Waiting for the Man (20 page)

Dan went into the bus. Angie came out. He had woken her up. She walked toward me, her hair tied in a ponytail. She wore a T-shirt and khakis. She looked undeniably suburban. “Hi,” I said.

“Mutiny on the bus,” she said.

I had nothing to say about it. “Did he send you to, what?” I said.

“I’m an emissary,” she said.

“Tell him we’re still friends,” I said.

“He wants something in Kansas City,” she said.

“I’ll take that into consideration,” I said.

“You look like shit,” she said, smiling.

“And you have this den-mother thing happening,” I said.

“Stop flirting,” she said and returned to the bus.

I got back in the Odyssey and pulled away. Takeshi was asleep, still clutching his Coke. The inside smelled like a Big Mac. It wasn’t a bad smell. But it was a smell that seemed manufactured to warn you it wasn’t healthy. There’s something in the smell of fast food that repels. It’s in the chemical makeup. The repellant notes just aren’t as powerful as the parts that entice us.
Where do you want to go?
the Man asked and there he was in the backseat, studying a map. Where do you want me to go? I asked him. I’m following you. I’m doing what you’re asking me to do, I said. And the Man turned the map upside down.
I mean, where do you want to go?
he said. Tell me, I replied. I had a hard time driving. And then he was gone. And I felt suddenly alone. And less hopeful. I felt as if I were failing a test, even though I was in the middle of the country, doing what I had been asked.

Missouri rolled past our window. Takeshi woke up, took in the surroundings, and then reached back for something in his backpack. He pulled out a map. “My God,” I said, alarmed, puzzled by the symmetry of this. I felt, deeply, that the insinuation of direction, of knowing, would torpedo the whole thing. A map would deny the meeting with the Man of its magic. “No maps,” I said. “Put it away. Bury it in your backpack.” To his credit, Takeshi didn’t understand my concern. Had he understood, I think, I would have let him off right there.

“It’s just a map,” he said, zipping up the backpack. “You have maps in your phone, too.”

“Don’t get me started,” I said. I wanted to smoke again. I rolled my window down and lit a Marlboro. Takeshi did the same.

“Who is the Man?” he asked.

I shrugged. “If I knew . . .” And I stopped. There was no way I could answer the question. It was an impossibility. There was nothing in my past that would have prepared me for any of this. I had listened to the Man because it was outside the realm of my normal life. It wasn’t a voice I could ignore. “I really don’t know,” I said.

“You’ll find out,” he said. He took a picture of the passing scenery.

In the distance, I could see the faint outline of the skyscrapers of Kansas City. The trees and farms had given way to plains. We were in a different geography now. The tall grass and wheat bent in the wind off the highway. The land was gold and yellow and green. Behind me, I noticed for the first time the absence of the black bus. The highway behind was a straight line and I felt I could see all the way to St. Louis but I could not see the bus. And I thought this would please me. But I was worried.

I was surprised by this. I could see myself alone, somewhere in the Rockies, without the Odyssey, searching, my clothes ragged, hungry, thirsty, my quest for the Man consuming my life like a fire. I kept looking in the rearview mirror but the bus was nowhere. I asked Takeshi for the phone. Sensing why, perhaps, he looked behind. “Where are they?” he asked.

I called Dan. After ten rings, he answered. “Where are you?” he asked frantically.

“I can’t see you either,” I said. “You had me worried.”

“I’m touched,” Dan said.

“We’re nearing Kansas City,” I told him. “We must be. I can see the buildings in the distance.”

“We had a situation,” he said. “We lost a reporter from the
Times
. Though we still have a web guy. And we lost one of the cameramen. Fox. That surprised me.”

“Who needs them?” I said, sounding tough.

“It would have been preferable to keep the
Times
on board,” Dan said. “They’re the paper of record, right?”

“They’re self-important,” I said. I realized I felt hungry. For the first time since we’d left New York, I felt hungry. My stomach presented itself as the empty chamber it was and made an enormous, bear-like growl. “I hear they have great ribs in Kansas City.”

“Really?” Dan asked.

“How can you not know that?” I said.

