by Sam Sifton

THE SKILLET

Some DaysYou Get the Vodka

A WEEK BEFORE THE CRAWFISH HAD ARRlVED, a publicist called to tell me about a new Russian premium vodka, higher-end than Stoli, if not quite as top drawer as Stoli Cristall. Real good vodka. Asked, would I like to write about it, meet the inventor? Well now. I told him no on the latter (I once spent a long, beery evening with the brewmaster from Bass and a few young publicists—all I got out of it was a wicked hangover and confirmation that publicists possess a curious sort of intelligence more grass hummock than dolphin). But as to the vodka, why sure, I said cheerfully. I like my vod.

There was only the matter of...how to put it? The review copy. I almost felt bad about saying this.The publicist on the phone cut me off. But certainly, he said. In the maiL

I waited on it for a week. It never arrived. I thought: Russians.

Instead I got the crawfish. A live one, in a small glass bowl. I did not request it; the crustacean just arrived one morning, while I was waiting for the vodka. Gideon, who deals with most of the livestock around here, appeared with it. He walked into my office and held out the bowl. The crawfish was about three and a half inches long and it was waving its antennae sluggishly. It looked like a very big cockroach. The bowl was nice enough.

"This is for you," Gideon said.
"Where's my vodka?" I asked him.
"This is for you," he repeated.

There was no contradicting the man. There was an address label on the outside of the bowl and it had my name on it. Gideon put the bowl in my hand, gave me a bunch of folded-up papers that he said came with it and, chuckling, walked back to his paddock. I put the crawfish and the papers on my desk.

The crawfish came from a guy name of Steve Van Gelder, who runs a restaurant called Cooking with Jazz, which is in Whitestone, on the north shore of Queens. "The Crawfish are Back," his folded press release proclaimed. "We want to show you how fresh our foods are so we bring you a live crawfish as a sample."

This was a pain in the ass. I get all manner of odd gifts and premiums from the food industry. I don't get vodka, or steak or caviar. But cans of bad coffee, flower-flavored oils, dry soup mixes, moldy sandwiches, pounds of saccharin, dietary cookies, they come by the box. Still, I'd never gotten anything alive before. I wasn't sure how to proceed.

I stared at the crawfish on my desk for a while. It squirmed a little and curled down on itself. One of my colleagues came into my office, saw me mooning over this three-and-half-inch, water-living roach and named it Scampi, he said. A gift from Lord Poseidon. Treat him well. Then he walked out.

Now what?

After a while I got up and took the bowl to the bathroom. Flled it with water. The crawfish perked up considerably. I took it back to my desk and stared at it again. Scampi perky did not like me looking at him as much as Scampi half-dead and he put his pincers up, out of the water. He snapped a little. When lobsters do this, they want a fight. Same with crabs. I figured it must be the same with crawfish. Crawdads. Crayfish. Whatever. I could see him waving these hairy little mustache things near his mouth back and forth through the water. I figured this was for breathing. If it is, he was breathing hard. He stayed in the fighting stance for as long as I looked at him

I went back to the press release. "We would be happy to cook it for you if you brought it by the restaurant any time we are open," it said. I thought about that. Thought about driving up to northern Queens to have my crawfish boiled in a restaurant with a stupid name.

Instead I called the restaurant. Talked to Van Gelder for a while. He seemed a fairly amiable guy, a nice guy, save for the fact that he had sent me a live crawlish. That and, having done so, he insisted on calling the thing "Ralph." I told him the name was Scampi. Van Gelder laughed and asked me if I was going to bring Ralph by for a steam bath at the restaurant. I told him no, probably not, then asked him what I ought to do with Scampi instead. Get an aquarium, he said. "Or better take him down to the local Chinese restaurant. They'll fix his wagon."

There was a pause. It got uncomfortable. "Uh, Steve," I asked. "Who else got these things?"

Around 40 people, he said. Arthur Schwartz, over at the News, Regis, Kathie Lee, Al Roker. Some others

I asked him if they appreciated the present. "Yeah," Van Gelder said. "Pretty much everyone except for Regis. Philbin thought It was cruel and inhumane. They were pretty angry over there.

I was sorta of the same mind, but kept my counsel. I mean, Reege.

When I got off the phone with Van Gelder I put in a call to Philbin. I was looking forward to talking with him. But Philbin was busy. So, for that matter, was Kathie Lee. And Mia, who answers the phones, was running some sort of line on me, about how there was no way in the world even if the crawfish had come, and she wasn't saying that it had, that it would have gotten up to the Live WithÉ offices. "No way," she said again. "We have extensive security. And they have really strict orders about dealing with people sending us food, y'now. We wouldn't even have seen the thing."

I told her what Van Gelder had said, about how someone had told him Philbin thought the gift cruel and inhumane. I asked her if she thought a $7-an-hour ABC security guard would have called the restaurant to say that—you know Mia, on his own.

Another uncomfortable pause. Mia put me on hold. Then came on a few minutes later to say whoops, the crawfish had come, she could say that now, that it was really a "sadistic" thing to do; a production assistant - not Philbin - had called the restaurant and told them to come and pick the crawfish up and take him back, but the restaurant had refused. The p.a. called the Aquarium after that, and the Aquarlum had come to take the crustacean.

So the Reege's crawfish was dead. Mia went silent at that, so I thanked her and rang off. Scampi looked a little piqued. I changed his water. He perked right up.

I called Schwartz, who writes restaurant reviews for the Daily News and does a radio program on WOR. He told me he got two crawfish, over at the radio studio. I asked him what he did with them.

"We called—well a producer called—a pet store," Schwartz said. "The pet store said put them in water and feed them. Crawfish are meat eaters, which l didn't know. They fed them liverwurst.''

Liverwurst? "Yeah, well, I don't think they liked that very much; goldfish may have been better. Anyway, the next day when I came in, one was belly up and the other was, well, not so sprightly."

And?

"Well, I don't really know what happened to them after that."

Three down. I looked at Scampi. There's an alterenative public high school in the city devoted to environental sclences; I called them to see if there was some kid failing sclence, needed Im extracurricular project to boost his grade, got a runaround, hung up.

At the end of the day, I took Scampi home and put hlm in the fridge, wrapped In wet towes in a paper bag. Cold slows down a lobster's metabolism, knocks it out. A lobster can live for a while like that. I figured crawfish could too. I puttered around for a few hours, went to bed and slept well.

I went to work in the morning without giving him a thought. When l got home, I saw the bag in the fridge when I was getting a beer. Scampi! I looked in the bag for a few seconds. Then I took it out and put it in the garbage. I went Into the next room and watched the news. At an ad break, I went into the kitchen and got another bottle of beer. When I put the cap in the garbage pail I heard Scampi scrabbling away in the bag. I took the bag and put it on tbe counter. Stared at it.

I boiled up some water and boiled Scampi red. I ate him standing at the kitchen counter. It took two bites to finish him off. An iced double vodka would hw been better.