favourite uncle.
My wife and I used to watch Graham on Friday nights when we lived in London and our children were small and we were too exhausted to do much else. He has a singular gift for putting everyone at ease. I’ve missed him.
“Hello!” he calls, looking confused as he surveys the mostly empty room. “Is this the right Francie?” John passes him a French 77 cocktail in a crystal saucer and Graham’s eyes brighten. “Did I tutor you?” Abe growls, peering over his spectacles at the Irishman. “Em, I don’t think so. Bottoms up!”
Joan Didion is so slight that I don’t see her at first and almost step on her. “I’m Joan,” she says plainly, removing oversized sunglasses to reveal those piercing eyes that have seen through America for the past 50 years. I want to ask her how to write but realise you cannot really ask a writer such a question. So instead I watch as she takes a seat beside Graham and turns all her energy to listening.
Hot on her heels is Axl Rose, the frontman of Guns N’ Roses, a band that meant a lot to me in the early 1990s but has not aged so well. Why Axl? Because he became obsessed with a mega-album that he never finished and then renounced rock stardom. So I’d like to know: what the hell happened? He looks pale and gaunt. Then again, he looked pale and gaunt 30 years ago.
“Swedish Fish?” Abe offers. Axl declines: “Nah, man, I’m good.”
Chris’s dishes begin to arrive. First an amuse-bouche of soufflé cakes with seaweed butter and saucers of Krug Grande Cuvée. Then a market salad served with a Trimbach Riesling, and ravioli with black truffles and ricotta accompanied by a Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru. A crown roast of duck looms tantalisingly on the horizon.
The door swings open and our final guest breezes in like Elijah. He — or maybe she? — is wearing a dark hoodie that obscures their face. The letter “Q” is emblazoned on the front. “Q!” I call out. “I didn’t think you’d make it.”
It’s Q, the mysterious ringleader behind the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that Donald Trump is locked in an apocalyptic fight with the devil-worshipping paedophiles of the deep state. “You invited Q?” Graham whispers. “I didn’t think he existed,” I plead. “I just figured I’d give it a try.”
The gravity of the party shifts to the end of the table, where Q and Axl huddle. They have pushed their plates away and Q is scribbling madly on the tablecloth. Lines, arrows, symbols. Joan is leaning over, trying to make sense of it all.
“So that’s how the deep state controls the Fed?” Axl exclaims.
“I’m not so sure about that,” says Joan.
Meanwhile, something is happening upstairs. I hear the thud of footsteps above us. The chandelier flickers. Then a muffled chant: “Darkness to light! Darkness to light!” It’s growing louder. I turn to Graham for comfort but he is on the phone, hysterical and screaming at his manager.
“It’s Q!” John says, checking the social media feeds on his phone. “He’s tweeted his followers to come to Francie.”
They have massed in the upstairs dining room and, like zombies, are now trying to force their way into the cellar. “Darkness to light! Darkness to light!” I’m frozen in fear until I hear Joan’s steady voice.
“Come!” she orders, and I remember then that she is a veteran of the 1970s and has dealt with this sort of thing. She has commandeered a Francie cheese cart and loaded Abe and Graham atop it. John grabs a couple of bottles of 1983 Château Suduiraut Sauternes and we escape through a back door into the alley.
“Wait, where’s Axl?” I ask, looking around. Heads shake. “He was lost years ago, after the Use Your Illusion double album,” Abe shrugs. “Anyway, as I was saying . . . ”
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