“No, I mean, really, you’re stopping to eat?” he clarified.

“I’m hungry,” I said. “Finally.”

“So we’re stopping?” he asked.

“I thought I could do without you,” I said. “I thought I could do without that stupid bus trailing us. But I got worried. Honest.”

“The times they are a-changin’,” Dan sang.

“You know any rib joints in Kansas City?” I asked.

“It’s eight in the morning,” Dan said.

And that brought me to the ground with a thud. I was flattened. “Are you sure?” I said. I had completely lost track of time. I did not even notice the night anymore, or the sun. I felt as if I was not of this world and then suddenly I was. “Really?” I said.

“And now it’s one past eight,” he said. “A.M.”

The earth closed in on me. My eyelids grew heavy. Gravity. My back ached. My right knee was throbbing. I wanted to stop the Odyssey. “I’m stopping at the next stop I see,” I told Dan.

I hung up the phone. I felt lost. I felt unattached to the world. I did not know where I was, finally, and the prairie outside the van looked like the plains of Mars. The next stop appeared and it was much like the stop in Pennsylvania. Nothing surrounded by more of the same. I pulled in and braked hard in a parking spot. The minivan shuddered to a halt and Takeshi was thrown forward. I could feel my heart pounding through my shirt. I undid my seatbelt, crawled into the backseat, and lay down. I was probably asleep before I closed my eyes. I was probably asleep a long time ago and didn’t even realize it.

Take Me to the River

Tomas comes down to my office. He has no reason to be in the basement so I’m assuming he wants to talk. “Sorry to bother you,” he says. He’s also being polite. “Later, I’m going down to the Gulley, make a fire. Maybe pop back a few beers.”

“Aren’t you working?” I ask.

“It’s my day off,” he says.

“OK,” I say. “Which gulley?”

“
The
Gulley,” he says, in a way that means I haven’t learned anything yet. The employees’ geography of this place is foreign to me and it shouldn’t be. “I’m inviting you to join me.”

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

He smiles. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Arrangements are made. Tomas will bring beer. At the appointed hour, he meets me by the trailer. The night’s chill is awesome. The wind descends from the north. It’s Canadian. “Let’s go,” Tomas says, and we walk off in the direction of the stables.

We walk past them, past the horses and their braying, past the earthy, musty smell, to one of the minor trails that takes hikers toward the mountains. He’s almost jogging. We reach a gulley, formed by the streams that come down from the mountains, and he leads us down a rough trail until he’s at water’s edge. He puts the beer down in the stream and starts collecting sticks and branches. “There’s a fire pit here somewhere,” he says.

“This is the Gulley?” I ask.

“People come here for privacy,” he says. “You know.”

“Meaning you want to fuck me?” I ask.

Tomas dumps some branches on the pit and starts looking for more. “I don’t play for that team,” he says.

I follow him to help gather wood. He climbs out of the small ravine and goes off into a grove of trees. He’s more nimble and agile than I would’ve guessed. Tomas has the body of man who tastes too much of his cooking. He’s not fat but he’s soft in a lot of places. I pick up some kindling and dump it on the fire pit. Tomas returns with three small logs, perfectly chopped. “Look what I found,” he says.

He stands over the kindling. He reaches into his pockets and pulls out some newspaper. “In the spring, this is full of water, with the snowmelt. The stream becomes a river. It’s torrential.” He tears the newspaper up and bends down and places it beneath the kindling. He puts more twigs on the pile. He reaches into the pocket of his windbreaker and pulls out a box of matches. He lights the paper and soon the kindling is cracking in the heat of the small fire. Tomas walks over to the stream and fishes out a beer. He twists the cap off and puts it in his pocket.

“‘Give a hoot,’” I say. “Now there was a campaign.” I study the fire as it grows and put two of the logs on top of it. They catch quickly. Sparks fly off into the night.

“And there’s more logs,” Tomas says.

He sits down finally and we both get lost in the dance of the flames. I don’t know anyone who can watch a fire and not stare. It’s an attraction that makes no sense. We’re supposed to run from danger, aren’t we? “So what’s this about?” I ask when I’ve broken free from the fire’s spell.

“Last year, a woman came here with her cat. We don’t allow pets normally but she was a rich lady. She’d rented two of the tents. Her husband, two kids. And the cat. They were staying for a week. Height of the season. She and her husband owned some software company. From San Francisco. So she has her cat. Calico, I think. And then two days later, it’s gone. And she’s worried sick naturally, and Athena has three guys looking for this thing full-time. The lady is beside herself. And it affected me. I became worried about her cat. I kept thinking of the wolves around here. It affected my work. I couldn’t think about anything but her cat.”

There is no way he brought me here to tell me this story. “So what happened?” I ask.

“We found it two days later. It was hiding behind the kitchen. It had made its way to the Dumpster and I found it underneath. I heard it and there it was.”

“So a happy ending.”

“She was irate.”

“But you found it.”

Tomas takes a pull of his beer. The wind blows past us. The trees rustle. “I’ve been thinking a lot,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about this place. About my place in it.”

I sit back, leaning on my elbows. “And you want to talk about this?”

His face glows orange in the fire. “I thought so, yes,” he says. “You have no history here. You have history, I know that, but not here. I came here two years ago. I was excited. This place has been a constant source of excitement and inspiration for me. And now I’m feeling maybe the thrill is gone.”

There is a long silence between us. The sounds of the crackling fire, the rushing of water on its downward journey toward the sea. Why is Tomas unloading this on me? He finishes his beer quickly and stands to get a new one. “I have a general worry,” he says. He returns with a beer and sits back down. He pokes the fire and adds a log. The fire flares up and sparks rise before disappearing. There is no wind tonight. The glow of the fire is a zone of warmth. “Maybe I worry about stupid things.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“I left Chicago for a reason,” he says. “I saw what was happening. I was becoming famous. Stories were being written about me, articles. First in local newspapers. Then in local magazines. Then the big food magazines. The national ones. And then the critics turned. There was talk of television. Cookbooks. I saw what was happening and I looked into the future and I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to become a celebrity chef. I didn’t want to become more important than my food. Or my restaurant. I didn’t want the hassle. I didn’t want to write cookbooks or have a cooking show or a line of spices and sauces. I didn’t want to endorse knives or Crock-Pots. I didn’t want any of it.”

This sounds eminently reasonable. Tomas didn’t want to become a product. What sane person does? I’ve never understood anyone who wants to become a brand. How odd it must be to walk into a store and see your face plastered on everything. Why does anyone ever want to be a movie star? What’s the point? “I don’t blame you,” I say. I knew something about how he felt.

“That’s why I left,” he says. “It has nothing to do with lack of ambition. I’m just simple. I went overseas. But I missed America. That sounds odd to some people. But I missed the feeling of comfort. Home. I missed being in a place where I understood things. And then I heard about this place. I called and we had meetings. They hadn’t started construction yet.” He pauses and drinks some beer. He burps. “I wanted simplicity,” he says. “To be a chef and cook good food. Nothing makes me happier. I like running a kitchen. I enjoy this. I wanted my life to be simple. And, yes, I’ve done a cookbook. But I’m not here to become famous. I’m here to cook. Simplicity. That’s what I found.”

I throw some small sticks into the fire.

“This is my future,” he says.

“Your dream.”

“Yes.”

He’s found the sum of the difference between what can be and could be. What we could be is the stuff of dreams, sure. It’s the path. It’s where we want to end up. The lucky ones do. Intelligence has little to do with it. “Most people are happy being what we are and letting things happen,” I say. “Hardly anyone is their own boss.”

“I believe that,” he says.

“But they stop to study their lives and realize, suddenly, it’s not good enough. And then you need the courage to follow the path. And luck. We all need some luck.”

The fire sparks up and an ember is sent hurtling toward the stream.

“So this is the problem,” Tomas says.

“What is?”

“The worry I have. With what you’re doing. What Athena has asked you to do. What you could unleash.”

What is he getting at? The clearest path to understanding should never involve a hop, skip, and a jump.

“This branding business,” he continues. “It has a lot of people worried.”

I poke at the fire. “Please,” I say.

“A lot of people are here for the same reason as me. To get away. From something. To escape. Some of it is bad. There are people with very interesting histories here. More interesting than yours.” He pulls a stalk of grass and puts it into his mouth. “But they all ended up here. For the simplicity of the place.”

“That sounds like the making of a brand.” And it is. Simplicity implies a lot of things. Mostly positive.

“Even at that, I worry,” he says. “A brand is like a blanket. A big, wet blanket. Everything gets buried under it. I’ve seen some restaurants that got branded and suddenly the chef loses his personality. He must be the brand, too. And he is no longer himself. When he speaks, who is doing the talking? Him? Or the brand? It’s a dangerous thing. I’ve seen chefs become very successful and lose their way all at once because of the power of branding people like you.”

“Everything has a brand,” I say.

“All this personal branding is like a form of mental illness.”

“Forget the word. It’s overused. Think about its meaning though. What does a ranch, a spa in northern Montana, mean to people? Should people come here and expect to eat, say, Chinese food? Should all the managers be Oriental? Would that make sense?”

Tomas doesn’t answer. “You’re not listening.”

I sit up. “I am listening. I’ve heard every word you’ve said. I understand.”

“I brought you here to say don’t fuck this place up,” he says. “Don’t make it into something it’s not. It’s doing well. People are still finding this place and spending time here. All this without a master plan. I know the owners need a plan moving forward. I respect that. Just don’t fuck up a good thing.”

“What ‘moving forward’?”

Tomas lies down. He sighs. “I’m not supposed to say.”

“It would help.”

Why Athena hasn’t told me the whole story is impossible to understand. She has asked me to help map this place out, its future, but she’s not telling me everything. I don’t know if she’s doing it on purpose or if communication isn’t her strength.

“They want to maybe open a few more properties,” he says. “Athena wants to bring in investors, put some money in, partner with the owners, open a few more. All around the Rockies. All the same idea. That’s what she told me. And that’s why she wants the plan. She needs to make this place into something before they expand.”

“This place needs personality.”

“Yes.”

“A brand.”

“A brand.”

“This place needs to be some kind of flagship,” I say.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know that they’re going to become Holiday Inn. Just a few properties. Make it into some international hotel group. One of those associations. I know the owners are all over the world studying small hotels. They have some acreage up in Canada. And also somewhere in Idaho.”

“This is interesting,” I say.

“I was sure she would have told you,” he says.

“Probably not,” I say. I stand up. “But I hear you, I just want you to know that.”

“About what?” he asks.

“Why you’re here. I think I’m here for the same reason. I got here through sheer luck but I’m here now.” I pick a beer out of the stream. “And I like it here.” I’ve just decided this. I’m surprised. Mostly at myself. Until now, I’d seen myself as a New Yorker. A person who found everything west of the Hudson demeaning, silly, unsubstantial. Irrelevant. A typical New Yorker.

“There are people who are threatened by you,” Tomas says.

“Are you?”

“I know your past. I saw it. The thing was hard to avoid. For a while. I got bored with it, frankly. But when I put you in the kitchen, I figured you were just hiding out for a bit and then you’d leave.”

“So you knew?”

“I knew part of the story. Like I said, I got bored with it. I turned it off. And I didn’t recognize you at first. And then one of the guys mentioned it in passing. One Google search and there you are.”

“I didn’t have a plan.”

“I was your boss and I wasn’t afraid.”

I gulp down my beer. It’s gone. “No one has ever had reason to be afraid of me.”

“And now you’re staying and you have the power to influence change. I wouldn’t have hired you if I’d known, even slightly, what was going to happen.”

“And I would have kept walking.”

“So that’s the luck part,” he says.

“It’s something,” I say.

“It’s something,” he says. He burps again. The sound of the night, of the world, surrounds us. I can hear my own breathing.

“Thanks for the beer,” I say, turning to leave.

“Should I be worried?”

“No,” I say. “I wish I could say something convincing. Something that would tame this fear of yours. We’re on the same page.” I don’t bother turning around. I find the path in the darkness and struggle through it. And then I’m in the clearing, and the stables come into view and the lights from the buildings create a glow that is a hearth in the middle of the wilderness.